[Fr0nt0ffice]

What’s up everyone. I am scheduled to take the FAR section of the CPA. I decided to take the hardest part first to hopefully get it out of the way. I’m using Wiley CPAexcel, which I really like so far. I’ve been recording my study hours, and as of last Sunday, I hit 160 hours of study for the FAR section (which is about what is recommended, if not more).

Problem is, I’m only 33% done with the material and I have 8 days left to finish the remaining 66%. As you guys can imagine, I’m cramming like a madman right now, try to go as fast as I can through the material, but it’s just too much and I’ve been moving too slow. I haven’t even taken one look at Govt. and Not-for-profit stuff, which I’ve heard is a big part of the FAR section.

Do you guys think I should reschedule my exam for the next testing window, starting January? I really wanted to take advantage of not working and finish FAR Dec 7, then study a good full month for REG, and take that part early January, before I start a working a full time internship. But the way its looking, its gonna be nearly impossible to cram almost 70% of FAR material in a week when it took me 2.5 months to reach 33%.

What do you guys should I do? Should I just take it on Dec 7 to get an idea of what the exam is like, then go at it again on January 100% prepared? (but then I’ll be wasting $200) Or should I just reschedule right now for early January, and give myself more time to prepare? (btw, I plan on sleeping 5 hours a night and studying nearly every waking hour from now until Dec 7 if I do plan to take it then)

[Fr0nt0ffice]

Sorry for the late reply everyone, and thank you all for your responses and input. I did ended up taking it. I barely did any more studying from the date of the first post, even though I said I was going to go hard for the last few days, I totally lost all momentum after Thanksgiving lol and I figured I had no shot anyway.

But for the exam, I felt surprisingly relaxed. Probably because I saw it as a reconnaissance mission instead of an actual attempt at passing. Didn't feel nervous at all. And I felt the exam was not as hard as I expected at all. The Wiley MCQs were much more difficult than what the exam had. Same with the TBS simulations. And I felt the MCQs got harder after the first set, so I feel that I may have done pretty good on the first set. Overall, a very good experience, and I feel that I absolutely could have passed if I prepared properly. The only real bump I had was with the authoritative literature, I seriously need to get faster at scanning those paragraphs.

Sweet<3 soon to be CPA: I ended up taking your advice and just taking the damn thing. And while it may have cost me $200, the experience seeing the exam first hand and feeling the pressure is invaluable. And yes, I do agree that having also started in late Sep, early Oct, some of the stuff I learned early wasn't sticking as well.

Ana: Yea, exactly how I saw it, as a recon mission. Didn't feel any anxiety on the exam other than the authoritative literature looking nothing like what I saw on Wiley (little did I know, it was on the Auditing tab, I thought I was going to be on the Financial Reporting tab by default -_- 20 minutes wasted there)

Paydirt123: Other than the time it took me to get to the testing facility, and the 4 hours of the exam, how am I really losing time? I just see it as an experience, and now I'm continuing to study to pass it once I have another shot at it in January.

Jen J:
SBNY2K17:

I know, I've always been a very slow learner. Part of the reason why I need to pass this exam, to make up for my GPA. It's always been a challenge for me to fully understand a concept in just 3.5 months (Late Aug- Early Dec, average time for semester). I always have a clock running while I study, to know just how much quality time I am actually spending studying. Once I added everything up a week before the exam, I realized I had spent well over 100 hours studying the material, and I was wondering why I had not been closer to finishing the program.

I need to get into a better “high quality study mode” like Jen J says. And yes, I am way too comprehensive with my approach, and I don't to move forward unless I have watched the video, read the text, done all supplementary questions, knowledge checks, flash cards, and aced the assessment. And I always write down the lesson learned if I got something wrong. But it does eat up alot of my time. It really does frustrate me that people could do something in 100-120 hours, go through 100% of the material, but I spend over 170 and I can only get a third done. Wish I was born with an accounting brain like that lol.

SBNY2K17, my study method is to watch the video, read the text, and then attempt the problems. I also write/type out definitions, key points, which I think alot of my time is going into. And when I get stuck on something, I sit there and try to figure it out before I can move forward, and sometimes, it takes a while for me to get it. I do need to be more efficient, I've just always studied that way, I'm so used to it.

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