[Anonymous]

It takes me forever to get through MCQ. I estimate it would take me through Sunday to get through it. I am thinking about just skipping F10 and spending my weekend rewriting notes, taking progress tests, and reviewing everything instead of finishing F10. I have been getting 70-80 on my progress tests, but it is still scary. I haven’t done any sims because this material is already beastly enough to get through. So…..what say you another 71?

Finish F10 with no time to review older material?

Or start an intensive review of everything?

[Anonymous]

Here's my recommendation based on my experience and my friends.

Definitely do the HW and read/understand:

Partnerships

ARO

Financial instruments

Skim:

IFRS review

VIE

FV measurement

Contingencies

F10 in my opinion is where the AICPA likes to through a sim at you (ARO, partnership, hedging) since they are small but important accounting topics.

Also don't worry about your progress grades. I was always in the low 70's and I even made a 70 on the practice exam. Its all about understanding the material and not having a huge weakness in one area.

[How many letters do you need]

OP-First time with FAR (or any exam) myself, but I wouldn't listen to the negative person above who's opinion comes from CPA exam experience roughly the equivelant of mine–None.

If you have NINJA notes, I would use those and just memorize as much of the F10 material as possible. If not, I would just spend a couple hours and do a top line outline of F10 and memorize that. At this point, conceptual understanding will take way too much time. No more than 20% of your remaining time on it, the rest hardcore review.

Most of all…keep at it and stay positive. At least, that's my plan…

MBA,CMA,CPA, CFF?, ABV?

[How many letters do you need]

OP-First time with FAR (or any exam) myself, but I wouldn't listen to the negative person above who's opinion comes from CPA exam experience roughly the equivelant of mine–None.

If you have NINJA notes, I would use those and just memorize as much of the F10 material as possible. If not, I would just spend a couple hours and do a top line outline of F10 and memorize that. At this point, conceptual understanding will take way too much time. No more than 20% of your remaining time on it, the rest hardcore review.

Most of all…keep at it and stay positive. At least, that's my plan…

MBA,CMA,CPA, CFF?, ABV?

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the advice. I am going to try and get through f10. I was averaging 70s on aud progress test and I got an 81. However, that was with a full weekend if nothing but rereview.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the advice. I am going to try and get through f10. I was averaging 70s on aud progress test and I got an 81. However, that was with a full weekend if nothing but rereview.

[PocketsWithCash]

I would really follow what bae-bae recommended, that's probably the best combination of important topics and things you can learn quickly.

Just so you know, F10 actually contains a number of repeat questions from previous lectures, so skipping some parts isn't as detrimental as you might think. Also, if you didn't skip the IFRS differences in F1-F9, then you've already done that entire section of F10. It's literally just a summary of all the IFRS boxes in the book – good for quick review, but you certainly don't need to watch the lecture.

Don't worry too much about studying extra to prepare for a sim. I know I've said this in a million posts, but as long as you have a general idea (can answer some mcq's), you can use the codification to fill in any gaps in your knowledge – if you're not comfortable looking things up, here's a quick hint: search the topic (ie. asset retirement obligation) and click the first result. Over on the side you'll see the table of contents. Look for what the question is asking ie. is it recording a transaction (Recognition & Initial Measurement), or disposition (Derecognition), etc. The nature of the topics from F10 (other than IFRS), is really agreeable to this strategy.

FAR 97
REG 91
AUD 5/30/14
BEC 7/11/14

[PocketsWithCash]

I would really follow what bae-bae recommended, that's probably the best combination of important topics and things you can learn quickly.

Just so you know, F10 actually contains a number of repeat questions from previous lectures, so skipping some parts isn't as detrimental as you might think. Also, if you didn't skip the IFRS differences in F1-F9, then you've already done that entire section of F10. It's literally just a summary of all the IFRS boxes in the book – good for quick review, but you certainly don't need to watch the lecture.

Don't worry too much about studying extra to prepare for a sim. I know I've said this in a million posts, but as long as you have a general idea (can answer some mcq's), you can use the codification to fill in any gaps in your knowledge – if you're not comfortable looking things up, here's a quick hint: search the topic (ie. asset retirement obligation) and click the first result. Over on the side you'll see the table of contents. Look for what the question is asking ie. is it recording a transaction (Recognition & Initial Measurement), or disposition (Derecognition), etc. The nature of the topics from F10 (other than IFRS), is really agreeable to this strategy.

