[CPA788]

Hi all. My REG date is 12 days away and I took this week off from work to just bang the material out (using Becker). I usually only study 2 hours each night after work then 4ish each Sat/Sun. How do any of you sit down for a long session like this without getting burnt out and keep on track to get the most out of a week like this?

Back info – Becker has 8 chapters, I’m done with R1-3, crunching out R4-8 this week.

BEC - 74, 77
FAR - 72, 71 (retake 7/29)
REG - 69
AUD - Q4 '16

CA Candidate

[golfball7773]

Yesterday I alternated between 1.5 hours of studying and then 30-45 minutes of yardwork. Did that all day. It helped me keep my energy going because I was physically moving around and I knew I had a break coming.

FAR: 63, 55, 62
REG: 65, 77*
AUD: Fail, 64, 71
BEC: 72, 74, 81

*expired

[livealittle]

I'm using Becker and make a spreadsheet with the “chapters as a row – so you'd have 8 rows” then each column is a test. I put the date at the bottom. Then, the overall grade at the bottom. I have a “running average” score for each chapter a few rows below that.

i took lots of progress tests. you can select from 1-100 questions, you can choose which chapters you want the material to come from and then as you take more tests, you can see what chapter you need to improve.

This will give you unbiased data of “I'm averaging a 70 in chapters 1,2,3 and 6 but only a 58 in the others” I find this type of analytical data very helpful.

BEC - 8/8/16
REG - 66, 77
AUD - 81
FAR - 9/8/16

[CPA788]

Setting goals definitely tends to help. Thanks guys.

BEC - 74, 77
FAR - 72, 71 (retake 7/29)
REG - 69
AUD - Q4 '16

CA Candidate

[Jess774]

@livealittle You rock! I'm going to make a spreadsheet right now. Thanks for posting!

REG - 75
BEC - 70, 64, 81!!!!
FAR - 67, 69, retake: Oct 2016
AUD - 8/25/16

[Jdn9201]

It's great that you have the week off to only study – I'm a fan of working smarter and not harder. I'm not sure how much of a tax background you have, but one thing I did that helped is I leveraged the MCQ bank (Roger) and did pretests over each chapter before I started the lectures or reading the material. If I made a 70 or higher, I'd skip the chapter. I eliminated about 40% of the lectures/book. I love the spreadsheet idea above. I also agree with taking breaks – as long as you are disclipined enough to go back to your studies after the break is over. Another idea – use the content specific outline on the AICPA's website. I used this to help me prioritize my time and determine when I'd spend more time on a challenging topic vs. moving onto the next.

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

[CPA788]

@livealittle – the more I think about that spreadsheet the more I like it. After I'm done with my material this week I might punch that out. Thank you again for sharing.

@jdn9201 – I definitely like your style. I can't stand wasting time on topics that might not need it. But historically I am a terrible test taker and afraid to cut too many corners. Did you use your approach above for each test, and passed first try each time? I envy you! When I study for each section, I do have that print out right above my laptop you're talking about, of the content outline and weights on the exam so I can keep the right focus. I have 0 tax background, not even auditing, just staff accounting for a publicly traded firm, but REG seems the most black and white to me. After grinding away at FAR since the holidays (and waiting til the next window to retake again) REG has been kind of a nice change of pace.

Thanks guys 🙂

BEC - 74, 77
FAR - 72, 71 (retake 7/29)
REG - 69
AUD - Q4 '16

CA Candidate

[livealittle]

thanks everybody. I'm happy to email my spreadsheet to people if they can find a way to get me their email address.

just for fun, my overall average for each of the following on my spreadsheet and my score on the tests are below:

BEC – 72.58 with only 1 part of the 6 over 75
BEC – 80

REG – 71.17 with 3 of the 8 parts over 75
REG 66

I did terrible at the beginning, but by the time I took the test I was hitting 87-100 on the 30 question progress tests routinely. This test was totally crazy asking me things I never even saw in Becker that I thought were probably FAR questions.

REG 2 – 83 with only 1 of the 8 parts below 75 – this test was hard, but at least looked like REG stuff 🙂
REG 77

AUD – 78.09 with only 1 of the 6 parts below 75
AUD 81

FAR – 74.37 – with 4 of the 10 parts below 75
FAR 62 – I did not expect to do very well as I did not get through all of the homework due to life happening

FAR 2 – 74.05 – with 5 of the 10 parts below 75
FAR 2 – 62 – I thought things were going pretty well and that I was probably getting somewhere in the mid-high 70's. I thought about a 77, but wouldn't have been surprised by a 73. The testing center couldn't get my confirmation of attendance to print and after calls to the their IT /Help desk, i got a business card with a help desk ticket number on it. They kept saying they could see a CPA exam at 3:04 pm. I didn't finish until 3:47 pm.

FAR 3 – 74.96 – with 5 of the 10 parts below 75. 1 is at 73.40. I am taking it this Saturday and am going to review the 5 chapters that I'm obviously weak on and keep taking progress tests.

everybody at work who has passed the CPA in the last 2 years told me to use Becker and that if I did everything Becker said to do and was scoring 70 on the practice exams/progress tests, I would pass. My experience has been that is mostly true.

BEC - 8/8/16
REG - 66, 77
AUD - 81
FAR - 9/8/16

[Author]

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