[Anonymous]

Hello everyone!

I’ve been going through this forum for about a year now and finally decided I needed some advice.

So a little background on me – I graduated in May 2016 with my bachelors in Accounting. I used May to October to take some additional classes to qualify for the 150 units requirement – and made the huge mistake of using these months to just enjoy life. I wish I had realized at that time how valuable it would have been to just study for CPA.

Anyways I started working in one of the big 4 in October – I scheduled my FAR exam for December. However, things in life kept coming up and I kept pushing my test date back. Once busy season started I had no time to even open the my CPA review stuff. Now that busy season is over – I want to get my exams done as soon as possible.

Please someone advise on what’s the best way for me to prepare for the FAR section in one month – I scheduled it for May 30th and I promised myself that I would not reschedule no matter what. Should I skip lectures and hammer MCQs? I’m using Becker review material.

I’ve done the following so far:
– Chapter 1-3 lecture and homework
– Chapter 4 lecture and partial homework
(I did this all before busy season so I don’t feel like I’ve mastered these chapters)

I’m debating on whether I just go through the Becker final review and hammer MCQs like crazy instead of watching lectures and during homework.

Any advice would be appreciated!

[HoldMyBeerCPA]

At this rate, I would do the best that you can at finishing the book. Getting the fundamentals for me was key as I just took FAR. While there were some tidbits I picked up with MCQs, I'd say at least half the questions I got were pretty reasonable thanks to getting through the entire book then hitting MCQs.

Do you think you would be able to finish all of the chapters in the next two weeks? Excluding the time it takes to do homework or practice questions.

[Anonymous]

Don't shower, don't brush your teeth, postpone all family activities, ignore your friends, live out of your study-place, and most importantly study your ass off!! Goodluck 🤓

[Jdn9201]

You aren't in an ideal situation, but I hope my post gives you some hope. I passed FAR a while ago (2/29/2016) and did so after 19 or 20 days of studying. It was my first and thankfully only attempt. Like you, I hadn't planned on such a short window but my year end was crazy (I work in corporate tax) and thought it would be better to postpone studying until i had a window of time where i could do a consistent schedule. Here are some tips – some I pulled from other people and some I came up with as I went along.

1. Focus on quality of study time over quantity. Over 3 weeks, I spent about 25 hours each week outside of work. At work, I was able to listen to lectures online while working. I didn't remember everything the first go around, but it cut down significantly the time i was spending at home listening to lectures (I used Roger) vs doing questions. I was working about 45-50 hours a week. Do your best to get the sleep you need and take care of yourself. If you have a night where you just aren't absorbing anything because you are too tired, give yourself a night off and pick it up the next day. Hundreds of hours mean little if they are not productive.
2. Use the AICPA outline. It helped me tremendously to focus on the topics that would be tested the most.
3. Do rolling chapter quizzes to help retain knowledge from earlier chapters. I made this up on the fly – after finishing 3 or 4 chapters, I'd do rolling sets of 30-40 questions that combined 2-3 chapters. It really helped me to retain what I'd learned early on.
4. Do not focus on the # of MCQs you do – focus on the quality of learning. For the ones that you get wrong, figure out why you got them wrong. For computation questions especially, figure out the important parts of the question vs. fluff (helpful especially for SIMS)
5. Study the AL. I can't stress this enough. I only had 4 days to review, and I spent an entire day (a Saturday for that matter) doing research SIMS and looking up topics in the AL. It bailed me out big time during the SIMS, not just the research one.
6. Do not try and remember everything because it's impossible and a waste of time for most topics. For some of the lightly tested topics, my goal was to get to a comfort level where i could eliminate 2 out of 4 of the MCQ answers. Sure, I exceeded that goal on many of the topics but when every hour counts, you cannot waste time trying to hit 100%.
7. Shorter study window = shorter review window. One blessing about trying to do FAR in a short amount of time is you don't have to worry about a long review period because you have less time to forget stuff. My memory is a bit vague, but my learning period was 15-16 days, and my review was 4 days.

Good luck!

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

[Wannafree]

@Turbo ,are you using Becker's 2017 for FAR ? What chapters you feel one should focus in new format ?Becker's has stressed on JE and Govt Accounting.Pension ,Consolidation and Govt/NFP are traditionally considered hard and Notes payable ,AR,Inventory,Assets,Liabilities ,Bonds,Equity and Leases are considered easy in old format.
I have solved all problems of Becker's HW (old HW )and not sure what change I should look for in same chapter under new format? Any lead or advise is appreciable.

[HoldMyBeerCPA]

I'm using Roger CPA review. Overall, I would agree with Becker's assessment as I got questions on each of those topics Becker mentioned. Knowing my JEs helped quite a bit for each of them.

Your mileage may vary, but I would stress that the Big 5: Bonds, Leases, Pensions, Government, and Consolidations you should know well. I felt as if the 5-15% ratio of Government questions as suggested by the AICPA blueprint was the ratio I saw on my exam. As far as the other areas go, honestly, I think a fundamental understanding of each of those areas should get you over the hump. Maybe I overprepared a bit, but there were no questions on the MCQs that made me go, “Oh crap, I can't even make an educated guess at this”.

Only one of my sims were out of left field due to there being no real way to prepare for it. Not to say it was overly difficult but I certainly needed another 10 minutes to give my very best answer. With that said, I would say have a gameplan for any type of SIM you may see because time management is KEY when it comes to those sims.

[Wannafree]

@Turbo,thanks a lot.Actually last time I got crushed by speeding “SIM-18-Wheeler” hence doing everything I can do get 75.Last time ( old format ) one question was asking to calculate some values as per GAP then ( long calculations as per PV table etc ) it was asking for JE , basically it was two SIM rolled into one.Constrained by time I could't finish.This time I have created my own SIM questions for practice ( based on Sample test and my own experience )e.g. Calculating each line item's value of consolidation transactions then passing the JE for Consolidation and Inter co elimination and checking the total time taken.I am comfortable with JE of each chapters (compiled 26 pages for all JE ).So far rewritten Becker's 2017 twice.Trying to bump up my score by 7.Every drop counts,all suggestions are welcome.

[Author]

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