FAR 97
REG 91
AUD 5/30/14
BEC 7/11/14

[Tncincy]

@POCKETSWITHCASH: I know you have probably answered this question somewhere already. But what did you do to pass FAR with such a perfect score. I realize passing is 75 but maybe you did something we can use to help lighten this burden. If it is in a previous post just direct me to the link. If you want to put your success in a separate post it would be appreciated as well. I am using Wiley tb, book, ninja notes, ninja audio and anything else I can think of.

It begins with a 75
Been here too long as a cheerleader....ready to pass

[Tncincy]

@POCKETSWITHCASH: I know you have probably answered this question somewhere already. But what did you do to pass FAR with such a perfect score. I realize passing is 75 but maybe you did something we can use to help lighten this burden. If it is in a previous post just direct me to the link. If you want to put your success in a separate post it would be appreciated as well. I am using Wiley tb, book, ninja notes, ninja audio and anything else I can think of.

It begins with a 75
Been here too long as a cheerleader....ready to pass

[PocketsWithCash]

tncincy – there are probably other posts around the forum, but I'm too lazy to find them lol. I only used Becker self study, but I'm sure your materials would allow you to do something similar. I did two chapters a week and then left 2 weeks for comprehensive review. Here is what my schedule was like:

Note: always read all explanations for right and wrong answers when doing mcq's, you can learn a lot this way. Also, there is literally nothing worse than getting a question right for the wrong reason because you might not be so lucky on exam day.

Chapter 1 – 3 days, chapter 2 – 3 days, Sunday – review. I went through each chapter one section at a time. First, I watched the video, then I read the book, then I did the MCQ's, flagging any questions I got wrong. At the end of a MCQ set, I wrote down any tricks to a question on a notecard, such as “evenly throughout the year means divide sales by 2.” I also kept a list of topics that I consistently got wrong (no notes, literally just topics). Went back and redid the incorrect questions. Repeated for next section until all chapters were finished. Then I did all sims for that chapter.

Sundays – started the day by reviewing the flashcards for each chapter I completed (in aggregate), then did three 30 question progress tests consisting of questions from all chapters covered up until that point. I only gave myself 30 minutes for each set, ie. 1 minute per question to help build speed for exam day. After that I reviewed the book for questions I got wrong and then took another set of 3-30 question tests or relaxed and did other things. This was really helpful in not getting burned out and being able to attack the material for the next week.

Final Review

Week 1 – started by reviewing all MCQ's from each chapter (10 chapters = 2 chapters a day over 5 days). At the end of each section I reviewed the aggregate marked questions and if any were wrong for a math or careless error I removed the mark and pretended that question was right. Then I added any topics to the notecard from before that weren't there. After that I reviewed the list of topics and got rid of anything that was rarely tested, like retail inventory method (if I had time the few days before, I would review those topics but didn't want to waste a lot of time on topics that might have only 1 question). End of the week was practice test day. Used the practice test mainly for timing, but I also updated my list of topics and tricks.

Week 2 – reviewed only mcq's that were marked and reread any parts of the book from my notecard of topics. Mid-week I took practice test 2 and further narrowed topics that were difficult/ updated my notecard of tricks. After that, I literally did nothing but timed sets of 3-30 question review tests (exam is 3-30 question testlets). At this point I was scoring between 96-100% on my tests so I didn't really have specific areas to review, but would have reviewed notes, etc. between mcq tests.

The notecard of “tricks” was really the most helpful thing. These wording tips, etc. are what distinguish “difficult” and “easy” questions on the exam. By learning to automatically check each type of question for specific things that could alter the answer, I literally felt like I got 3 easy testlets because I attacked all problems as if they were “difficult.”

For SIMs, the best thing you can do is leave as much time as possible and be familiar with using the codification. For this you can look at my posts on page 7 of [Q2] FAR Study Group 2014, since this post is already long enough.

FAR 97
REG 91
AUD 5/30/14
BEC 7/11/14

[PocketsWithCash]

tncincy – there are probably other posts around the forum, but I'm too lazy to find them lol. I only used Becker self study, but I'm sure your materials would allow you to do something similar. I did two chapters a week and then left 2 weeks for comprehensive review. Here is what my schedule was like:

Note: always read all explanations for right and wrong answers when doing mcq's, you can learn a lot this way. Also, there is literally nothing worse than getting a question right for the wrong reason because you might not be so lucky on exam day.

