[Anonymous]

I am scheduled to take FAR in December. I got one of the last open test days. I don’t think I’m going to take it now though. I just got a new job and my study time is now restricted to nights and weekends. I was unemployed for 2 months. I made the most of it and got through 90 percent of the FAR on Roger, including the MCQs and TBSs. Then, I got this new job.
But, that’s not why I suddenly burned out.

As of this past week, I’ve all but quit caring about ever passing the CPA exam. I suddenly just lost the motivation. I get all these emails from Roger and my state board and NASBA about the new version of the CPA exam, which from what it sounds like is going to be a complete barrier to CPA land. They obviously do not want new CPAs replacing the older and retiring ones. Every fricking day I get some email about “ARE YOU READY FOR THE NEW VERSION?” or “JOIN THE WEBCAST DISCUSSING THE 2017 CPA EXAM.” But, there’s another reason – I do not understand Governmental Accounting and *nothing* seems to be working for me. Some other topics are hard. Bonds, pensions (sorta), derivatives/hedging. Consolidations/business combinations is a fricking cakewalk compared to Governmental. I know Governmental gets a lot more testing than expected – up to 24% on some exams. I really don’t know where to go at this point. Roger is usually pretty good. In fact, his “pretty good” is likely the best out there in the review course market. But, not all topics get a crystal clear explanation in either the lectures or in his textbooks, and this is one of them. I’d like to think I’m not stupid but I’m starting to think I am.

I’ve already paid the $$$ for the tests so I might as well take them. I laid out $2,000 for Roger’s course. After all, the only thing I have to lose is the money. Thankfully, I am not poor or I’d really be hating myself right now. Anyway, I’d be interested in hearing how anyone managed to learn Governmental Accounting.

[Anonymous]

I rented a textbook from Amazon. It was Advanced Accounting by Hoyle.

I have been using Becker. I thought they did a good job for BEC and AUD, but not for FAR and REG. The presentation for those last two subjects is too high-level, I think. It is good for review – if you already understand it – but not if you never knew it. If it was a new topic for me, I found I just could not understand what the Becker book was saying. I broke out my school textbooks multiple times… and once I understood the topic, then the Becker explanation made sense. But it is just too high-level and too compact for learning. I never took a class in government or non-profit, so I rented this textbook. There may be better books out there, but I found this did the trick for me.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, I do have that book. I was hoping that Roger would simplify it and that I would not have to read other books/re-read.
But, perhaps that's going to be the only way out of this terrible maze.

[GeauxAwayCPA]

Following.

Governmental is seriously the worst ever! How does anyone understand this huge cluster f&@k?!I have my retake in 10 days and I got 67% of the Governmental questions right on my first go around through the NINJA MCQ questions. I can usually logic my way through tough material but there seems to be no logic behind Governmental.

[livealittle]

I think Gov't and NFP is memorizing which funds use accrual and which use modified accrual. Also memorizing the budgetary journal entries, or at least understanding them about being able to create them

BEC - 8/8/16
REG - 66, 77
AUD - 81
FAR - 9/8/16

[win2bet]

definitely do not give up! you've gone this far. Study FAR on the way to work and on the way back from work, oh & the weekends. At least try taking it once, you may be pleasantly surprised

REG 68,87
BEC 85
FAR 75
AUD 64,64, 86!

[GeauxAwayCPA]

@crazyleon I meant to say this earlier but got so caught up in my disdain for Governmental…haha But I agree with the others – you seriously should not give up. I don't know about you but I'm not letting some exam defeat me! You and I and everyone else putting in the work can do this! Will it be easy? No. Will there be bad days? Oh yeah. But the juice will be worth the squeeze, my friend!

[Anonymous]

I won't be giving up on the exam but at the rate I am going, it's gonna probably take me awhile. The new DRS's are f***ing
brutal and they have zero connection to anything you might do in a job. Hopefully, I can pass FAR and BEC before they change the format in April – BEC is the one that is supposed to change the most. If I flunk FAR in December, I can try one more time in the Q1 testing window. But, I'll also need to do BEC in Q1 too. Hard times, for sure.

