[fwesley]

I took REG and FAR in October because I had BEC expiring 10/31 and had to wait 4 months for scores due to the upgrade blah blah.

74 REG
71 FAR

Retook FAR and JUST found out I failed. 68. What the?! I take FAR Saturday.

I am completely fried from studying. I use Roger’s and my practice scores were really good! Ugh – I just want to quit the whole thing.

Passed AUD and BEC – BEC now expired. Had 2 tests, now I have 3. And I can’t seem to pass REG or FAR and I’m so fried!!!!! I’ve been trying to do this whole thing for 4 years. So want to give up!

Annnnnd that whole you have to wait for scores AGAIN! I retake REG 4/7 for scores 6/27 or whatever. Sooooo long!

FAR: 65 (still drying my tears) 2nd attempt: 7/2016
BEC: 81 5/2016 (WOO FIRST PASS!)
REG: 5/2016
AUD: 8/2016

[Aqua Maheen]

You are not alone. I failed REG for the FOURTH time. After my fifth try next month, BEC will expire. I don't know where to go from here 🙁

63,72,73,69

[jdub]

Honestly, I told my husband last night that joining this forum helps me. I feel WAY less alone. People I know in the industry are often like “oh I passed them all on the first try, it wasn't that bad you just have to study”. Or “I just didn't sleep for 6 months”. Or “I just quit my job to study”.

I'm the kind of person that I'm 100% worthless if I don't get around 7 hours of sleep. I don't function at work or at home to study, and it becomes counter productive. I learned that in college. And I don't want to quit my job!

It took me FOUR times to pass REG. I'm on my THIRD chance at AUD. And I've lost my BEC credit. I've managed to score TWO 74's and I would much rather bomb it. I also had someone tell me they didn't believe I got a 74 because “when they took it they didn't tell you if you missed it by that margin”. It's absolutely infuriating to feel like people don't get it. And this forum makes me feel like I'm not alone because it is hard.

I take a long time to study. People that blow through exams in the same quarter are awesome – that doesn't work for me. Which is partly why I lost my BEC credit because of how long I took to re-study material. And I HAVE to give myself a brain break after work or I'm not productive. I would suggest to make sure you're getting quality over quantity in regards to study time. I don't have tax experience so learning REG has been like learning a foreign language to me because I haven't taken a tax class in 5 years and my tax professors sucked and I barely passed.

My only other advice is don't quit. The further removed from my degree I get the harder I find this. Because unfortunately (or fortunately) it isn't like this in the real world. You have software and templates and coworkers as a resource without all this dumb memorization.

[Anonymous]

jdub, your story is really inspiring. I went back to school at age 55 for this, and I was way slower at grasping the new material than my classmates were. (I think, though, that once I understood it, I could apply it to other situations and internalize it better.) As for sleep–Any journey that requires me to get less than 7 hours of sleep a night will be a journey untaken. And I agree, REG is very much like a different language.

Your story is all about grit. Just refusing to give up. Good for you. Grit is the key to success.

[Anonymous]

@fwesley – you got your score back on FAR so quickly? You took it on 3/10 and it's 3/20 today and you already know how you did? 72 is admirable. You achieved something. Actually any scores in from 60-74 are commendable even if they're failed scores. It means you had a clue. You might consider changing up your study program. Roger didn't work for me either and i did well on the practice questions. I'm using cpareviewforfree d-o-t c-o-m questions. I've dropped enough money on Roger and the exam fees, i just kinda don't want to pay more money than i have to right now.

About REG, it's so frustrating, the new tax laws and all…i won't have a chance to do REG before the second half of this year i don't think. So, the test I get will be on the new tax laws. Or, if I manage to do it before then, and happen to fail, my retake will be on the new tax laws. Arrrgh.

