[Anonymous]

I have RogerCPA as well as the NINJA 10 point combo.

This journey started about June of last year. Failed FAR and failed AUD. I am re-studying FAR right now. My last exam was I believe in like November. That was AUD. I have continuously scheduled, slacked and rescheduled. And then when I reschedule I get into that mindset where since I just added a month to my timeframe, I can take the next day or two off. Then that leads to a week. I am 5 years out of college, so I seriously forgot how to study.

I have the time and I make the time. I sit down, have everything in front of me, I begin the Roger CPA videos and then it is like a black out, wake up and 3 hours have passed. Or, I have a 30 min lecture video in front of me, I hit play and then after the video ends, 3 hours have passed and I have accomplished nothing. Every night I go to bed learning not even 1 fact from the day.

I’ve gained about 20 pounds since beginning this journey. I feel guilty for not using every second outside of work to study. Too stressed and worried about devoting every minute to either eating, sleeping and studying that I honestly don’t have the time to work out.

Every night I go to bed kicking myself but then all of a sudden a rush of motivating telling myself that I can do this. Tomorrow I am going to buckle down and just put into the time and energy. I do exactly that. I come home form work, grab a bit to eat quickly and then sit at my desk, fire up a lecture video and then I black out and wake up 3 hours later. The same thing happens every single day.

What the hell is going on? How do I make this work? I have the time, and I am using it, but I am just running in place here. I am accomplishing nothing.

I tried mixing roger and ninja and I felt like that just made things a lot worse. I need structure. I’d think we all do and I felt jumping back and forth really screwed that structure and just made things worse.

So it is either one or the other. Is Roger video lectures and mcq’s enough? Do I need to read his texts as well? Can’t I just use the notes on his lecture videos rather than the books?

I also have ninja 10 point. If I just read the ninja book and do ninja mcq’s. Is that enough?

I can’t supplement the two. It has to be one or the other.

I need to find a plan and do it. I need to figure out how not to black out. I need to pass this this year. It cannot carry over into 2017.

In a perfect world I’d read the ninja book, take notes, re write note, take ninja notes, re-write over and over. Condense notes and create “fact nuggest” and then do non stop MCQ’s until my ears bleed. The perfect world is laid out in front of some people. But that whole process right there is months. And then by the time you do it, you have forgotten most of everything from a week prior. What a realistic timetable?

Anybody experience anything like this?

EDIT: Thinking about completely ditching Roger and going with NINJA.

Maybe something like this:

1. Read NINJA Book (Should I read it one time through without notes and then 2nd time through w/ taking notes?)

2. Re-write notes (If I right notes from my readings of the books, are the use of NINJA notes basically obsolete?)

3. FAR Blitz videos

4. Multiple choice questions (maybe use Blitz vids as review between the MCQs and the exam?)

5. Exam

Oh, my FAR is scheduled in 3 weeks 🙂

[TheHoundThatRides]

“an hour has passed and I am staring at the screen zoned out and have absorbed nothing. Or, same thing happens, but I feel like I understand the material but then I go and do Roger MCQ and I struggle.”

Is there really not ONE chapter you understood?

Let's take the first chapter for example. The first chapter is tough since there's a lot you can skim through and there is a lot that you will understand later on. Don't even try and wrap your head around IFRS or Fair Value Method just yet. But there are important pieces that he emphasizes that you really have to learn. Like the “CUT LIKE A V” “FENCE” type mnemonics. Did you at least learn that stuff?

Also it's completely natural to do terrible on the MCQ even if you feel like you understood a chapter! That's ok! Just do enough MCQ till you can get satisfactory scores on short quizzes. MCQ are there to teach you how to apply the knowledge to the exam. It's still part of the learning process.

BEC - 78 (August 2015)
FAR - 80 (November 2015)
AUD - 73, 67. (Ok I gotta confess I was even more lazy this time around)
REG - August 27th, 2016

[Zuly]

Another piece of advice I have used is to do the MCQs your first time through using your notes/book, like an open test. At least in Roger you'll notice he asks similar questions multiple times just worded differently…which makes it super easy and probably why he's not good to use as only MCQ bank but great for learning. You really have to take your time to absorb the information. No, just watching the videos and taking notes is not enough but you also don't have to read the whole book. So far I've noticed that as long as I go back and do the MCQs using the book and take notes as I go along you'll get the most of what is covered in the section. Use NINJA MCQs to fill in the gaps.

FAR - (11/01/14) 71 (02/07/15) 79
AUD - (04/30/15) 86
BEC - (07/21/15) 73 (10/01/15) 75
REG - (11/30/15) 55 (05/19/16) 74

[confusedcandidate]

“I have continuously scheduled, slacked and rescheduled. And then when I reschedule I get into that mindset where since I just added a month to my timeframe, I can take the next day or two off. Then that leads to a week.”

“I seriously forgot how to study.”

“fire up a lecture video and then I black out and wake up 3 hours later.”

I'll be the jerk and give you some tough love. Seems like you have no discipline or focus at all – your study methods aren't the problem here. It isn't about Becker vs Roger vs Ninja. You just don't seem committed, focused, or energized at all about actually studying and getting work done. I mean, you openly admit to slacking off. I don't know you, and I'm basing this off one block of text you wrote, but my opinion is that you need to sharpen the heck up and stop whining.

THAT BEING SAID. You might also have an underlying medical issue or family problem or something that we don't know about, again we're all just strangers on the internet. The way you talk about blacking out and losing time is pretty worrying. I'm not a doctor, but I would definitely mention that the next time you see one…

Hope that wasn't too rude. Best of luck.

Weekends are meaningless to a CPA candidate

[Author]

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