Oops, I'm sorry, I haven't been on the forum in a few days. I didn't read a book per se. I bought the cheapest CPAexcel option (the self-study method, which I think is $265 per section). All of the material is in their program, and I read it on my computer screen. For particularly challenging sections, I'd print it out and read it (I had a binder that I put all of my printouts in and would study it like a book). Ok, this is going to get confusing so I am just going to write out what my method was in steps.
1) Print out the Ninja Notes and put them in a binder for easy review. Use tabs for each section to make finding stuff easier, also add flags on pages that you think you'll need to review further.
2) Read the section in CPAexcel. If it is a small and fairly simple section, just read it on your monitor and make notes directly on to note cards and/or Jeff's Ninja notes. If the section is large or complicated, print it out and add it to the binder in which you have the Ninja notes in (I'd insert the CPAexcel literature right in between the Ninja pages).
3) At the end of each CPAexcel section, there is a mini quiz of anywhere from 2-25 questions (just depends on how big the section is). If you do well on the quiz, take the exam questions for that section. If you do poorly, review your notes and look up the correct answers. Print the section out if you didn't already, if you feel like that would help. Rinse and repeat for each section.
4) Go through your note cards constantly. I made a notecard for pretty much every important topic. Even things that didn't seem that important. I figured, if I was going to make notes, I might as well make them on notecards so that I could review them easily and use them as a study tool. Go through your note cards every day and make two piles – note cards that you know by heart, and note cards that you struggle with. Go through the ones that you struggled on until you know those by heart. Then put them aside until the next day and do it again. I swear this is probably the best study tool I had. Note cards are magical!!! I even color coded mine by section. 🙂
5) After you get through all of the sections using the above steps, save about a week for review. For my review week, I took a practice exam (included in CPAexcel) about 5-6 times. I shot for 90% but truthfully got around 85% normally, just because the simulations can be kind of finnicky. I'd say getting 90-95% on the multiple choice is a good goal. I would take a test, and then go through afterwards and read every single question and every single answer. I had my test attempts separated out and I wrote my score for each testlet at the top. If I got the question wrong or got it correct for the wrong reasons, I'd write down the explanation and if I still didn't understand it, I'd review it in my notes or on CPAexcel. I also did a couple practice exams in the Wiley book to make sure I wasn't just memorizing the answers in CPAexcel.
6) Right before the exam, review your note cards, your Ninja notes, and the explanations for the questions that you got wrong during your practice exams. Then go kick some CPA exam butt!
Hope this helps, let me know if you have any further questions. I will try to check this forum more often for the next few days.
FAR: 71, 77
BEC: 70, 82
AUD: 62, 78
REG: 71, 68, 85
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