Chapter 1 – 3 days, chapter 2 – 3 days, Sunday – review. I went through each chapter one section at a time. First, I watched the video, then I read the book, then I did the MCQ's, flagging any questions I got wrong. At the end of a MCQ set, I wrote down any tricks to a question on a notecard, such as “evenly throughout the year means divide sales by 2.” I also kept a list of topics that I consistently got wrong (no notes, literally just topics). Went back and redid the incorrect questions. Repeated for next section until all chapters were finished. Then I did all sims for that chapter.

Sundays – started the day by reviewing the flashcards for each chapter I completed (in aggregate), then did three 30 question progress tests consisting of questions from all chapters covered up until that point. I only gave myself 30 minutes for each set, ie. 1 minute per question to help build speed for exam day. After that I reviewed the book for questions I got wrong and then took another set of 3-30 question tests or relaxed and did other things. This was really helpful in not getting burned out and being able to attack the material for the next week.

Final Review

Week 1 – started by reviewing all MCQ's from each chapter (10 chapters = 2 chapters a day over 5 days). At the end of each section I reviewed the aggregate marked questions and if any were wrong for a math or careless error I removed the mark and pretended that question was right. Then I added any topics to the notecard from before that weren't there. After that I reviewed the list of topics and got rid of anything that was rarely tested, like retail inventory method (if I had time the few days before, I would review those topics but didn't want to waste a lot of time on topics that might have only 1 question). End of the week was practice test day. Used the practice test mainly for timing, but I also updated my list of topics and tricks.

Week 2 – reviewed only mcq's that were marked and reread any parts of the book from my notecard of topics. Mid-week I took practice test 2 and further narrowed topics that were difficult/ updated my notecard of tricks. After that, I literally did nothing but timed sets of 3-30 question review tests (exam is 3-30 question testlets). At this point I was scoring between 96-100% on my tests so I didn't really have specific areas to review, but would have reviewed notes, etc. between mcq tests.

The notecard of “tricks” was really the most helpful thing. These wording tips, etc. are what distinguish “difficult” and “easy” questions on the exam. By learning to automatically check each type of question for specific things that could alter the answer, I literally felt like I got 3 easy testlets because I attacked all problems as if they were “difficult.”

For SIMs, the best thing you can do is leave as much time as possible and be familiar with using the codification. For this you can look at my posts on page 7 of [Q2] FAR Study Group 2014, since this post is already long enough.

FAR 97
REG 91
AUD 5/30/14
BEC 7/11/14

[PocketsWithCash]

Outside of Becker, I would credit a lot of my success to the fact that I tutor undergrads in accounting (I'm a masters student). Teaching is an incredibly effective way to learn something. If you have some extra time, try scanning the forum and answering other poster's FAR questions. If you don't know the answer to someone's question, see if you can look it up and then answer it. You'll retain a lot of information if you explain something to another person because it forces you to learn all aspects of a problem and think about it in a completely different way. When you answer someone's question, you really want to provide an answer that explains the concept behind the problem so someone would also be able to correctly answer a similar problem, not just the problem provided.

FAR 97
REG 91
AUD 5/30/14
BEC 7/11/14

[PocketsWithCash]

Outside of Becker, I would credit a lot of my success to the fact that I tutor undergrads in accounting (I'm a masters student). Teaching is an incredibly effective way to learn something. If you have some extra time, try scanning the forum and answering other poster's FAR questions. If you don't know the answer to someone's question, see if you can look it up and then answer it. You'll retain a lot of information if you explain something to another person because it forces you to learn all aspects of a problem and think about it in a completely different way. When you answer someone's question, you really want to provide an answer that explains the concept behind the problem so someone would also be able to correctly answer a similar problem, not just the problem provided.

FAR 97
REG 91
AUD 5/30/14
BEC 7/11/14

[hopeimnottoolatetobeacpa]

@PocketswithCash, thanks for the tips, i wish i could have 2 weeks to review, but i only have 5 days before the exam, do you have any tips for cramming? Also, during the review, how many hours did you study?

[hopeimnottoolatetobeacpa]

@PocketswithCash, thanks for the tips, i wish i could have 2 weeks to review, but i only have 5 days before the exam, do you have any tips for cramming? Also, during the review, how many hours did you study?

[Author]

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