[Scared-cpa]

Hi all!

I took FAR on November 14th after studying for three months. This was my first exam ever so I went in kind of blindly. I felt pretty good on the MCQs but it all went downhill when I got to the SIMS. I honestly don’t think I got over 30% correct on any of them. And that is reflected in the score I just received of 67.

So now I need to develop a gameplan to retake FAR in January. Since I’m in grad school and don’t have a job, I am free pretty much the entire month of December. My plan is to restudy during that time and review for the first two weeks of January. Then take the exam around mid-January since my classes start back on January 17th. What is a good game plan? I will admit I did not study the best that I could have with FAR so I want to make sure I don’t half a$$ it this time. Is one month enough time to go through all the FAR material? Do I just completely start from scratch or what? Reading a 1,000 page book in a month along with all the other study prep seems overwhelming so I want to go about this in the best manner. I have Wiley CPAexcel and I am going to buy the Ninja MCQs.

I thought of something like this:
-Read a section
-Take notes over section
-Do MCQs over section in Wiley CPAexcel review
-Repeat with each section
-The entire time I am rereading the sections, do Ninja MCQs of all sections since it’s relatively fresh in my mind.

Does this sound okay? Anything else I should do? Does doing MCQs on all sections while restudying sound okay? I thought this should be alright but what do you think?

I am REALLY weak in journal entries and know this is probably what made me fail. What are your suggestions for studying journal entries? I find it hard to do them unless I have a test problem asking me specifically for them, so I don’t know how to study journal entries in general an in an effective manner.

All help is appreciated. I’ve got one month of full-time studying to kick this test’s butt and I’m ready to do it!

[hasy]

I don't think reading the FAR was really helpful unless it was the night before and I wanted to do some light review. A lot of how FAR clicked was by repetition. I did 3000+ NINJA and Roger (which means I recommend 2 test banks), but I'd rather overstudy than wait in anxiety to receive a barely passing score.

FAR was the one exam that I didn't study the SIMs too much. I did DO them, like at least 25% of the NINJA sims. But I didn't do all of them, quite frankly, this exam requires you to understand the material A LOT more than seeing how the SIMs are worded. Your plan sounds good. I think I saw where your downfall was.

Journal entries are EXTREMELY important. I literally made an effort to do a journal entry for each question I worked on, even if it related to a journal entry. I think a week before the exam, I wrote every journal entry possible (not as time-consuming as you think) for the exam.

Good luck!

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved - Helen Keller

-

BEC 80 (10/23/15)
FAR 72 (4/2/15); 83 (7/11/16)
REG 52 (4/28/15)
AUD (9/9/16)

Roger + NINJA MCQ + WTB

[Tyler23]

Forming my FAR plan for the third time (68, 72). I'm giving myself roughly 5 weeks as opposed to a full 8 week study plan which is typically suggested for FAR, but I digress. I'm convinced that my improved score had to do with the repetition of MCQ's, heavy reviews of Govt./NFP/Bonds/etc., and approaching the exam with a more confident feeling. I think these exams are more of a mental game than a true test of knowledge.

So Journal entries, MCQs, and a heavier focus on your weaker areas this time around.

Best of luck

[Scared-cpa]

@hasy So you don't suggest I read back through the book? I honestly don't know how much time it will take me to read 1,000 pages in a month and I wonder if the time spent reading is worth it if I could use it to be doing something more effective. I really don't know. As far as journal entries are concerned, for example, there were more entries per question than I thought was needed which really confused me. But how do I write down the journal entries to each question I do if I've not a clue what entry there should be?

@Tyler23 I agree that I think going back over a topic two or three or more times will help it stick. A lot of people on here discussed how once they get to a certain point in studying for FAR, everything began to “click.” I never had that moment, so maybe that's why I failed. All we can do it try, try again! I definitely agree that a lot of it is mental. For example, when studying, I would read a question multiple times and not understand it. And this isn't even the actual “meat” of the question. I couldn't comprehend “On January of year 1, X Company purchased $1,000,000 5-year bonds.” I would psyche myself out to where I just couldn't focus. So I started treating them like homework problems instead of a “CPA question” and it helped my nerves.

