Confession time: How much time do you actually study for each exam?

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  • #179348
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    I’m curious to see how many hours we all honestly and truly study for these exams. Of course, no one’s probably going to have an exact figure…and it will vary based on the exam, on prior experience with the familiar, how good/recent our education was, etc., but if anyone else is willing to share their confessions (whether too much or too little!), I’m curious how it compares to the “recommended” study times. Maybe pair the study time with score obtained?

    Also I would separate focused studying vs things like listening to audio while driving. It’s a great thing to do…but of course it’s not as focused on sitting down with books or lectures and focusing solely on studying!

    Note: The goal here is neither to brag or to chide, just to get an idea of “real” people timing, to give people a better idea of what the range is. I’ve heard 100-200 hours being recommended depending on the test, but I’ve gathered that in reality, that varies from just a few to several hundred depending on the person!

    Anyway…for me…

    Study materials: Wiley books, Wiley test bank, occasional supplements with other free trials etc

    For FAR, I studied approx 50-60 hours, passed with 83. I had 3 or 4 college classes that covered the material in this exam approx 1 year before the exam

    For AUD, I’ve got about 40 hours in, and will get up to an additional 10 hours (probably less) between now and when I test day-after-tomorow. Only had 1 auditing class, but it really “clicked” when I took it.

    For BEC, man, I can’t remember. 😐 I’m guessing around 40 hours total. Passed with an 81. Had a lot of business classes in college, and 2 cost accounting classes.

    For all 3 above, I listened to audio a bit, but my car is too loud to hear it well…so I haven’t counted that in the above totals, probably was just about 3 hours per test. The times above are just “real” study time.

    REG is the one that scares me, because my taxes classes was a joke (open-book, grade entirely based on final exam, and almost exclusively over individual taxation), and my business law class wasn’t any better (evening class, 3 credits, met for 10-15 minutes a week…2 exams, each took about 15 minutes…). So I expect my study time to go up drastically when I study for REG!

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 28 total)
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  • #430180
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    FAR: 4 weeks (kind of…more like 3), 100hrs, 3000ish MC.

    AUD: 1 week, 55 hrs, 2000ish MC

    BEC: 1 week 50 hrs, 1400ish MC

    REG: Just starting..right now. In the exact same boat as you and pretty worried about it.

    #430181
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    @CPAtobe11 You said elsewhere that you didn't watch the lectures, right? Your sig says Roger and Wiley…did you read the book(s) or just do the MCQs?

    #430182
    mmp3
    Member

    Your posts above are making me feel really inefficient. I am a bit older so my undergraduate and graduate course work were 20 and 12 years ago respectively. I was a finance major undergrad and have an MBA in marketing. I never majored in accounting so I went back to school last year to complete a 15 credit graduate accounting program. My program was really consolidated so my recent coursework covered about half of what was on the CPA exams. That being said, I used Becker solely along with the Becker final review.

    FAR – 270 hours over 10 weeks

    Audit – 120 hours over 6 weeks

    Regulation – 160 hours over 8 weeks

    BEC – 150 hours over 5 weeks

    As you can see I average about 20 to 30 hours weekly. Not sure if the time I put in was worth the extra points I received over passing. I was just afraid of failing so probably went above and beyond what I needed to do but it was really hard to judge. Even with so many hours in, I only walked confidently out of Audit. I was on the fence about FAR and Reg. We'll see on BEC. Headed to my exam now.

    FAR 92 (2/27/13)
    AUD 99 (4/18/13)
    REG 93 (7/5/13)
    BEC 92 (8/12/13)

    Becker Self Study

    #430183
    topharry123
    Member

    60-120 hours of actual review and video time per exam, plus probably 10,000 MCQ's per exam.

    FAR - 95
    REG - 93
    AUD - 91
    BEC - 85

    #430184
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    I didn't exactly keep track but if I had to estimate:

    FAR: 12 weeks, 18 hours a week = ~ 216

    AUD: 4 weeks, 20 hours a week = ~80

    REG: 4 weeks, 30 hours a week= ~120

    BEC: 6 weeks, ~12 hours a week= ~72

    #430185

    Wow, those times are insane, Lilla! I had always thought the average times were much higher. I'm a little embarrassed to divulge my times now haha

    FAR: probably 250 hours

    REG: 200 hours maybe

    BEC: 150 hours

    I've always overstudied, though. Otherwise, I get really nervous that I haven't studied enough. I figure this way keeps my BP down.

    #430186
    rupert
    Member

    FAR 175 to 200

    AUD 150 to 175

    REG 150 to 160

    BEC ?? Exam scheduled for Aug 29, 0 hours so far. Plan to take 2 weeks off and study as much as possible.

