[Fratty Redneck]

My exam is September 8th. I wish I felt more motivated to knock this thing out. I have becker, ninja notes, ninja MCQ and ninja flashcards. Should I just keep pounding MCQ until my exam? I feel like it is definitely my most productive means of studying but have also never trended this bad, so starting to feel like I need to change something up.

I’ve only attempted 270 questions…

[Anonymous]

You'll need to be doing 100-200 questions every day to get to 1500 MCQs by test day.

What's better motivation than this should be your 3rd pass?

[Fratty Redneck]

@Almond that's a great question. It could potentially be my 4th pass if I pulled off a miracle on BEC back in July. I guess college football's return has my attention. I need to get myself in gear and hammer MCQ until I'm sick.

[Anonymous]

You have barely done any questions, thus your trending score is really low…You have to get through all of them at least once, then go through the ones “missed last time seen” and then you will likely find yourself in much better shape and feeling more confident. Ninja MCQ are pretty soul crushing the first time around… Just keep going! I usually try to get through as many as I can right away and then work on the problem ones.

[CPAcandidate3]

@Fratty Redneck

I would stop doing MCQ and go over the sections where you are struggling the most. To me the MCQs are a great way of confirming and maintaining your knowledge/understanding of each topic. I think you can strengthen your understanding through MCQ but I don't think it's affective in gaining your understanding of the topic.

There may be some areas where you understand the material but with a 51% you must have some areas where you're testing 30%-40% which means you're practically guessing with those topics. In the areas where you are struggling I would go back and read the book or listen to the lectures again. Once you're done with that go back to the MCQ and repeat the process after another 200-300 MCQ if there are any areas where you aren't making your way towards 70%. Also always make sure to only do new questions. I've studied that way for every test averaging around 55 hrs a test and it hasn't failed me yet.

I think doing MCQs when you really don't understand the topic is a huge waste of time.

[Anonymous]

I think doing MCQs when you really don't understand the topic is the best use of time.

But that's just me.

[Scared-cpa]

Only you know how well/not well you know the material. You need to use that information to decide if you want to look back over material or keeping doing MCQs. When I first used Ninja for FAR, I was trending probably about the same you were…maybe in the mid 50s. But 200 some questions is not nearly enough to get a good idea of where you'll be at. If your exam is Sept 8th, I'd really be pushing as many MCQs as possible. I am sitting the 8th for BEC and started my final review two weeks ago. But anyway, back to FAR, I would say keep doing questions and allow yourself to mess up and not get many right for a couple days. Don't get angry or frustrated when you get a question wrong. Instead, read the explanation, check out the definitions included with each question, and try to understand why the correct answer is right and why the others are wrong. When I finally sat for FAR, I was averaging 70 and trending 85ish and passed with an 82. Good luck.

[M123]

270 questions in – just starting.

It's GREAT that your score is what it is – about the only way to go is up. You will likely experience a hockey stick like learning curve. It will be hell for the first 700-800 questions, then things start to click.

I know the adaptive learning requires more questions but I did 1200 questions for pre-change FAR and passed. You can do eet. Look for the hockey stick – not the specific trending score. Guarantee you get pumped when it starts going up.

Alternate “quality” and “quantity”. One day – shoot for 60 very high quality questions. The next day shoot for 120-150 questions. Then focus on problem areas. Then iterate. I did 90-120 questions a day, sometimes 150.

[shawn in VA]

I never understood people who do anything more than 1,000 MCQs (even that is a lot). I have heard stories on here about people doing 3,000 plus MCQs

You have to at least look at the book and understand the concepts. If you can do that then you “should” be able to answer anything thrown at you on the exam

[shawn in VA]

I have NEVER got any MCQs in my review materials that showed up word for word on the exam. Similarities – yes but not identical.

[shawn in VA]

at some point your just memorizing the answers

[Anonymous]

Agree with @Shawn , 1,000 questions should be good enough unless you know all the stuff already anyway and don't need a lot of practice. I think Roger had like 1,700 questions (MCQ + SIM) for FAR and I worked them all. But 3,000+, absolutely no way, that is too many for the average person. Yeah, you get the drill down and the repetition is good. But that seems overkill. What I was gonna say though is, and most people on here seem to be of the same opinion, that practice exams and trending scores are not a good reflection of how well you'll do on exam day. So I wouldn't worry about that end of it.

[Anonymous]

It really comes down to what you can retain and how you test. There's too much material to rely on only 1000 MCQs for most of these tests. Studying for over a month is also a risk due to loss of recollection.

[Anonymous]

Also, when you combine Ninja with Gleim, there is no way you can memorize the MCQs. You know the concepts. Do the MCQs.

Just my 2 cents.

[Author]

Replies