[KSOZE]

I learned I passed the exam today, so I wanted to share my experience with frustrations and what I think the most efficient way to pass is. I’m going to preface this by saying that everyone is different and needs different things to learn and understand concepts. That being said, these exams are MOSTLY high-level concept based exams with (lots of) sprinkles of details to keep you on your toes. These sprinkles will make or break you.

After struggling MIGHTILY with FAR twice by budgeting 2-3 months per take, I decided to get one out of the way with BEC since I am a Finance major and knew the material would be relatively easy for me outside of cost accounting (which I did OK in also in school). I budgeted about 5.5 weeks for BEC. It ended up being 1 week too long, and I feel like I had TOO MUCH TIME to study for it. I ended up getting an 80.

Next up, I decided to TRY 3 exams in one window – FAR (third time), AUD and REG. Boy am I glad I did this. FAR I studied about 4-5 weeks (81), AUD about 3-4 weeks (81) and REG just about 2.5-3 weeks (I work in financial planning/tax – 79). All of this was done with a toddler at home and full time work.

All the people that are budgeting 3 months+ for these exams and failing over and over – TRY TO CRAM. It gears your brain up for short term misery, but I believe these exams are mostly concept based with necessary details that are IMPOSSIBLE to remember over a long period of time.

I owe my life to NINJA MCQ and GLEIM (for FAR). I did nothing else but take MCQ’s and notes on difficult subjects, with a few supplements of NINJA Audio/Blitz (for BEC only since I wanted to be “SURE” I passed the first time and get that first win), and Yaeger CRAM (for FAR only). The NINJA MCQ’s are extremely representative of the style and feel of the questions you get on the exam.

PS – Wiley stinks IMO. I followed their method my first time on FAR and got a 59 after wasting hours reading that dry text and watching those boring lectures. Their MCQ’s are too easy and SIMS are a waste of time.

BEC - 80
FAR - 81 (third attempt)
AUD - waiting for score 8/23
REG - 09/08/2016 - going to cram and wing it

OH Ethics - Completed

[hannahFletcher16]

Thanks for sharing. I am studying for FAR after failing BEC 3 times. 🙁 Last time I got a 74. I like your idea, maybe actually paying for my test and schedualing it in 4 weeks I will feel less misery than trying to learn it and wasting away weeks because I never feel ready. I will also try just suffering through MCQ until I finally learn something.

regardless, I am now motivated to study today lol. THANKS!

[RE2PECT]

Congrats and thanks for sharing! How many hours a week did you study? I was always a crammer in college, but I felt like there's just too much material to know to be able to cram everything in. Not sure it would work for me, but it's an interesting approach.

FAR: 75 Roger & Ninja (notes/flashcards/audio/MCQ)
AUD: 73, 81
BEC: 71, retake 8/29
REG:

[KSOZE]

I studied around 20-25 hours per week – about 2.5 hours per weekday and 5 hours Saturday and Sunday. I always tried to put in some long days close to the exam date to hammer my weak points. These are PRODUCTIVE hours too, if I slacked off, I knew I needed to kick it into gear harder another day to make up. I strived to get an average time to answer MCQ's between 1.5-2.5 minutes and get to about 100 hours on NINJA MCQ. I focused more on the wrong answers than the correct ones – this helped me identify the correct way to approach the type of problem.

I've always done well under pressure, so scheduling these tests close to one another and giving myself no choice was the key for me. Otherwise, I guarantee I'd still be struggling with FAR. That test is my nemesis.

BEC - 80
FAR - 81 (third attempt)
AUD - waiting for score 8/23
REG - 09/08/2016 - going to cram and wing it

OH Ethics - Completed

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the advice!! After taking countless exams following the 2 month study regime, I realized it wasn't really working and felt like I was wasting too much time. Last quarter I crammed in two (in the same month) and ended up passing both.

Hoping to do the same with BEC and FAR (taken both before) in October. I just am ready to be done! Cramming isn't ideal for everyone, but it does work and makes you really focus because you have no other choice.

