[S1CPA]

I’ve been preparing for my 2nd try at REG for a little while now (off and on for the last 4 or 6 weeks) Of course, I studied it earlier when I took REG the first time, and although I obviously didn’t have enough to pass, I still remembered a decent amount of it. Planning to turn it on and start reviewing hard for the next 3 weeks. If I can pass REG on 5/5 then I will be all done.

My general gameplan for trying to pass this is just to hammer the Becker MC questions. My question is…

It is hard to differentiate in my mind whether I am actually learning the material from the MC questions, or just remembering the answer because I have seen the question before. Wondering if other people have had this problem as well, and how they deal with it.

I have created a separate list to keep track of what things are included in gross income, qualifying adjustments/deductions, characteristics of C corps and S corps, etc etc

AUD - 80 April 2015
FAR - 77 August 2015
REG - 60 October 2015, 73 May 2016, 75 July 2016
BEC - 79 January 2016

[Nessie]

The difference between the actual exam and most prep courses is the quality of the answers. The folks who write the actual CPA exams write the questions straightforwardly, however, put time into dealing 4 very good answers making choosing between them difficult. It is the opposite with the prep courses- there is only one or two good answers.

So the answer to your question is lean the material.

REG Aug 20/15: 88
AUD: Feb 29/16: 80
FAR: Jun 10/16: 80
BEC?

Becker self-study, Becker Final Review & NINJA MCQS

[S1CPA]

@Nessie…thank you, I understand that learning the material is more beneficial in passing the exam as opposed to memorizing the practice questions. However, my fear in reviewing the practice questions multiple times is that I am only memorizing the answers as opposed to actually learning the material.

AUD - 80 April 2015
FAR - 77 August 2015
REG - 60 October 2015, 73 May 2016, 75 July 2016
BEC - 79 January 2016

[ericl2]

Try not looking at the answers while you are reading the question. If this doesn't work…not only answer the question, answer the reason why the answer is correct and the others are wrong. By determining why an answer is correct…you aren't memorizing the answer…but are understanding the material.

[Nessie]

S1, then the only way to avoid this is to use another prep course's MCQ's.

It seems everyone wants to hammer out thousands of MCQ's. I get it, little bite sized facts, and you get a sense of satisfaction when you get one correct. Fewer people want to do the heavy lifting, which is actually read and learn the material. I liken doing MCQ's to going to the golf range and only practicing drives. It feels great yes but all you are going to do is become a good driver, when half the game is actually putting, which no one ever wants to practice.

If you are asking my opinion, I would say read the Becker textbook again. Block off 2 hours at a time to read and understand.

REG Aug 20/15: 88
AUD: Feb 29/16: 80
FAR: Jun 10/16: 80
BEC?

Becker self-study, Becker Final Review & NINJA MCQS

[MaLoTu]

A big part of the understanding is being able to explain to yourself or someone else why the other answers aren't right… Especially when they are close.
Sometimes I recall all the things I know about a topic before I look at the answer choices, even if I have sort of memorized the answer.

[Jdn9201]

Practicing MCQ's is important but I think a mistake people make is valuing quantity over quality. I never hit 1,000 MCQ's on any of my sections because I cared more about the answer explanations than the answers themselves. Who cares if you've done 5,000 MCQ's if you don't understand WHY an answer is right or wrong? I was concerned about this, so I forced myself to slow down and read every question twice before picking an answer – even the easier ones. I also tried not to look at the answers while reading the question. I also never repeated a question because I didn't want it to skew my stats. As apart of my review, I would pull up all of the questions I did (Roger) and filter by incorrect questions, then read the answer explanations but I actually never repeated questions.

BEC - 88 8/29/15
REG - 82 11/14/15
AUD - 83 1/8/16
FAR - 80 2/29/16

[Anonymous]

@jdn9201 i agree with you! i never even scratched the 1000 question mark on any of the 3 tests i passed.

OP, read the question and try to answer it as if it wasnt a MCQ. i.e. assume the answer choices aren't there.

[Author]

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