@GeauxAwayCPA you are right, there is not much logic in governmental. The biggest issue I am having is knowing the normal Dr/Cr balances of the various accounts – I have not found a decent discussion of them. And, often the debits and credits are contrary to what you might expect. It seems that the large amount of questions about government is just a way for them to make the exam harder. Seriously. They know hardly anyone is going to be working in government.

@livealittle the mnemonic of Roger for the modified accrual/regular accrual accounting is: Modified accrual = PDCSG
Police Department Consents to Smoking Grass (P = Permanent fund, D = Debt service fund, etc.)
Accrual = IPIPEA I smoke my PIPE Alot (I = Internal service fund, P = Proprietary fund, etc.) I hope they don't ask for creation of journal entries but with the microscopic way that they try to test your knowledge on FAR, it wouldn't surprise me at all I guess.

[GeauxAwayCPA]

@crazyleon Also agree that the DRSs are God awful. I didn't even answer it on my FAR exam bc of time and the one I got wasn't a drop down so it was even impossible to guess! It's too much flipping back and forth between reference material and the question and something that annoys me to the point of rage is when I have to use those up and down and left to right scroll bars to reference information. I need to see everything at a glance in one screen. We are already under an immense time crunch – having to deal with scrolling and flipping back and forth just to keep referencing information is not a good use of precious seconds. I honestly wish this was a paper exam.

Also agree that most of us do not want to work in Government and that this knowledge will be useless once passing this exam!! Really frustrating bc this exam is the only thing between me and the next step in my career! I haven't found a good thorough lesson on Governmental either if it makes you feel better. I know memorizing is not a recommended strategy on these exams but some of this Governmental stuff can only be memorized and it's so quirky that it's hard to keep straight in my brain. I know a lot of people say that the class isn't needed to pass the exam but given that this is the major topic I'm struggling with, I still am really wishing I would have taken it in school now…

[Anonymous]

@GeauxAwayCPA yes, I seriously hope they do away with the DRS's. I don't know whose idea it was to do those stupid questions but they do not accurately measure knowledge. Just give us a regular TBS! What's the difference? The AICPA just likes to see people squirm. Yup, you are very close to passing now and once you have FAR, you're done. Government jobs….everybody wants them because the pay and benefits are outstanding – and they do not usually require that the employee have a high IQ or even high moral standards. And, the job security is amazing. You'd have to rape another employee or snort meth in front of your boss in order to get fired. Even Roger says in his videos that the reason why the government accounting system is such a mess is because of the loopy way they do accounting. All I can chalk any of this up to, as far as the heavy testing on the CPA exam, is that they want to see how much torture the candidates can take, just like with the DRS's. If you did get a DRS-type thing in your job, you'd have all morning to work on it, not 15 minutes. Seriously, 90% of what accountants do on a day-to-day basis, they learn on the job.

Many people say that the CPA exam has almost nothing to do with real-world. I'm with you – I wish I had the option of taking this as a paper-pencil test. Long ago, in the mid 90s, I flunked the written portion of my drivers license test because it was done on a touch-screen computer. You couldn't come back to the questions you were uncertain about. The next time, I asked for paper-pencil and passed. I am seriously planning this first attempt at FAR as a practice run. I have no idea what to expect or even what kind of computer I'm gonna be sitting at for 4 hours. A practice run that costs me $193.00. With any luck, I will get a 75 and then can move on to BEC.

[CPA788]

Where is @cpa50? The #1 role model in times like these – took FAR 9 times… You are not alone. I have been in a rut like this for about 3 weeks while trying to gear up for my 3rd REG attempt. Took me 3 attempts and ~9 months of studying to pass FAR. DO NOT GIVE UP. You can do it. IMagine punching this out and getting your license on the cusp of all the new tests coming out, you will have just barely beat the curve, and have your license for life.