[bhunt815]

I don't know if passing all 4 in a little less that 5 months is considered “cramming” but I definitely agree that months of studying is a recipe for failure for some of us. I would have never had time to study any section the traditional “Becker way” so I just studied everything as one big subject for the most part. I would study 4 or 5 chapters at a time without doing a single MCQ and then learn it all at the same time. For FAR, I studied literally the entire book as one big subject. Just did progress tests until I learned my weak areas and went back and studied those areas more intensely. I didn't learn F1 before moving to F2…I would still be studying it if I tried to learn it that way. Everyone learns differently but it worked for me.

FAR 04/11/2016 - 84
AUD 05/12/2016 - 79
BEC 07/06/2016 - 81
REG 08/29/2016

[iamstrong]

Question for those cramming,
How do you get through the material so quickly? Becker advises 2 chapters a week which I think is a lot! For FAR- that is immense.
I'm listening to the lectures, going over the material and then MCQ.
How is everyone else doing it?

[Moeshow]

@KSOZE

Can you break down how exactly you studied the material by cramming? Did you disregard the lecture videos or what did you exact do? I've passed two parts so far, FAR AND BEC, but I feel like at the end of doing all the lecture videos I pretty much forget all the material and then my testing date nears and I indirectly cram. Love to find a more efficient way of studying, so I do not forget the material.

BEC 2/26/2016 81
FAR 05/2016

Purely Roger CPA Review, for now!

[bhunt815]

@Rgleicher – I watched all the lectures and highlighted the book within a week and a half or so without really working many MCQ's. Then instead of doing the questions and SIM's for the individual chapters I started with the progress tests. I found that I had a solid understanding of some of the principals and a weaker understanding of others. I would then spend a day on a problem area, go back to the progress tests, and repeat as the progress tests showed me where my weak areas were. Within 3 weeks for BEC and AUD and 4 weeks for FAR and REG I was averaging over 80 for the progress tests. With a week left i would get in as many SIM's as possible, then read the entire book the 2 days before the actual test. That last step was important for me.

FAR 04/11/2016 - 84
AUD 05/12/2016 - 79
BEC 07/06/2016 - 81
REG 08/29/2016

[KSOZE]

@Moeshow, yes I disregarded books and lectures. For me personally, they are a complete and utter waste of time. If I'm not ACTIVELY engaged in learning, it goes in one ear and out of the other. Even if I take notes, it's such a passive activity that it doesn't yield efficient study time for me. I can certainly do it, and it will help somewhat, but it is far from efficient. If I did the prescribed Becker or Wiley methods, what took me 75-100 hours to learn would have taken me more than double that time. If you have all the time in the world and are not working, then great! You will probably feel more comfortable with the material and feel great taking the tests over a 9-12 month period. This was not ideal for me, however, since I want to spend time with my wife and son and have to work full time.

My method involved using only the MCQ's with NINJA, going through each subject one by one taking “Show me only new questions” until I had seen everything once. I did not worry about my scores whatsoever – only on taking notes about what I got wrong and why. I utilized all the resources that NINJA gives you when you get something wrong, and I focused more closely on why something was wrong than why it was right. For whatever reason, this kept my brain engaged and hungry for more information. If I had trouble with a specific topic, I'd hit Google and YouTube hard. There are so many good resources out there.

I focused on hammering the MCQ's until I answered everything correctly at least once (Review stage on NINJA) before my exam (wasn't possible for my time constraint for REG), and taking so many MCQ I thought I was going to vomit. I estimate this saved me about 50-100 hours per section from the prescribed Wiley/Becker method.