    I know I could've passed with fewer hours, but I just didn't feel comfortable. I'm the type of person that has a very difficult time dealing with the fact that I don't know every single detail of every single topic. I listened to lectures over my review material, read the material again at my own pace, and then briefly re-read the material again before switching over to MCQs (ran out of time, so didn't do as many as I would've liked).

    It might be inefficient to overstudy, but I've never walked out of an exam feeling like I didn't pass.

    FAR 90 Oct. 6, 2012
    AUD 96 Dec. 8, 2012
    REG 93 May 30, 2013
    BEC 84 Aug. 31, 2013

    NIU CPA Review Correspondence and Wiley Test Bank

    #430187

    @rupert “I'm the type of person that is a very difficult time dealing with the fact that I don't know every single detail of every single topic.”

    YES. Me too.

    #430188
    peetree
    Member

    @barely @rupert I am as well. It makes me really uncomfortable if I know I don't really understand a topic. I blame anxiety.

    FAR 02/21/13 - 95
    REG 07/02/13 - 87
    AUD 08/02/13 - 94
    BEC 08/30/13 - 85
    Ethics Exam - 90

    Illinois candidate awaiting his license

    Used Becker Self Study | Ninja Audio | Becker Flash Cards | Ninja Notes | Wiley Test Bank

    #430189
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    AUD: 7 weeks, 130 hours (was finishing undergrad and also working)

    REG: 4 weeks, 136 hours

    BEC: Plan: 4 weeks, 100-125 hours

    FAR: Plan: 6-7 weeks, 200-250 hours

    I keep anal track of my actual study time, only because it helps me stay focused and see regular progress towards the end goal. I also get crazy nervous if I don't know every little detail, but I'm trying my best to balance that need and get this thing done (woulda preferred more study for REG). If I knew with certainty how to study for a 75 or 80 without freaking myself out, I'd do it!

    There is just no way I'm going to do this again, and pay for it again, if I can help it!

    #430190
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    @rupert, barely, and peetree – You guys will actually know something after this exam, so no shame in studying lots! You guys also have higher scores than at least some of us who studied less. Hmm now my mind is getting carried away, and I'm thinking about doing a chart of hours studied vs scores obtained…

    @CareBear I definitely understand the desire to never take these again! I think we all hope to figure out what it takes to just visit Prometric 4 times…

    #430191
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    @Lilla

    I don't believe you spent that little of time on the exams for a second. 50 hours for FAR?? c'monnnn.

    #430192
    MrsBing
    Member

    FAR: Studied for approx 280-300/hrs

    REG: Will be about 220-240/hrs by test time

    (this doesn't include non active studying like listening to audio in the car or while doing other things)

    I do think I'm going a bit overboard in studying, but I really want to past the first time. If I pass REG, I will change my study stragey and try to study for efficently for AUD and BEC because I want to get both of those complete before my baby is due in December, which means I'll only have 6 weeks of study time for each section. For AUD and BEC, I plan on studying for 120 hrs each.

    Becker, Wiley Test Bank, and Ninja 10 Point Combo!

    FAR: 89
    REG: 87
    AUD: 92
    BEC: 75
    Ethics: 90

    Licensed Arizona CPA

    #430193
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    @Lilla I read the Roger books and do the MC. I've just always found lectures really inefficient for me.

    #430194
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    @CPATaxed I don't have lectures, which really speeds up the study time. I read through the Wiley book once (which was a chore, no doubt!) without doing any MCQs or SIMs, then did 1524 test bank MCQs at an average (I timed them for awhile) of .8 minutes each, approx 20 hours. I think I did 16 SIMs, and the SIMs that I had in Wiley weren't bad, so I probably spent at absolute most 10 minutes on each, which is less than 3 hours. I watched Jeff's NINJA Blitz videos, which were about 3 hours if I remember right. So, that leaves me about 25 hours of reading the book, and that sounds about right. Looking back at the calendar, I had about 5 study-days before I started the MCQs, and I aim for 5 hours of study on pure study-days, so that'd be about 25 hours. I'm not holding this up as exemplary, just as what I did. And I only broke it down to justify that I'm being honest! It was actually lower than I anticipated when I just counted up study-days, so I went back and tried to break down what I actually did and came out about the same again. Part of it is being a quick reader, part of it is reading instead of doing lectures, part of it luck, part of it is being fresh out of school, part of it is being able to retain just the exam details without learning everything…but it's all my best honest estimate. (Edit: Just found a figure for lecture length – Becker claims over 100 hours of expert instruction. Given that FAR is one of the bigger exams, I'm guessing that means at least 30 hours of lectures for FAR…so if I'd had lectures in addition to what I did, it would've been 80+ hours just with that change…if that makes it all seem more reasonable.)

    @MrsBing Good luck getting these done before the baby comes! 🙂 I'm sure you can do it!

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