I also agree on above about focusing on the accrual vs modified accrual, and just basic characteristics of each account. I focused on that, like a grid of sorts, check boxes, modified, not modified, etc. It can be done. You can do it.

Did I mention @cpa50 took FAR 9 times? 🙂 Dedication.

BEC - 74, 77
FAR - 72, 71 (retake 7/29)
REG - 69
AUD - Q4 '16

CA Candidate

[Anonymous]

@CPA788 Thanks, yah I'm not giving up, it's sometimes just frustrating as hell though. 9 times on FAR…I think there are gonna be a lot of multiple-timers on the new version of the exam, unless they lower the standard for passing. I wish I could have knocked out FAR and BEC a year ago and then I'd be working on AUD and REG now before the new version comes out. But, life gets in the way of our plans sometimes. Also, I went back and forth for months between Becker and Roger before finally choosing Roger just a few months ago. Anyhow, I'm in it for the long haul, too far into it to stop now. I agree with you, making detailed notes is the only way to do it. I like to write down “factoids” and example problems for all the hardest topics. It does work. I write tons of notes while doing the MCQs and TBSs.

[Lou]

@crazyleon the tidbits thing is the thing that helped me pass FAR the most. What I do before each section is I take notes on the particular part, then when answer the questions write down the answer (because writing things down makes it stick more), and then write down the really important ones in my book the second time I look at the questions

FAR- taken 8/11/16....now the wait begins
AUD- scheduled 9/8/16
BEC- scheduled 10/9/16
REG-scheduled 12/10/16

Live a few years like most people won't, to live the rest of your life like most people can't.

[Anonymous]

Thanks to you all for taking the time to reply so nicely. Does anyone on here ever go to the forums on Reddit?
OMG, the people there are JERKS! Seriously! I posted something on there earlier this year and got fricking lambasted by like 20 people who told me to throw in the towel and go work at Burger King. I asked a question about the frustrations/challenges of working in public accounting. I couldn't believe how arrogant some of them were too. I think some of them were burned out CPAs who were just hating themselves and the way they dealt with it was to come to Reddit.com and attack others. Anyway, thanks for making Another71 a great forum and resource.

[neaux]

Hindsight 20/20, but you could/should have taken FAR before starting work. Anyway, you may be more prepared than you believe, and you may be doing overkill. 5 months is an extremely long time to study for one section. I think you should consider taking Far within the next few weeks. Governmental questions are vey basic on the exam. If you have studied as much as you say you have, then you should be prepared. This will allow you time to take BEC or Audit before the end of the window. Just my honest opinion, it seems like you are running from the exam.

There is one benefit of studying FAR extensively. Since topics from FAR flow to other sections of CPA, studying will be a little easier. I hope the best for you.

[Anonymous]

@neaux2135 Not sure why you think I am running from the exam or how you came to assume that, but anyway…
Not everybody is a natural-born accounting whiz and yes, hindsight is 20-20. Once the time is gone, you can never
get it back again, so there is no use crying over spilled milks. I won't be studying for 5 months for the other 3 parts,
no way. FAR is a voracious killer and I've talked to at least 10 people *not* on this website who have told me the same thing.
I am already screwed because I will get AUD and REG in the brand spankin' new exam format with decreased MC and increased critical thinking TBS's. I will be VERY lucky to pass all 4 parts in a decent amount of time. I don't know where you live but in my area, there are no open test dates at my testing center until January 2017. I will take it in December as planned. I'll need every single day until December 8th to review what I've already studied. I've already forgotten some of the things I spent so much time studying earlier. There are many people who tell each other “Just take the CPA Exam now, Now, NOW!! Get it out of the way.” Easier said than done. Everybody is on their own path. And, there's no point in taking a section if you are not ready to walk in there and PASS IT. These exams are expensive (for working stiffs like me anyway.) Looks like you just have one more and you're done…..so I hope the best for you too.

[Author]

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