BEC - 80
FAR - 81 (third attempt)
AUD - waiting for score 8/23
REG - 09/08/2016 - going to cram and wing it

OH Ethics - Completed

[Anonymous]

@OP

i totally agree with you. took me 20days to study for each exam bcz i kept procrastinating. i guess i just dont study/budget time effectively unless my ass is on fire w test date looming. brings out what psychiatrists call hyperfocus

i studied about 5/hr a day on avg after work, roughly 100hr/test. basically went out of commission from life for 3 weeks, incl. weekends.

i skipped the lectures, and read the Becker books cover to cover taking notes (except most of biz law in REG, F10 in FAR, foreign/hedging/derivs/WC in BEC and other obscure topics.) if my Becker hadn't expired i suspect i could have shaved more time off if i used the highlighted “e-book” they have on their portal. after reading the books on my own i did NINJA MCQ very diligently going for quality over quantity. no section did i ever hit 1000 MCQ's in NINJA or hit the review phase, but i made sure to get them from each section.

i am a huge proponent of cramming. i am glad it worked out for you as well.

[iamstrong]

Thanks everyone for posting.
Maybe i'm just too old school- but for me, the lectures are a broad overview and they talk kind of fast so I feel I need to go back over the material. I do notice that the testing questions focus on a few main areas. If you just did progress tests- is there a way in BECKER to prevent you from seeing the same question over and over?

[KSOZE]

@Rgleicher – the Becker method is “tried and true” for some. For me, it was completely worthless. I don't have the time to go through the lectures and the book. The questions are all I need to study, and it worked for me.

I don't know about Becker, but with NINJA, you can select “show only new questions” which is what I did until I saw them all 1 time, then I hammered my weak areas, taking notes the whole time. I already had a broad overview in college – I don't need instructors to review for me. That's what this method does. YMMV.

BEC - 80
FAR - 81 (third attempt)
AUD - waiting for score 8/23
REG - 09/08/2016 - going to cram and wing it

OH Ethics - Completed

[Pete E. Rino]

I couldn't agree more. I studied from End of June until September for BEC and like with less than two weeks I was out of it. I was so depressed, couldn't study, retain anything, etc. What was worse was I was also taking Audit 5 days before BEC. I had Audit Sept 2 and BEC on the 7th. I only studied like 2 days a week for 2 months for Audit, and really just the MCQ and SIMS. I was going into Audit totally not giving a crap at that point cause I was so out of it. Although that did help a bit because I was not worried at all. Ended up finishing with an hour left and saw my grade of 78 yesterday, which I was so relieved at.

When I was taking the BEC exam I was out of it during the exam. My mind was so tired from all the studying. I was tired from no rest, and the questions were like holy crap, I don't know this. I guessed on about 20-30 of those questions and when I finished I told the lady I would be seeing her next time for BEC cause I thought I did horribly. Ended up getting a 91 which really shocked me since I thought I did much better on Audit than BEC.

From what I learned, I can't take that long to study anymore. It doesn't pay. Your mind needs to be fresh when you take the exam. Taking FAR on Nov 2nd and I already know Nov 1 I am relaxing. No studying, nothing. 6 weeks for FAR is good enough I think. I am better in FAR and REG (hopefully taking that in the first 10 days of December). That will give me 4 weeks for REG but I am not so worried. I am good with tax and law stuff and that is why I saved it until the end. Hard sections first (BEC + AUD), easier sections last (FAR + REG).

[iamstrong]

Hi Pete,

6 weeks for FAR? How did you get through all the material and review in 6 weeks? I would love to get FAR over with! Becker has 200-250 questions per chapter and there are 10 chapters for FAR.

For those who are cramming- how are you doing it? I hear about people doing hundred of questions a night- I'm thinking, how are they understanding everything?

[dnob04]

Was discussing this with a friend the other day. I told him that it's ineffective for me to study longer than 4 weeks. (I gave myself 6 for FAR due to length) I end up not retaining the information I spent hours learning because there are so many details throughout the text.

He responded “oh so you perform better by cramming”

But is studying every single day thirty straight for three to four hours a day really considered a “cram”

Cram in my college days, and I attended a pretty reputable business school, was study the weekend before. If I studied 30 days straight for an exam in college I'd feel like a well-prepared scholar. lol

[Author]

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