CPAWannaBe
offlineMember
If you have an excellent memory or a recent education in financial reporting, then that may work for you. I have been taking it in piecemeal because it is a LOT of information to absorb and it has been a long time since I had financial courses.
My plan (using Becker and Wiley to supplement):
1. View lecture topic
2. Do MCQ on topic
3. Look over practice sims for lecture
4. Review last 3 lectures I just did by re-reading and re-doing MCQ
5. Repeat for next three lectures
6. Spend 10 days before exam with Becker Final Review (a lecture a day), focusing on weak areas
7. Take exam
8. Assume fetal position for the next 24 hours
Good luck!!
dobat
offlineMember
I recently took FAR on the 18th of November and what I felt worked for me was this:
I assume you are using becker as did I.
1. Watch the lecture, and take notes during it in your book (I suggest underlining/highlighting anything they do since in step 5 you use them). if anything is confusing do not move on until you understand it unless u deem it as a part you're going to guess on (only have maybe 1 of these for the entire FAR book)
2. at the end of the chapter do all the passmaster questions, and if you have time do all the supplemental quesitons as well. once u finish those, redo the ones u got wrong until u get all of them right. After this do the simulation that becker has for the chapter
3. after all the passmaster quetsions and sim, go thru the end of chapter quetsions usually 15-20. these should be easy since u did them in your lecture, but they help solidify the material.
4. move on to next chapter.
5. take about 4-5 days before the test to review the entire book, starting at chapter one, skim the book reading all the underlined/highlighted stuff and then doing the 15-20 problems at the end of the chapter making sure you get them all correct.
6. if you have time you can do more problems from the becker software or practice sims. I suggest get an understanding of the research/memos at least.
each chapter lecture took me about 6-7 hours to get thru cuz i would stop and jot stuff down/study stuff i didnt understand and the review took about 1.5-3 hours per chapter the few days b4 the test. When i took the exam the MC questions were very easy following this strategy. also dont skip over the government/non profit stuff there were a lot of questions on this stuff, but only learn the basics since the questions dont go that in depth.
I also know that reviewing the previous chapters every 3 chapters thing helps sum people but since i had no time to do this i used my technique...i was doing studied my brains out doing 3 chapters a week while working.
glutenator
offlineMember
Thanks, dobat. I've been having trouble watching the lectures due to the fact I leave my house at 6AM and get home after 9PM. I can read on the train, but watching the lectures is difficult while trying to follow along in the book. I also found that the lectures are so close to the book I didn't feel I was getting anything extra over just reading the book. I may use the lectures for parts I don't understand instead at the end of each chapter. I found with REG, I got it, but just didn't memorize all the material well enough to pass. BEC, which I didn't get the score yet, I felt had some tough parts I didn't get, but ran out of time to properly review those. We'll see next week how that worked out for me.
Amethyst8
offlineMember
Do everything with Becker. The way I see it is that you paid beaucoup bucks for a review course. You should give yourself every opportunity to pass--on the first try. If you take shortcuts, your score will probably show it!
glutenator
offlineMember
Don't hate me, but I didn't pay for the Becker course I have. I'm lucky enough to work for a Big 4 that paid for the whole thing (4 books, CDs, DVDs, and index cards). They also pay for the first round of tests (I had to pay to retake REG), which is why I was thinking of "splurging" and getting the Wiley book for $35 or $40 at Barnes and Noble. I'm very lucky, they paid for this, plus much of my school expenses throughout my MBA and the additional classes I needed to qualify to sit.
dobat
offlineMember
Well you paid taxes on that at least so kinda indirectly paid :). But yeah I have some friends who are not doing the lectures but rather just reading the book and that tends to work for them as they have passed most of the exams.
Glutenator
I would agree with CPAWannaBe, you really need to piecemeal instead of trying to just grasp everything at once by going through the book and then working all the multiple choice questions. I think you need to take the time to absorb the material chapter by chapter. After you think you have grasp the material move to the next chapter, but while you studying the next chapter continue to take the progress test in Becker, these are usually 10-20 random multiple choice questions that usually take less than 20-25 minutes. Do this at least everry other day if not every day while you are studying the next chapter. If you are missing many of these questions (consistently scoring under 60%) then you porbably did not grasp all the key concepts and need to go back to the previous chapter. This helps build your knowledge over the chapters. This is going to be a must in FAR in REG. BEC and AUD is only 5 chapters in Becker and you have a really good memory then you might be able get by not doing the ongoing review.
I work for the government and they did pay for my masters although I did have to agree to a service agreement of 3 months for each class which is nothing and they did pay for all the Becker material and even provided work time with an Becker instructor for the classes. However, they will only reimburse the exam after you pass.
Good Luck.
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