[gsills125]

Hi, I received my score for FAR this morning. I made an 88. I do not post often but occasionally visit CPA forums and find many people stressing over the FAR portion. First I’d like to mention that I passed Audit with a 79 and Regulation with an 80 and that the first time I took FAR I failed with a 67. I feel I did considerably better on the FAR exam the second time and I think the scores reflect that. I’d like to share my experience with the hope someone will find it to be useful information. The following is what I did the second time I took FAR.

My Study Preparation: I just took FAR in the OCT/NOV 2009 window. I used 2007 Becker materials and found them adequate. I thought about purchasing more current materials but I felt the same core concepts would stay consistent and risked it. If you have access to more current materials by all means I think you should use them. I supplemented my 2007 Becker materials with the questions on the website cpareviewforfree.com. I found these questions to be very in depth and I asked the moderator at that site and he said they were current. In fact I attribute much of my success on FAR to this site. I listened to 5 of the 7 lectures in my 2007 Becker materials and answered most of the MC questions. I reviewed the book some in order to gain understanding of some of the concepts. I would write out things on a white board that I felt were important to remember. I felt like doing this excercise helped me gain an understanding of some of the concepts with Pensions, Deferred Taxes, Leases, Consolidations, Diluted EPS, etc. I also, looked up the old AICPA questions that were released all the way back in 2005 to the present. I am pretty sure you can find these through google search. I have heard that these questions would not be used and that it was a waste of time to go over them, but I found that to be untrue. In order to be prudent and not violate the do not disclose clause, lets just say I found reviewing these to be very worthwhile.

Other Preparation: Every night for a few minutes before I went to bed, I would hold the score of 85 in my mind. And I know this might sound strange, but I kind of tried to care for it like it was my child or something. I thought of it with affection lets just say that. Whatever works for you that will spark those positive feelings towards that goal is what I think was important. I would do this periodically during the day, or whenever I thought about it. In a strange way it almost made me more disciplined to review the material and learn it. I did not want to just rely on this “prayer” if you will, I wanted to support it with hard work.

How I felt during the exam: After every testlet I would take a second to hold that score in my mind. It helped keep me calm. I felt the first testlet to be faily easy. I may have missed 1 or 2. The second testlet was a nightmare. The questions got noticeably more complicated. I may have got half right. The third testlet was about as hard as the second, maybe a little easier. I think I may have got 20 correct. The simulations were hard and I thought written poorly. I was confused on exactly what I was supposed to actually do on one of them. I did the best I could but felt they were very tough. I completely skipped the research questions, which was my plan from the beginning. I felt like I wrote two decent memo’s. I tried to sound educated. And even though I did not know much on the topic, I tried to think logically and gave my best guess. I heard it is most important to write well as opposed to responding correctly. Coming out of the exam I did not know how to feel. I thought it was a good sign that the test got harder, but I figured one had to still do decently well on that harder material, which I felt like I did not do well at all. In conclusion, I think the most important thing is feeling like that first testlet is a piece of cake. Then, noticing a difference between the first and second testlet in terms of difficulty. Then not seeing much of a drop off in difficulty from the second to the third testlet. I hope this long essay helps some of you guys stressing over FAR.