Help with study strategy.. a little desperate :(

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  • #198416
    gabygabygo
    Participant

    Howdy, long time lurker, first time poster 🙂

    I am hoping someone may be able to provide some perspective who has been in this boat before. Sorry to be that guy with looking for answers that don’t exist, but I’m kinda at the end of my rope with this test. A little background on me, I have barely passed the first three exams (FAR-76, AUD-75, BEC-78) and before you jump all over me I am happy to pass period! Stating how I did just may lend some perspective to my current dilemma. Also, I managed to pass the first three tests I took on the first time luckily. So that brings me to my current frustration–REG. I have failed twice now with a 73 both times. I know I’ve read some of Jeff’s material and his perspective on barely not passing is that it’s not a fluke, you are missing some key understanding on some parts of the exam. I wholeheartedly agree with this assessment, so now I am attempting to do something different.

    I am not much of a note taker, my studying strategy for the first three exams was to do the whole Roger schtick (watch the videos, read the text, do questions, do more questions…) and that seemed to work. So for REG I did the same thing with no such luck. I repeated the strategy for my second take believing that maybe the second go around would help deepen my understand (and I believe it did to some extent, judging by the unreliable and vague indicator of how I performed on certain areas of the test). Well you know what they say, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

    So for my third attempt I have the Wiley questions bank for REG, NINJA MCQs and NINJA Notes to add to Roger. The problem is that I have started studying and I am a horrible note taker, so I feel like I’m slow as molasses and worry that I won’t get through the review material in time. I’m thinking of going about my new strategy this way: take notes for the sections I have trouble with (tax, mainly) and just go hard at the MCQ. I am planning on doing the NINJA notes strategy for the entirety of the test too, but only taking notes from Roger material for my problem sections. Does this sound semi-reasonable? What worked for you to push you over the edge? I appreciate any insight, I know this question has probably been posted a million times, but as I said.. I’m a little desperate.

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  • #744351
    wombataholic
    Participant

    Barely passing is still passing. Congrats on knocking off the other 3 sections on your first try.

    Your plan sounds viable. Copy the ninja notes twice by hand to a notebook, or to one notebook then from the first notebook to a second one. Do a ton of MCQs – take notes one the ones you get wrong. Mix in some sims and you'll be ready.

    Since you already know that tax will be tough topic, make sure to have ninja mcq feed you questions on it until you get better at it.

    Licensed CPA
    Passed each section on the first try with Ninja Notes/MCQ/Audio

    #744352
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Hi Gaby, if you're looking for a different perspective from someone who has been in the REG boat I made a post a few weeks back. Hope it helps!

    https://www.another71.com/cpa-exam-forum/topic/a-thank-you-to-jeff-24-points

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