[sancasuki]

I wouldn't bother reading the book or doing the CPAExcel MCQs again. Do the Ninja MCQs by topic and consult the Wiley book as needed if there is something you forgot or just don't get. Try to do at least 150 MCQs per day. Also read all the explanations and links to explanations that Ninja MCQs gives you.

For journal entries, I just copied the examples ones give in the textbook, not all of them but the ones that I didn't feel comfortable with.

[hasy]

I mean this in the NICEST way possible, but if you don't know which journal entries are needed when you see the question, there are some serious holes in your studying. Journal entries aren't easy. To this day I don't have a strong grasp and I work in industry. The only way to understand journal entries is to practice them. I even googled the accounting equation and read up on debits/credits just to grasp the basics of it.

I just don't see how reading the book will help you unless you can easily remember it that well. I wrote out a lot of my notes. I always wrote out the problem for myself as well when I needed to solve it. You need to see what is effective for you. Studying for my last section now, I've been able to study more efficiently.

NINJA is very tricky so I suggest using that. I thought NINJA notes are somewhat helpful, but I didn't use that as my only source though.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved - Helen Keller

-

BEC 80 (10/23/15)
FAR 72 (4/2/15); 83 (7/11/16)
REG 52 (4/28/15)
AUD (9/9/16)

Roger + NINJA MCQ + WTB

[Scared-cpa]

@circadian malfunction So you think I should just do MCQs for essentially 5-6 weeks straight and only consult the book when I feel I need to?

@hasy Lol, I understand you're just trying to help, I don't take offense easily 🙂 I'm not gonna lie – I tend to struggle with journal entries. But I usually have a good idea of what should be in the journal entries. If it's a multiple choice question and the options are which journal entries I should use, I can get those right. But if I'm not told at all what accounts to use, I struggle. What I was talking about is that I will think there should be 2 Dr. and 1 Cr., for example, and there will end up being more Dr. and Cr. than I think there should be. Does this make sense? I'm not good at explaining things. The point I was trying to make is, if I'm writing out the journal entries for every question, I want to know that I'm doing them correctly.

[Madhav]

Hi scared_cpa, i was in same position like you before. I took FAR for the first time and i only got 57. Part of my problem was i gave myself too much time gap, so i had no urgency to study hard-immediately and i forget a lot due to long time gap. Hence in my next FAR retake, i only gave 4 weeks(including work schedule of 33 hours/week). I bought cram from Roger and did not bother to go through all videos. I also focused a lot on sims and bought Ninja MCQs and try to do it as much as possible until i lose the concentration. Luckily i was able to pass this time with 76. I would say do lots of MCQs and try to understand the concept rather than memorizing, also do not study all materials. I think you will be able to do it this time. It is just my opinion considering i went through same phase like you.
Thank You.

[hasy]

It's okay! I'm incoherent when I explain things too. So my suggestion to you is go back to the basics a little. I thought it was a little silly bc since I have an accounting minor, I should have grasped debits/credits already. But not according to this test. Anyhow, you kind of have to think about the account when they ask the question? Is it a payable (credit) or is it a receivable (debit)? Best practice is to learn the accounts from each F/S. Balance sheet accounts are different from Income statement accounts.

I think the level of obsession I had with FAR went a little overboard was when I legitimately started using accounting when I was planning to sell my mattress. I evaluated its impairment (cos it had a stain) and came up with its new basis. Then I depreciated the mattress to come up with a selling price.

A little tip is to do MCQs every single day up until the test. It WILL help. Like I had to take 2 business trips and I did MCQs at the airport.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved - Helen Keller

-

BEC 80 (10/23/15)
FAR 72 (4/2/15); 83 (7/11/16)
REG 52 (4/28/15)
AUD (9/9/16)

Roger + NINJA MCQ + WTB

[Scared-cpa]

@Madhav I agree that three months was probably too long for me to study too. I wanted to give myself enough time, especially since it is my first semester in grad school so I didn't know how much of a commitment 4 grad level courses would be. I will admit I did not manage my time well and “relaxed” more than I should have. But since this morning, I have already gone through the “I don't care, then sad, then angry” phase. I'm ready to prove to myself I can do this!

