[Tncincy]

What is it about doing mcq’s that make me shy away. I can read notes, I can listen to audio, I can almost read the chapter, but consistent with these questions. If i get on a roll, I can’t seem to stay on a roll. I can’t get to that mcq until I puke….Am I normal? I have exactly 20 days(again) til test time. and no I don’t feel ready or that my study has been effective.

It begins with a 75
Been here too long as a cheerleader....ready to pass

[Tncincy]

After GSW blew (threw) the game last night, mini watching while writing notes, I have officially turned off First take, and sports center (playing in the back ground) to focus today. I can't take knowing more about the NBA finals, Lebron James, and Steph Curry than about property transactions ( where I missed the most questions)…..I spent early morning hours today writing ninja notes, now I am going to get into these mcq's. We will get a method to this madness somehow, someway that will equal a pass. Maybe I'll try playing ninja audio in the back ground while doing mcq's. hmmm

Yes, I am venting, again, back to studying.

It begins with a 75
Been here too long as a cheerleader....ready to pass

[Anonymous]

Lately I have my laptop on one side and an ipad on the other. I type into brainscape flashcards as I do the MCQ's.

I do 100 a day, 75 would probably be better, 50 would be ideal, but it woud take me too long to get through the entire Gleim test bank.

I try to have no more than 50 to do when I get home (do a bunch before work and then at lunch), but admittedly I'm throwing in the towel on the one's later in the day and not looking up things or putting the same effort into solving them.

[Anonymous]

@circadian I agree, I tried to do 200 a day and nothing past 100 was really getting absorbed. To me doing a question involves really thinking about it, looking things up and knowing why the other answers are wrong.

But I bet when people say they do 300 in a day they are clicking quickly until they get the right answer, reading it and moving on.

Whose to say which works better? Probably you can get most of the medium difficulty questions right with the latter.

I'm always afraid that if I just do the MCQ's I won't be able to do a hard SIM, especially if there's no drop downs. BEC is probably the only one I didn't practice those on because I was confident I could compose something on the fly.

[mtaylo24]

It all comes down to motivation to finish the process really. Whether you have experienced the feeling of victory after passing 1 or 2, or even the feeling of failure…it just adds more fuel to keep going.

Personally, I don't make the number of MCQs my goal, but rather I focus on getting through a Gleim study unit in a given day. Today's FAR (don't ask me why I am shifting my focus to FAR) study unit has about 180 questions, so that's my goal for the day. There are about 4+ Topics in a given Study unit, so I break after each one. Read a topic, MCQ, break, Read a topic, MCQ, break, etc….

AUD - 1st - 60 (12/12), 61 (2/13), 61 (8/13), 78! (11/15)
REG - 55 (2/16) 69 (5/16) Retake(8/16)
BEC - 71(5/16) Retake (9/16)
FAR - (8/16)

[Tncincy]

@mtaylo24, you made good points, maybe that's my real problem trying to do so many questions, getting them wrong, not understanding what I'm doing wrong, but trying to set a goal from others. It doesn't mean I won't do it again, but I don't need to panic.
Well, I'm doing notes first before I tackle questions. That seemed to work better yesterday. I am feeling the pressure though because I have 17 days left to master reg or I'll be taking it again…….don't want anymore fails.

It begins with a 75
Been here too long as a cheerleader....ready to pass

[mtaylo24]

^^I feel you…I know all about failing that one. Reg sucks haha. Which review course are you working through?

AUD - 1st - 60 (12/12), 61 (2/13), 61 (8/13), 78! (11/15)
REG - 55 (2/16) 69 (5/16) Retake(8/16)
BEC - 71(5/16) Retake (9/16)
FAR - (8/16)

[Tncincy]

I'm using ninja notes, and ninja audio.

It begins with a 75
Been here too long as a cheerleader....ready to pass

[Anonymous]

Im sorry but nobody is doing 3-400 questions a day..have you ever seen someone actually do this..or do they just tell you they do this? each 30 questions takes around an hour to get through..nobody is sitting doing these for 8 hours..

That said I def agree with doign them in small chunks..the conceptual based ones I can breeze through but when you get hit with 15 long equity lease or bond problems in a row with warrants that you have to calculated and break down it gets tiresome..

I was trying to do booklets of 30 each with 90 in total a day..but its gotten to the point where at about 15 im spacing out and just guessing as opposed to working through the problem..which means im missing them..

I did just a small brick of 10 last night,,and got 90 percent..sooo

IMO better to do 50 a day and understand all 50..then 100 and just go throug hthe motions.

