@Trisha– My horrible score was from just using a Bisk book (no lectures or anything) and half assed studying while going to school, working, and buying a house. After I failed both FAR and REG using the Bisk books, I decided to buy Becker.
By the time I studied using Becker I had finished my last semester of school and moved into the house, so I was only working and studying.
I was an absolute slave driver on myself and made sure I studied 20 hours a week. I did the REG online class for 4 weeks and reviewed for 3 weeks. I went though all of the homework in Becker twice, watched all the tax lectures twice, and re-wrote the ninja notes for the b-law section. As I was watching the lectures for the first time I took really detailed notes. When I watched them the second time I did the underline and highlight thing. Honestly, I've always liked tax, and I really enjoyed (as much as you can enjoy this sort of thing) the Becker REG section. I almost cried the first day of studying with it because it was so much better than my el cheapo “buy a $30 book and hope for the best” method. I never practiced any SIMs or used any sort of supplementary MCQs, like Wiley or anything like that, although the day before the test I went over the AICPA recently released questions from 2011.
When it came to taking the test, I'm actually really good at researching, thanks to an undergrad in a liberal arts field, so I found the research tab on the exam relatively easy to work with. I left myself a TON of time to work on the SIMs during exam day. I want to say an hour and 40 minutes? I didn't waste time letting myself get hung up on really random MCQs. If I didn't know the answer, I just picked one and moved on.
REG- 53, 91
BEC- 88
FAR- 62, 85
AUD- 85
Ethics- 93
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