[12OatK]

Most of my friends who are taking REG always complain about how “boring” it is. Boring? Ha, I would KILL for it to be “boring” to me, at least that would imply that I am getting at least some degree of knowledge out of the material. The problem is the entire book is written in some legalese BS that actually makes no sense to me. I can handle boring, I can’t handle something that is written in such a way that I don’t understand even the basic premise of it, let alone how to apply it in practice. There has to be some sort of trick because I can’t believe that there would be people out there who read Becker and are able to actually connect the dots after the lectures.

[Lindsey_p87]

The “trick” to any of the exams is practice. REG especially so, I think. Doing MCQ is the only way it will come together. You have to force yourself to apply the information, and it will take many times of getting questions wrong to get there. One other thing I would suggest is taking a look at the actual IRS forms to see how they all flow. Have those on the side as you're going through the tax info in Becker so that you can reference them.

FAR - PASSED 11/14
AUD - TBD
BEC - TBD
REG - First take 2/16

[Journeyman]

it might sound time consuming, but the trick for me was google. You’re right, I feel like Becker teaches at a professional level as though we’ve been familiar with these terms through years of experience… what I did was whenever they said something that I wasn’t comfortable with, I’d google it. At first I was googling a lot, but soon the google searches decreased and I was very comfortable with the material. There is no “trick;” no easy way out. Just have to find how to blend your materials teaching style with your learning style (whether that be writing it all down, googling, or whatever your thing may be).

[bigstakk]

I used GLEIM and had no issue with the material. GLEIM is notoriously more difficult than the actual exam and I can attest that it’s true. I personally have been shooting to score between 80-85 and I did so no problem with GLEIM for each section. I’ve heard Becker is hit or miss for REG and BEC. End of the day just study hard and practice MCQs to figure out how to apply the concepts since it’s difficult to understand the material without working through problems. Good luck!

[aaronmo]

Which part are you having a hard time with? Did you have a federal tax class? That would probably help a lot with the tax piece.

As far as the contracts law, commerce code…etc…that's the one area of the exam I had experience in beforehand, so it was pretty easy for me. A simple business law class might help? I'm not sure what parts you're having an issue with.

As others said above, I googled often when I didn't understand something…and investopedia is a FANTASTIC resource.

For tax…what helped me was having an excel sheet that tracked the different entities and the differences between them. How they distribute money, how they're liquidated, how they calculate capital gains, how they calculate basis, how they're formed…

So track the differences between an 1120s (S-corp), 1065 (partnership/LLC partnership), 1040 (individual/schedule C), and C-corp(1120). I don't recall if there was much with trusts/non-profits.

[Author]

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