[William_777]

Watching these Becker videos – I feel like the information tends to go in one ear and out the other… Does anyone else see what I’m saying?

How do you give this stuff meaning? How do you make the most productive use of your study time?

For me, I have to stop almost every minute and take a bunch of handwritten notes to figure out what they are talking about… Maybe this is just me, so I wouldn’t necessarily recommend constant note-taking to everyone, as it is very time consuming…

But, if someone understands where I am coming from, and has a better way of digesting and retaining the information, then I’d love to hear it.

wm

[make_yourself]

It feels the same way to me, but I think the lecture still helps.

I have a similar method: I usually watch 8-10 pages of lecture and then go back and take detailed notes out of the book. When I review, I hardly look at the book, I just use my notes from the lecture. It's extremely time-consuming, but it works for my paranoid mind.

I think the true learning takes place during the MCQs; that's where the chaotic mess of information seems to become more manageable. Going through the MCQs a second time is when things really start to make sense to me.

I've had several friends that are CPAs tell me that they never even opened the books, they watched the lecture and did questions. That method usually results in getting low scores on the first MCQ attempt and learning by making those mistakes.

I initially tried only watching lecture when I started studying for FAR, but I get extremely frustrated (and angry) when I get low scores, so that method just makes studying worse for me.

I think it's different for everybody. I'd say try only watching the lectures without taking notes and then going to the MCQs, or try not watching the lectures and reading the book/taking notes and see if either method seems to make studying easier on you.

FAR - 81 (07/24/2012)
BEC - 92 (10/06/2012)
AUD - 92 (11/29/2012)
REG - 88 (02/28/2013)

Ethics - 90

California Licensed CPA - 12/2013

[Author]

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