[thunderlips]

My REG scores have ranged from 48 to 70 over the last 11 attempts. Studying about 2-3 hours a day during the week and 4-5 hours a day on weekend. What am I doing wrong? Maybe I should give up, I cannot imagine how long it will take me to pass the other 3 sections

[Lindsey_p87]

I would say that, rather than focusing on how much you are studying, you need to focus on HOW you are studying. You could study for 500 hours for REG, but if they are not quality hours where you are truly absorbing the info, you will still fail. If you give us more info on how you are studying (which review course, what is your process, etc.), we can give you more tailored advice. Saying that, please don't give up. Anyone can pass these exams. You just have to find the method that works for you.

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

[Silent]

My first advice would be to stop studying REG. Seriously walk away from it and start doing FAR. You already have memorized all multiple choice questions/answers and are not learning anything new. My question is when did you get 70 and when did you get 48? I ask because if your last score was 70 you are improving. At this point listening to video's are pointless, i assume you done it all 11 times and probably are very familiar with everything that is said so you are not observing anything or every little. Going to FAR and then coming back to REG will give you a chances to do something different and also let you forget some material. I also advice you to buy different multiple choice package from another prep company. You need to see new question and not keep doing same ones over and over again.

[Recked]

First recommendation is to read the forms and instructions for the most common tax forms including 1040, 1120, 1120S, 1065, Sch A, Sch B, Sch C, Sch D, and Sch E.
It helps to see the forms so you can visualize where the information goes, and the instructions contain important information that will help on the exam.
REG is a very hard topic to read the book and understand, especially if you don't have tax experience.
I used Gleim for the EA exam and my understanding is the EA questions are cooked into the Gleim REG questions so that should help you get a deeper understanding of the tax questions.
If I were in your position I would get the Gleim Testbank and start hammering MCQs. I would try to do everyone at least once, and then focus on areas you are getting scores below 80-85%.
Gleim breaks REG into 20 chapters, and each chapter has 2-7 subunits, so you can really narrow down on your weak areas to see what specific topic or topics are causing you the most trouble.
Freshen up on those topics and continue drilling down on the weak areas until you are testing well on all of them.
I think this will get you over the hump.
–
REG is a different beast than all the other exams. If you have no tax experience I can see this area causing you a real problem.
I can appreciate the advice to switch to a different topic to start fresh, but knowing you still need to clear the REG hurdle on the backend will not help you in any way.
It's like the people that save FAR for last and end up with multiple fails and start losing credits.
Keep at it. Do massive MCQs, you got this! Good luck!

[Anthony]

How exactly are you studying? Are you watching videos/reading or are you working the problems?

Honestly if you been through the process 5+ times, you need reevaluate your strategy. Whatever you are doing ain't cutting it.

[thunderlips]

I have been studying about an hour before work and then during lunch. Routine has been to watch videos and look over notes then do multiple choice questions. Over the weekend I do the same, about a few hours in the morning and another few in the afternoon while adding sims to the mix. My scores have been all over the place, the 70 I received was a while ago, recent score was a 62. I have tried Gleim, Becker, and Wiley over the time of me studying. I am not sure if going after another section is a good idea, especially when I cannot get through this section

[Paul]

I personally see few issues with what you are doing. Putting in few hours a day is just not enough. You need to spend much more time during the week and especially on weekend. Why are you still watching videos? How much notes you have that you are still reading them? My advice is to load as many mcq as you can and hit them non stop. Any question that you miss write it down in notebook. After few days, look over everything you written down and see which same question you keep missing. Re-watch that section only. Try to understand why you are missing those questions. Basically you need to change your approach as it's not working.

[vbmer]

What has been your strategy the last 10 times you took the test? Are you repeating the same strategy over and over?
I echo what has been said above and recommend hammering as many MCQs as possible. No point doing sims until you can do MCQs. (you arguably don't need to practice sims at all for REG) I would also throw away whatever notes you have as they're not working. A private tutor might not be a bad idea, either.

[CPAHOPE]

There are people who can pass without studying that much, obviously that doesnt include you n me. I study 20 hrs during weekends n i barely passed REG on my 5th attempt! If you want it badly, you need to put in way more effort n by the way when you study, make small goals n tell yourself im only going to study for 2rs straight without looking at my phone. Do not do anything else but study n take short breaks! Make small goals each day n you shall pass!

[aaronmo]

What recked said is right on…

First, a disclaimer…I took REG before the exam change and before the TCJA, so I'm not sure how current I am. That said, a lot of things got easier in tax (exemption confusion, AMT simplification, itemized deduction thresholds and floors).

