[Abdulmajid]

Hi everyone,

I am statistics man 🙂 and always feel curios how many actual averaged hours take to pass a section

Have you passed any section ? share with us how many hours did you take for study and the score you got
it is also cool if you would to let us know your daily average hours and your CPA Review Course for each section

I would to start but unfortunately didn’t pass any section so far – so I will share my experience with you as soon as I crush the next exam 🙂

Here you go and just bold the number of hours and the passing score

[Recked]

How many hours did you invest in your 5-6 fails?

I invested 250 hours in FAR, I'll let you know in a few weeks if it was enough.

[Abdulmajid]

To be honest I wasn't care of the hours so can't give an accurate answer
Thats why I am initiating this post here 🙂

Hope to hear a good news about your FAR score soon

[Anonymous]

passed 3 of 4 (passed AUD twice) and have spent about 1 million hours so far and about 1.5 million on FAR thus far. Run away while you still can….

[Ana]

BEC & AUD – approx 144 hours each
REG – approx 180
FAR – approx a million

[TommyTheCat]

REG – approx. 100
BEC – approx. 60
AUD – approx. 85
FAR – probably 90 so far, planning on another 30 hours or so in the next two weeks.

Typically would study for 2 hours every other night during the week and then about 3 hours each day on weekends.

[Anonymous]

I started studying last October 18th. Since then, I pretty much studied at least 2 hours every day. Took a month off between AUD (April 7th) and REG (started studying end of April) and took a month of July-Aug.

[tygolfer]

FAR – Approx. 120
REG – Approx. 120
AUD – Approx. 100
BEC – Approx. 95

You can see my scores below, only took 1 test per quarter and managed to finish in under a year.

[Abdulmajid]

@TommyTheCat interesting scores you got comparing to your study hours! especially REG
would you share in summary your study method

[Justin]

BEC – 85-90 hrs
AUD – 90-100 hrs
REG – 120 hrs
FAR – 150-175 hrs

Just a tip- I'm sure most people who have passed a couple parts of the exam can agree that # of hrs are different for every candidate and its all about the way you study. As long as you are committed to studying every day and are diligent and have self discipline (no procrastinating), then you will be more prepared. Good luck and don't quit!

FAR- 2/29/16
REG-
BEC-
AUD-

[Abdulmajid]

Thanks @Justin for the valuable tip – its absolutely correct
# of hrs is nothing but a factor

[TommyTheCat]

Abdul – sure thing. I am using roger, and I followed his 12 month study planner, which budgets more time for the longer sections (REG, FAR) and less for the shorter, especially BEC. I think he only budgets like 6 weeks for BEC.

I watch the entire chapters lecture videos, while following along in the textbook and highlighting sections i thought were relevant or stood out as hard for me to grasp or remember. I don't highlight just to highlight…I try and only highlight stuff that I think is either super relevant, or super confusing to me so that I come back to it. I in general only plan to touch my book again to skim through a chapter reading only the highlighted stuff.

After each chapter I do the MCQs from the test bank in that specific chapter. I do MCQs in bunches of about 30 questions and 2 sims.

Sometimes I will watch a few chapters of lectures and then switch to the MCQ to let myself get in the zone for one and then the other, all the while making sure I stick to the rough schedule of the study planner….don't get behind and dont slack. That's the worst you can do.

I make sure I read each question's explanation if I got the MCQ or sim wrong, and I have a word doc open on one screen that I take notes on each question I got wrong. I just keep that word doc running as I study. I don't just copy and paste the software's explanation for a wrong answer…I make myself re-write it in words that make sense to me. Currently I am 30 chapters in on the FAR section out of the 31 total and I have a 18 page long word doc with all my sentence or two notation for each MCQ or sim concept I got wrong, and I think it was almost 30 pages alone for my AUD section.

