[Anonymous]

Hi everyone,

I have taken FAR twice. The first time with Becker, put tons of effort into it, 35+ hours per week for 10 weeks, and got a 54. The second time I switched review courses to Yaeger and studied for 8 more weeks, and felt way more comfortable and loved the course, and thought I’d do well, but got a 65. I was scoring 80+ in the progress tests, and did well on the Becker practise exam so felt confident. I am not sure how I should study for the retake or how long I should wait to retake based on my score?? I think I am missing the very basics as did not study accounting at University nor is it part of my current job (IT), however the big 4 still make it cumpulsory to take the exams. Please give advice if you can think of a way for me to boost up my grade by 10 more points!!

[Anonymous]

Hey Emz, may I ask how you are studying? Are you doing all the lectures and MCQ? For me, all the tests I passed, I had gone through all the MCQ twice. The one time I did not pass, it was because I did not get through all the MCQ twice.

[Anonymous]

Hey Emz, may I ask how you are studying? Are you doing all the lectures and MCQ? For me, all the tests I passed, I had gone through all the MCQ twice. The one time I did not pass, it was because I did not get through all the MCQ twice.

[yassy]

Have you tried any of the Ninja products? The Audio and flashcards for me have been extremely helpful so that I am able to study on the go and in a different form from being on the computer. What are your strategies? Maybe you need to re-read the book more/re-write notes/do more MCQs. If you were scoring in the 80's on your progress tests, maybe your actual scores are reflecting problems taking the actual exam like anxiety or not reading through the questions carefully enough because of the time constraint? You can do it!! Don't give up 🙂

FAR 75 (8/21/13)
AUD 72 (10/29/13) 74 (2/12/14) 84! (04/01/14)
BEC 75 (11/27/13)
REG 72 (05/29/14) 74 (07/10/14) 86 and DONE! (10/02/14)

[Anonymous]

Hey @anothercpa23. For studying, I did the following:

1) went through videos and took tons of notes

2) did the homework assigned and MCQ from the test-bank until I scored 80%+ and really studied the answer to understand why I got it wrong/right

3) In final review I re-did all of the MCQ and also did tons of progress tests

I did this both with Becker, and then with Yaeger, and so getting a 65, I feel I am still missing something significant to my study plan! I really thought my % increae would be way bigger the second time around as felt I had the ‘perfect' study plan when going through Yaeger. Not sure whether to now re-do all MCQ from Becker and WTB again, or what to do to boost my grade! Feel thats not enough to really give it that boost I need seeing as I have already done the MCQ quite a few times.

and @yassy, I do get super stressed in the exam, my mind kind of shuts down. Thanks for the encouragement 🙂 I used Ninja audio the first time around actually, I almost knew it off by heart, but then after I got a 54 I stopped listening for the re-take, but it can't hurt to start listening to it again for those extra points.

[yassy]

I can totally relate. I had a panic attack during REG and it was awful because I couldn't get up and walk around! Just be confident and don't let those questions that seem impossible discourage you, because you are not going to get them all correct and they are probably pre-test anyways 😉

FAR 75 (8/21/13)
AUD 72 (10/29/13) 74 (2/12/14) 84! (04/01/14)
BEC 75 (11/27/13)
REG 72 (05/29/14) 74 (07/10/14) 86 and DONE! (10/02/14)

[Anonymous]

@yassy If you get an 84 on your REG exam your scores will be in a ridiculously crazy pattern!

[yassy]

Haha! I hope the pattern continues 😀

FAR 75 (8/21/13)
AUD 72 (10/29/13) 74 (2/12/14) 84! (04/01/14)
BEC 75 (11/27/13)
REG 72 (05/29/14) 74 (07/10/14) 86 and DONE! (10/02/14)

[katerina2665]

i remember when i just started studying for FAR (my first), i only used Becker, i did put enormous amount of hours, watched lectures, did MCQs. felt prepared, i think i put well over 250 hours. I got 51. Then, i did exactly the same, but i think i understood much more thoroughly than the first time. 2nd time i got 72, which was a substantial jump, but still not enough. 3rd time was a charm with perfect 75. My thinking was, i tried to actually really understand what was i studying, read through concepts, if Becker was not giving me enough explanation, i would go to google. Not just memorize, did questions with attitude: oh, its correct. move on. I tried to do notes, but i guess, for me they ddnt do much sense. I think i re-did each and every question in Becker at least 5 times. The strategy did help me to pass REG and BEC rather quickly.

IMHO, Becker does great job covering FAR

emz_176, when you took your test, did you feel like there were questions on topics you have never seen in Becker? Or there were questions you thought you saw, and could not remember the concepts?

NYS CPA since December, 2016

[Kimboroni]

This is a tricky one, Emz, since Becker, Yaeger, and the like are meant to be review courses to help people who already studied accounting to brush up on the concepts and maybe fill in a couple of gaps. They're not really designed to teach from scratch. (I didn't realize there were still states that let you sit for the exam without having accounting classes!) Additionally, these are hard tests for people who had complete accounting educations, so they would be even more challenging for those who did not. So please do not feel bad about not passing. It will just take some extra work to get you there.

My suggestion would be to do a journal entry and/or T account for every question you practice, even if it's not really required to answer the question. The more practice you get at doing those, the more deeply you should start to understand the concepts. You probably also need a new testbank. I have a feeling that you may have memorized MCQ answers rather than truly understanding them (a common problem). Maybe get Ninja MCQ?

Great idea to start with FAR and keep trying. I think this is one you really need to get under your belt before moving on.

AUD 84 (1/9/14-Wiley books/TB + free materials)
FAR 83 (5/21/14-the above + NINJA 10 Pt Combo Lite)
REG 84 (7/9/14-Wiley books/TB + NINJA Audio/FC/Notes)
BEC 76 (10/5/14-Wiley books/TB + NINJA Audio/FC)

Disclaimer: My ninja avatar is not meant to imply that I have any affiliation with this site other than being a forum member. That's a pic of a T-shirt that my daughter gave me for my birthday. 🙂

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your inspiration @katerina2665. I think I need to give myself enough time to be able to understand every question before moving on, and also completely nail every topic. I have a habit of memorizing the steps in my head in order to get an answer without understanding it, so if the question in the exam changes one thing, I get the wrong answer I expect. My accounting knowledge is so weak that I find it hard for some topics to really make sense, but google is a good start. For my re-take I genuinely thought I had done well, I could answer every question and nothing was a topic I had never seen, which wasn't covered by Becker or Yaeger. I was shocked for a 65!!

And @Kimboroni, I have read that a lot, to do journal entries for every question, and I agree that will substantially help as I reckon I score about 0% in sims! That would improve my grade by 10% at least if I can even slightly master the sims.

I guess I will basically start from scratch again, using:

1) journal entires for every question I answer

2) don't move onto the next MCQ until I understand the reason it's wrong rather than memorizing calculation steps

If anyone else has some past experiences of how they eventually past after 2+ failures, let me know 🙂

[Author]

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