[FirstTimer]

I am a long time lurker on this forum and I have been wanting to take the exam for the last 12 months, but plenty of excuses not to.

– My main issue is that I am not able to organize my study program, I have a decent “time” schedule, its how to utilize the material at hand that I am struggling with.

I am studying using the Becker books and I also use the Wiley MCQ’s, and last not but not least I have the FAR Ninja notes for a final review.

My initial plan was:

1. Do each chapter and for it do their MCQs on Wiley, I previously tried Video/Audio, it was a waste of time for me, again, to each their own, but it just didn’t work with me, so I am focusing on learning the chapters and doing the MCQ’s.

2. I want to review each chapter notes a week after I have finished it, I don’t know if that is the best, but its the plan for now.

3. I tend to focus on concepts and get crushed when it comes to computational/critical thinking questions so I will focus more on examples/MCQs as I study.

Any help/advice on how to go about this schedule with my current material?

[Anonymous]

I understand about not wanting to do lecture videos. I did them for FAR pretty much solely because I thought I had to follow the Becker program to the letter in order to pass. But I discovered I could read the material and do my own note-taking faster than I could watch the lectures, so I didn't really watch them much for any of the other sections unless there was a particular topic I had trouble grasping.

Read the text, write down anything that seems counterintuitive or otherwise illogical to you (don't waste time writing and reading over notes about things that flow logically and seem like common sense to you … you will recognize this stuff in a MCQ format), make sure you understand all the examples in the chapters, and just pound away at the multiple choice questions. I would invest in an additional test bank (NINJA is very cost-effective, in my opinion) because you will get to a point where you recognize the questions and know immediately what the answers are, so you'll stop going through the full process of solving them. You need an adequate supply of questions so that you get enough legit practice to discover what your weak and strong areas are.

Also, if you have access to the recently released AICPA questions (Becker software provides these … maybe you can find them online somewhere), I find it helpful to go through those and get a sense of what a “medium” question is in comparison to a “difficult” question. It will also give you a better idea as to the format of the questions you'll see on your exam. The danger in using one test bank is that you get used to a certain format. The exam questions may essentially be the same but presented in a different way, and that can get confusing. Becker, for example, tends to display financial amounts in tables, whereas the exam puts everything in one paragraph, and you have to identify the relevant amounts yourself.

[FirstTimer]

So going forward I am going to focus on the “Topics” within each chapter, as I feel confident, I will jump on the MCQ's on Wiley's website/software for those topics.

And every week keep going back a chapter for review so I don't forget? It is a 5-6 week intensive study until the exam, I am not giving up yet! Its just that mixing Becker and Wiley is not a “standard” program, so I am still thinking about how I can sync them together.

[Anonymous]

For Becker, there is an option to do “Progress tests” at the end of each chapter. So say you're on R4, you can create a progress test in the R4 HW section and select the number of questions for each chapter from R1 to R4.

This function is definitely invaluable for review and you can hone in on your weak areas. I typically run progress tests in sets of 24 or 30 (depending on the test) to mimic the amount of questions you'll get on a testlet on exam day.

[Author]

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