What I did with the tax/entity parts of REG was develop a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet started with entities…so S-corp, C-corp, Partnership, individual, NFP entities(or 1120, 1120S, 1065, 1040, 990). It then had rows with things like distributions, capital gains rates…etc…and it summed the rules, and highlighted the differences between the entities. So it would chart that c-corps issued dividends, while S-corps were pass through entities issuing distributions.

Understand the concepts and mechanisms…that's the key part…the rules.memorization comes second, but is likely less important. I don't recall getting many questions where I had to remember a specific $ threshold for a rule, or a rate, but it was very important to understand the basic mechanics of how forms and entities worked.

The basics are:

How is the entity formed? How does it use/share equity? Who/what are its stakeholders? How does it form basis? What happens with transfers of ownership? WHat happens to losses/gains? What happens when it's liquidated?

I personally would advise taking FAR before REG…as it helps with your basic accounting.

[PC]

There are a finite number of topics for each exam section. By this point, you should have some consistency on how you are scoring on practice exams with whichever provider you're currently using. Why not take a practice exam (or do 100 MCQs), and spend time analyzing which areas you're falling short. Then re-study those areas. Then go back to the questions you got wrong…do you understand them now? Then take another practice exam – rinse and repeat. Just one person's 2 cents.

[Lindsey_p87]

@Some_day – how are you doing on the MCQ in practice, and what are your trending scores going into the exams? If you are going to stick with REG for now, I would suggest purchasing another test bank (Ninja is probably the cheapest) and focusing your energy on MCQ. Stop watching lectures and reading notes. At this point you probably have that memorized. You have to figure out how to apply your knowledge, which only working problems will help you do. I would also assume that you have many of the MCQ memorized at this point as well, which is why I suggest a new test bank. You don't need a whole new course, just a new set of questions that will challenge your ability to apply what you know.

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

[rlarivee01]

I would disagree with the people who say that a few hours a day is not enough. 11 windows is over two years, so if you're doing something that many hours a day, that many days a week, over two years, you are either studying really poorly or not being truthful about the amount of hours you're putting it.

My first question is… what do you not know at this point? The TCJA would have put a wrench in to your plans if you knew a lot of pre-2018 material, but you should have the core concepts down by now.

-Do you get tripped up by the technicalities and little tweaks to contract and agency law questions that you keep missing?

-Does corporate and partnership tax confuse you? Individual?

You're better off at this point finding out what you don't know and working from there.
Also, evaluate your study habits- what are they doing for you?

Personally, I am also doing REG now, and my exam is in 13 days (holy crap! I'm not even 30% through the MCQ!) What I have been doing is to do sets of MCQ, take notes in Word with the self-question “what do I need to know so that I don't get this wrong in the future?”
-Just writing down what the book says or copying verbatim the explanations to MCQ doesn't seem to work for me. So I just take what I need, trying to keep it concise. Next time I see it or similar questions in the MCQ software, I will refer back to my notes. And I will keep that up until I know and understand it, and possibly take it out of my notes to keep them limited to the harder stuff.

I'll have to let people know if this works. I mean, it's not a unique strategy and everyone else is basically doing something similar, but it's what's kept me productive this time around.

[thunderlips]

I have tried doing only multiple choice questions during studying time, trended decent scores. When it came to real test time I scored in the 50s and 60s. I can try a different test bank given Becker, Wiley, and Gleim are not cutting it. I would expand my study hours but I have personal commitments. I did the math and if I am studying 20 hours a week for 50 weeks that is 1000 hours over the span of close to three years is 3000 hours that's a lot with no results

[Silent]

“decent score” is not good enough. You need to be getting high score to near perfect score. Between Becker, Wiley and Gleim there is no way you seen a question on CPA exam that you didn't see on one of those 3 prep classes. You need to start getting overall score in the 90's on those MCQ, Until you actually start understanding the question and being able to answer them consistence you will not pass the exam. Sorry to give you brutal statement, but that is just the truth.

[rlarivee01]

Are you making notes of any kind when you are going through MCQ? I didn't, and I failed.

Sure, I could get the MCQ complete by brute force remembering the question and its answer, but if someone tweaked the numbers in the exact same question, I would get it wrong because I didn't understand how it worked, I matched the number I remember to the question that was asked.

But I'm curious to hear your answer for “what do you not know?” What do you get wrong the most?

[Author]

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