[vorobjeva44]

Aqua, I failed Reg for 4th time with 73. Need to plan a retake on April 2. Lets go to Q2 Reg thread. 🙂

[loveandbeloved]

@fwesley – OMG, I passed BEC and AUD and my BEC just expired. I was halfway through, now I'm 1 out of 4. Ugh! I have til November to pass 3 exams before I lose AUD. One thing that hindered my studying these last 3 months was going back and forth between FAR and REG. Failed FAR, then REG, then FAR again. I was so hung up on my NTS and BEC score expiring that I didn't take adequate time studying for either section and rushed myself into sitting before I was ready. Had I just accepted the fact that I was going to lose BEC and studied for FAR for 8 weeks STRAIGHT (not 3 or 4 before and after REG), I probably would have passed FAR by now. Your scores are WAYYY better than mine! You're so close! Don't give up! I know we don't have a lot of time to take these exams, but try giving yourself more time to study. I'm gonna try to sit for FAR in May and BEC in June. I don't work right now, so hopefully I can be better prepared this next time around.

[loveandbeloved]

@fwesley – Not sure if you've already gone to the “Free Downloads” page here, https://www.another71.com/ninja-study-planner/ but I just got the Study Planner for FAR and plan to use this NINJA framework with my full premium Gleim course. I don't like reading a chapter, doing MCQs, then SIMs, and going back to the book and reading another chapter.
I feel it slows me down going back to reading the book since I feel I'm beginning to pick up speed when I start hitting MCQs and SIMS. Also, it's pointless hitting MCQs when I haven't mastered the concepts yet. Makes no sense to me. I would much rather read the book from cover to cover first like Jeff suggests, then do MCQs non-stop. So I'm glad the NINJA framework is like this as time management and having an EFFECTIVE Study Plan is my problem here. I like checklists, and trying to create daily goals on my calendar has gotten pointless as I can't seem to stick to my daily goals. There are daily/weekly logs to help us stay on track. I'm totally going to use this to pass FAR (May 8th – 7 weeks) and BEC (June 9th – 4.5 weeks) in Q2. I hope you are able to pass your remaining 3 sections before your AUD expires in October. I'll keep you in my prayers!

[strkr2115]

@fwesley

How are you studying like? Are you just practicing MCQ? I personally feel that with the new exam format, you should spent a bit more time on TBS questions, seeing that it is half the exam now. What I did after my failing REG my first time was to redo the whole REG section and doing a fresh start, but since I have my notes and did study previously, things were more understandable the second time around. I went through the all the sections before doing each section chapter MCQ one at a time and making sure to read why I got something wrong. I personally didn't pay attention to score and always marked it wrong if I had to guess or got it wrong for later. After going through all the MCQ, and TBS questions. I went back to the core subjects that were likely to appear such as Corporate Tax, Individual Tax, and Forms of organization such as LLP and LLC etc, and mainly did TBS questions to practice and understand more.

Left myself about a week to review my notes from beginning to end and did some light mcq from the core chapters I felt was important. This time around I scored a 82. I scored a 68 previously and felt devastated when I saw that. I used Rogers CPA Review both times. So, I believe that you can do it. Just pretend you never took the REG exam and start fresh imo. It helps with the mindset, because if you keep thinking about failure, it will affect your mood and make your studying less productive.

Wish you the Best on your Studying and success!

[Luma]

I passed REG, BEC, and FAR my first time. Studied 3 weeks (working full time) for audit and got a 74. I had never failed anything in my life. I did the Gleim study material twice. Literally twice, even read EVERYTHING twice, did all the MCQs and about 150 sims. I did this for 3 and a half weeks. I purchased Becker with just 2 and a half weeks before my scheduled exam. I watched every single video on 1.75 speed. I did every single MCQ and most of the sims. I got a 93 my second time around.

You have to let all the fear and anger drive you to study harder than you studied the first time. You have 75 points to go. You have to restudy what you know best and restudy and review what you were weak on.

Start from zero. Like it is your first time studying, and you can def do it!

[Author]

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