[mtaylo24]

@TNCincy – Have you tried the Ninja book? Jeff posted a few samples out there and they seem to match up w/ Ninja MCQ pretty good

AUD - 1st - 60 (12/12), 61 (2/13), 61 (8/13), 78! (11/15)
REG - 55 (2/16) 69 (5/16) Retake(8/16)
BEC - 71(5/16) Retake (9/16)
FAR - (8/16)

[Anonymous]

@amohr Just keep in mind that everyone approaches MCQs differently and therefore goes through them at different speeds. You said 30 takes an hour, so sounds like you're estimating an average of 2 minutes each. I know I had days doing MCQs that I average 30 seconds each. I wasn't someone that did 300-400 a day – my attention span wasn't that long 😛 – but my style of doing MCQs did allow to get through 400 in a little over 3 hours on a good day, so someone who is studying full-time could be doing 300-400 a day (or who is studying a LOT after work). As mtaylo and tncincy were discussing, though, there's questions about how effective the quicker style of doing MCQs is. If I was able to answer the question without trouble, I didn't read through the answer usually, and I never researched a question before answering it. However, if I got it wrong, or if I doubted myself when I happened to guess the right answer, then I'd read the answer descriptions. I didn't take notes on MCQs, though (like I think I did in one study session for one exam, but that's it out of all 4 exams). I'm not a notes person – never have been, and despite trying to be more of a notes person, I don't think I ever will be one. But, that's why my MCQ volume in a day may be able to be higher (or would have been if I'd put more hours into it each day 😛 )…but that doesn't mean I learned any more than someone who did 50 MCQs and researched each one, took notes on them, and read the explanation for the right and wrong answers both. So, not necessarily recommending my style – worked for me, might not for someone else. But my style would make it possible for someone to do 300-400 MCQs and be honest about it. My weekend study sessions were usually just 5 hours, though, and that included breaks, so more like 3 – 3.5 hours of study, and my efficiency went down the longer I did them, so I don't know that I was doing the 300-400 MCQs at any point.

[Tncincy]

@Lilia, I appreciate the explanation because I was feeling like I am just dumb or really slow and just couldn't figure out how to get more questions in…one thing is I do write the notes, but I rarely read them. I really only read the ninja notes. So if I cut out some of the note taking, I might can accomplish a little more. I do read the computation notes though.

It begins with a 75
Been here too long as a cheerleader....ready to pass

[Anonymous]

@tncincy I think most studies have shown that taking notes is a BIG part of the learning from notes, moreso than the reading of them. Not that reading them isn't beneficial, but that taking them is probably very beneficial even if you don't read them. Something about engaging the mind and body at the same time (since you're writing it using your hand while thinking about it with your mind) and processing it more thoroughly since you slow down to write it, or something like that. I had a professor who went on at length about it, but it wasn't course material so I didn't pay too much attention. 😐 Anyway, your note taking may be helping you learn a LOT more than you think it is. Perhaps you could try picking 2 sections that you're currently averaging about the same and something low, and for one spend an hour doing MCQs taking notes etc., and for the other spend an hour doing MCQs not taking notes, then after the hour of study for each do a set of 15 or 20 MCQs for it and see which one your score improves more on – that might help you see which way you learn more. Then maybe try a mixture of both – like maybe take notes on problem areas, but not areas you are doing well with, or something like that?

The time that it takes to take notes is one of the reasons I don't, though. I'd either be unable to figure out what to put in notes, or be putting way too much in them and spend 3 hours to write notes for 5 minutes of material. (OK, so that's exaggerating, but not by too much!) Only time I could effectively take notes was in live lectures, since I couldn't pause during the lecture to take more detailed notes, so had to keep up with the pace of the course. Whether they helped me or not I don't know, but I believed my professor who said you learn just from taking them – I don't think I ever looked back through my notes. 😐 So, I'm probably not really the one to talk to about notes haha, but wanted to share that I've seen studies about the note-taking process which seemed to indicate that taking the notes was beneficial even if you don't re-read them.

[Tncincy]

Good suggestion I'll try that, I guess somewhere in my mind if I do so many mcq's I will finally pass, but I am not getting to do that many questions before I run out of mental and physical energy. I think the note taking is a bad/good habit because everytime I try to not take notes while answering questions, I run into a question that get my attention and I still write the notes, so discipline and constraint is the step after mixing it up. I guess it's not all bad.

It begins with a 75
Been here too long as a cheerleader....ready to pass

[Anonymous]

I saw this today: https://chroniclevitae.com/news/1331-small-changes-in-teaching-the-last-5-minutes-of-class and it made me think of you, tncincy. The author is a professor whose specialty is college-level teaching methods, from what I understood of where I saw the article linked; however, this is the part of the article that made me think of our discussion here:

For example, we have excellent evidence that students remember material better when they test themselves and try to retrieve information from their own minds. And yet most students still study by reviewing their notes over and over again — probably the least-effective study strategy they can employ. The final five minutes of class can provide a quick opportunity to let students know how best to prepare for their next assessment, based on the science of learning and on your experience as an expert learner.

Before the midterm, I asked students to take two minutes and write down for me how they studied for the test. When I compared what they said with the exam scores, the evidence couldn’t have been clearer: Low-performing students used phrases like “reviewed my notes” and “reread the poems”; the students who aced the exam said things like “wrote an outline,” “rewrote my notes,” “organized a timeline,” “tested myself,” and “created flashcards.” I made a slide with a side-by-side comparison of the two columns, and spent five minutes of class showing students the differences. They’ll see that slide again in the last five minutes of class just before the next exam.

This is what I get for working in a college – I end up finding and reading articles about how to be a professor as part of my job being an accountant. 😛

[Tncincy]

Thank you…..great find, I'll keep writing my notes. I have actually did better on the mcq's after writing ninja notes. I know the ninja notes are limited, but it has really helped. Keep those suggestions rolling, I am sure others might need these pointers as well. The notes has helped me not feel like i'm going into the mcq's blind.

It begins with a 75
Been here too long as a cheerleader....ready to pass

[Author]

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