@hasy I think I'm definitely going back to the basics with journal entries. It's obvious I don't know them well enough. I knew I wasn't great at them but this test confirmed I am horrible at them lol. I think I'm gonna write out general FS like BS, IS, SCF, OCI, etc. and all the gov't statements and all the accounts that are within them. Then write out all the journal entries I can find with examples to help apply why I'm doing that specific entry. How does this sound to you?

I have to admit I laughed out loud when I read about you depreciating your mattress haha. That's quite hilarious!

Since I see you used WTB and NINJA, how do you suggest I go about utilizing them since you have personal experience? I have the Platinum CPAexcel package with focus notes and flashcards (which I never used!), WTB, and I'm going to buy NINJA soon. I just don't know how I should go about allocating my time among them.

I've read a couple other A71 threads from several years back and I saw a lot of people recommending that you watch the lectures and take extensive notes over them, don't read the book since I've already done that and highlighted all through it, do all of the MCQs and SIMS until I'm in the 80% correct range, write down all of the journal entries I come across, and then rewrite all of my journal entries and notes the week leading up to the exam. How does this sound? Any other suggestions? There are so many great opinions and different manners to go about restudying that I don't know what to do. In school, I've always succeeded without really trying, and this is the first academic thing EVER in my life that I can honestly say I've struggled with. So I don't know the best way for me to study. I'm literally going to restudy based on your opinions!

[sancasuki]

6 weeks seems like overkill for a retake. I think your downfall for the first try was doing WTB and not Ninja MCQ.

As you are doing the journal entry practice, don't just try to bluntly memorize the entries. You need to think about it and know whether the accounts you are using are an asset, liability, revenue, expense, stockholders equity, or contra-asset. What I didn't like about CPAExcel is they use a lot of weird account names that I had never heard of in their example journal entries. I was often unsure if the account was a revenue account or what.

I'm actually a little dyslexic when it comes to debits and credits, so I looked at this link a zillion times while I was studying for the CPA exam. For some reason it annoys me that revenues are credited and expenses are debited. It always seemed to me that it should be the opposite. Asset and liabilities I have down though.

Account Balances- Debits & Credits

And this site gives a lot of good example journal entries. I used this one a lot too.

Accounting Tools

[hasy]

That sounds like a good plan, but don't try to memorize. Similar to what the previous poster said. Knowing which account is a debt or credit helps a lot.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved - Helen Keller

-

BEC 80 (10/23/15)
FAR 72 (4/2/15); 83 (7/11/16)
REG 52 (4/28/15)
AUD (9/9/16)

Roger + NINJA MCQ + WTB

[Scared-cpa]

@circadian malfunction Hey, all! Sorry for the late response. Six weeks may very well be overkill, but who knows. It looks like right now I will begin studying for the retake around the 9th of December. I simply have too much finals work right now in class. That should still leave me enough time to take by mid-January, maybe even before then if I wanted to. my biggest concern now is that I haven't even looked at FAR stuff since I took my exam on the 14th. How awful of me is that!? I agree about revenues being credited and expenses debited. I couldn't tell you how long I struggled with that! I'm going to bookmark those pages and take notes over them when I start studying again. I also thought these pages looked helpful.

https://www.principlesofaccounting.com/illustrative%20entries/entrieslist.htm

https://sites.google.com/site/farnotes/gas-34/journal-entries–fund-based-vs-government-wide

I'm going to utilize Ninja MCQ this time around and hope it helps me!

@hasy I'm definitely going to try to understand everything! I know this stuff is important for when I get a job in the industry, so I recognize its importance other than just in the exams.

Right now I have a weird mix of anxiety because I haven't started studying again yet and I feel like I should, but I am gun shy at the same time. I really enjoyed taking the exam and now more than ever truly want to learn about financial accounting. I do find it interesting and since I failed I realize I don't know everything as much as I should so I've got a strong thirst for knowledge. However, I'm also really scared I'm going to go back in there and fail. I went through a short phase where I felt like I should just give up (which is why I haven't posted on here) but I know quitting after my very first test would be silly.

[Author]

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