After I complete the entire course of lectures and MCQs, I go review that word doc for a day or so, I then re-do all the MCQ that I had gotten wrong. Most test banks allow you to filter a new quiz to only show you questions you've missed, I do that. This allows me to test again all the questions I just study from the word doc.

After doing all of that, I do a couple full blown simulated exams through the roger software, and with any spare time I may have I may rewatch a lecture chapter or two if it shows as one of my glaringly weak areas.

The MCQ software lets me see how I performed by chapter, so I can easily see any sections I am struggling in. Anything I am below a 75 I revisit if I have time.

It's hard to make time to do all of the above sometimes, but it has worked for me and seeing it work motivates me to keep on trucking.

Good luck to you in your exams.

[Bourne]

Tommy – you do all of that in 100 hours? That's hard to believe.

[Bluetoothray]

forgot. Don't care to try and remember. Sunk costs and all. 🙂 BEC tip.

[TommyTheCat]

yes, I only review the textbook for chapters I struggle with so I dont find myself really doing a whole lot of that.

If you add up the lecture video time its about half or 1/3 of my total study time. Then I basically just drill MCQ and sims and take notes and retake questions with the rest of that time.

Bear in mind I have also been working in public accounting for 10 years and have a very good grasp on the REG and BEC and pretty well on FAR just from the education I've received on the job. Audit was the only subject I have sorta struggled to study for…REG FAR and BEC are all super relevant to my day to day.

I think for me putting off these exams for the years I have has made it harder to find time in my life now to study, with the responsibilities of my job, my wife/kid, the mortgage, family and community obligations. However, putting it off so long has also on the other side of things helped me, in that i know so much better the overall accounting concepts being tested and how it all fits together. I learn by doing, so having spent 10 years learning things in running businesses and what not has made it stick so much better than just learning it from textbooks.

[mad max]

AUD – 82 (150 Hr)
BEC – 90 (150 Hr)
FAR – 90 (200 Hr)
REG – 86 (200 Hr)

Materials Used
Ninja MCQ, Ninja Audio, Becker Textbooks

As for the textbooks, my manager lent me her set… I'm sure you can substitute with Wiley or Ninja textbooks instead. I see Bonanza has each book for Wiley for 2017 at $39 each.

Time Breakdown
85-90%: Ninja MCQ (Broken down between 90-95% MCQs & 5-10% SIMs)
5%: Ninja Audio (Listened two or three times back to front during commute)
5-10%: Textbook and other Reference Materials (Usually started from not having the knowledge behind an MCQ question)

What works for one person may not work for another. My best advice is to make a game plan and stick to it. For example, I never read any of the books, and I did the vast majority of my learning through the MCQ themselves. On the other hand, many people may prefer to read and take notes, and spend less time drilling questions that they have not prepared for. Find a method that works for you and there will be no reason to switch.

The other important factor is to not give yourself a break or get too relaxed before you are officially done. There are two ways this will commonly happen. First is for those who fail a first attempt, especially those scoring with a score in the 70-74% range. These people often think that they only need a “minor” boost to their score, and by studying their “weak” areas (and or areas they thought they did badly on during test day) that they can improve their score to a 75. This often spells doom. A similar trap can be observed for those who pass a section (or combination thereof), and decide to take a substantial break before resuming to study for the next section. Or, to those who pass a section with a high score, when they mistakenly think that they do not need to put forth as much effort for a subsequent section.

My personal game plan involved studying 7 days per week (Average 4-5 hrs per day,) taking one exam every 6 weeks, and only giving myself one break total over the six month period. I took two days off between my second and third exams; I took the 2nd exam on a Friday, and started studying for 3rd on the following Monday. By that point studying was so ingrained in me that I even felt bad for not using that time to study. For the other exams, I resumed studying the day following each exam. However, I only ever worked on one exam at a time, and I did not have to re-sit for anything. At the time I was working 9-5 M-F, but I had no other significant obligations and my GF was very supportive. I did absolutely nothing for those six months, but it was worth it!

Good luck!

[Author]

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