[Broag]

I always hear on this forum that drilling ungodly amounts of MCQ is the best way to pass a section. While I agree with this, I don’t think doing insane amounts of questions is the most optimal use of your time right before your exam (final review). Has anyone passed a section or sections by just reading their book and taking notes during their final review? Someone suggested to me to not do any MCQ or SIMs and just re-read my book and review notes the week leading up to my exam. Any advice?

I take FAR on Monday.

REG - 79
FAR - ?
AUD - ?
BEC - ?

[monikernc]

for final review you need to make sure you have not forgotten anything and get things fresh in your mind and strengthen weak areas. you should do some sims. hit your weak areas in mcq's and read notes as needed to make sure everything is retained and recallable during the exam.
make sure you have your nts printed and your ID with the name that matches nts ready and get some rest. be sure to go early to test center because it will take awhile to get you processed and seated at computer.
if this is your first exam do the sample exam for far on aicpa website to get the look and feel of actual exam, including the calculator and the AL for the sims.
if you have access to them, try the recently released questions for far to get comfortable with any difference in syntax from what you have been studying.
you want to firm your grasp of concepts and be prepared for the experience. doing mcq's may help you keep your speed up for exam day.

FAR 7/25/15 76!
AUD 10/30/15 93
BEC 2/27/16 82
REG 5/23/16 88!
Ninja Book and MCQ and the forum - all the way!!!
and a little thing i like to call, time and effort!
if you want things to change, you have to do something different

[Anonymous]

I think the reason that MCQs are recommended for final review is because you can review all the topics constantly by doing random MCQs (aka not topic-specific), whereas reading the book and taking notes is just one topic at a time. However, if you feel like you will learn better by reading the book, then by all means go for it! Especially if you haven't read the book yet. I think everyone should read the book at least once. I didn't watch lectures, but always read the book….and always wanted to read the book a 2nd time, but never got that far. If I'd had time to read it a 2nd time through for a final review in the last 2-3 days before the exam, though, it would have probably been a pretty good review.

[Broag]

Lilla

I feel I get so much more of an understanding by reading the book. Lectures just don't do it for this guy. I have Becker and I've been going through the E-Book the past two days. I'm trying everything I can to pass FAR this time around.

REG - 79
FAR - ?
AUD - ?
BEC - ?

[Anonymous]

I feel the same way about lectures. I could spend 10 hours watching lectures to get what I could get from 1 hour reading a book, so I just went with books and skipped the lectures altogether. I did watch a couple sample lectures, one of which covered a topic I was struggling to understand from reading, but generally reading works better for me.

The key to passing these exams is to figure out what works best for you personally and to do it, so if you've tried drilling MCQs the last 2 days and it doesn't work, and if reading the book seems like it's helping a lot, then it looks like you're on the right track! Maybe you'll find your “magic bullet” solution that will let you pass FAR Monday, then breeze through AUD and BEC next. 🙂

[Jdn9201]

I think MCQ's are definitely important at all stages of the studying process, but you get the most out of them if you take the time to understand WHY you got a question right or wrong. I think the explanations to the question answers may be more important than the answers themselves, because it helps to give you knowledge to apply to other similar questions. I'm using Roger and his program gives very good explanations – both online and in the book. I think there's a danger in over relying on MCQ's to the point of where you miss out on spending time on SIM's and memorizing questions/answers. One way I've used MCQs is I pretested myself over each section for BEC and REG before I began watching lectures. If I scored a 70 or above on any of these pretests, I skipped the related lecture material because I wanted to spend the most time on my weak points. I also agree that you have to find what's best for you and stick to it. People learn differently and topics take more time for some to grasp than others. Bottom line – do whatever you think works best for you that will lead to a pass. 🙂

BEC - 88 8/29/15
REG - 82 11/14/15
AUD - 83 1/8/16
FAR - 80 2/29/16

[Anonymous]

when i do MCQ's i feel like i AM REVIEWING because i hit all these different areas at once in a short amount of time. i agree with the above poster about the importance of reading answer explanations-it's a much more focused synopsis of what you will find in any book.

[Author]

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