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Kricket is a weekly Club 75 Blogger as she documents her journey through the CPA Exam. She has been a member of Another71.com’s Club 75 since May 2009.

Well my break from blogging is over now. I haven’t been idle over the Christmas Break. I’ve been working problems using the Kindle books and making some real headway on the topics that I felt I was weak on.

I still don’t understand my score report from my last 70 in REG because it said I was Comparable or Stronger in every section and in MCQ’s and Simulations. I remember my first day of my first college accounting class and the Professor said that “accounting information should be reliable and relevant.”

Well a score report is neither, so I’m not paying attention to it. In fact, I wish they wouldn’t even send them. I thought I would have gained one point after everything I did, but I didn’t, so here I sit again studying for REG. No use crying over spilled milk!

My shoulder is doing better with all of the physical therapy, so I’m going to hand write the answers to the problems that I have no clue about, but the rest I will type. That should help me really focus on topics that are completely foreign to me.

My test is scheduled for January 9th and I am going to be ready. I’m beyond mad at this test and right now I sort of feel sorry for it because I intend to humiliate it. I will be quite satisfied with a 75 but I really, really want a score in the 90’s just to show it who is boss!

I had to take three hours out of my study schedule on Christmas Day to get some work done because I have been ordered to appear at the Child Support Office on Tuesday the 27th at 9am. I know it was just a form letter but people should really be careful in sending form letters.

The one I got said that if I didn’t show up they were going to put a lien on all of my property, including my house, bank accounts and car as well as suspend my driver’s license.

I didn’t think this was an appropriate form letter to send to a custodial parent whose ex-husband owes her a lot of money in back child support. But if that money keeps the ex from coming near my son, then it was money well spent. I just wish I knew what this was all about.

If life would stop getting in the way I would be a CPA by now! But 2012 is my year. I can feel it. I know it and I’m going to do it along with several of my friends who have struggled like me.

I’m moving forward and I’m taking no prisoners! My Facebook page has been deactivated. My phones are off the hook and my cell is in a different room. If anyone needs me then they better learn to send up smoke signals! Good Luck everyone!

Kim is a weekly Another71 Facebook blogger as she documents her journey through the CPA Exam.

Hello to all of you.

I’m sure most of you would agree… December is quite a challenging month to find time to study. There are far more distractions that come along in the final month of the year and the juggling act between all of the Holiday activities and finding time to study becomes quite challenging.

I’ve have this little nagging voice this month that is constantly whispering in my ear telling me that I’m not studying as much as I did the prior eleven months of 2011. I’m ready to get that little voice out of my ear!

On a bright side, I keep telling myself that when I pass the CPA exam, perhaps I will one day have the luxury of only working during tax season and so that would mean being off the whole month of December and not having to balance some many different tasks.

For me, waiting until January 1st to plunge into studying for FAR has been out of the question though. With everything I’ve heard about FAR, I feel like I need every minute of preparation that I can get. With that said, I’ve scheduled my test date for February 29th. The Leap Year gives us an extra study day in 2012!

The testing center where I’ve taken the other sections of the exam does not have any FAR test slots available for that date, so I’ll be traveling to a new site. (Sure will miss seeing the workers I’ve gotten to know at the old Prometric site!)

For my 5:00 a.m. study sessions, I’ve been re-reading my notes from the FAR videos that I had watched back in September while waiting on a REG score. I’m anxious to finish these and then pick up where l left off on the videos. And I’m going to do as many Multiple Choice questions as is humanly possible in between now and the test date.

I also used my Christmas bonus to pay for a FAR review course in Houston in January. When my CPA journey is complete, I’ll add up the grand total of the money I’ve spent. It is definitely a very expensive endeavor… but hopefully very worth it in the long run.

In between all of the holiday memories, great food, and hustle and bustle, let’s hold each other accountable to keep our CPA aspirations in clear view!

Kim

Stephanie is a weekly Club 75 Blogger as she documents her journey through the CPA Exam.

On Saturday night I jumped out of bed, remembering that the California Board of Accountancy had possibly uploaded some audit scores that morning. I loaded the site to see at the top my EXPIRED score for REG and nothing for AUD so right away I knew I hadn’t passed. I got a 72. Last time I got a 71.

According to my score report I got stronger in two sections, weaker in one (Understanding the Entity- still need to look that up because the new CSOs confuse me) and comparable in the rest. I got comparable in the MCQ and weaker in the SIMS.

Last time my score report was quite different, because I got weaker in MCQs and comparable in SIMS and written. Anyone else totally miss written and hate the new SIMS (ok, ok TBS!!)??

I know what part killed me because I had two SIMS using one skill. I’ve tried to study this skill many times but my base of knowledge is so poor it is hard to build on nothing. On one hand I’m disappointed, on the other hand I’m still shocked and I kind of feel there isn’t much I would have done differently.

I don’t know if I need a tutor to learn this one skill or what. It will probably come up in FAR also, which I’m studying for now, so I better think of something.

Audit is really the bane of my existence because both times I haven’t passed it, I’ve been close and felt pretty good about my studying techniques and habits. It’s heartbreaking to feel like I worked hard and did everything right and then not get a passing score. There have been times when I knew I messed up and getting a bad score seems like no big deal.

But it’s time to dust myself off and regroup. I’m actually at Starbucks right now studying for FAR with Roger CPA Review. I decided to keep on with FAR even though I’m only on FAR-2, out of 8 chapters, because the thought of studying for AUD makes me sick. Since it will be my 4th (omg!!!) try I don’t think that taking a break will hurt me a lot.

Anyway, back to the grind. Literally!

Study hard!!

Kelsey is a weekly Club 75 Blogger as she documents her journey through the CPA Exam. She has been a member of Another71.com’s Club 75 since June 2011.

Hello everyone!

The last two weeks have just flown by so quickly that I even forgot to write a post last week. I take BEC next Tuesday afternoon, and while I’m not 100% sure I’m ready for it, I am feeling better about the material.

Can you really be 100% ready for these tests?

I have been answering multiple choice question after multiple choice question until I am either reminded that, yes, I have to eat or I start to fall asleep over my computer. I don’t always get the questions right, but I understand why I got them wrong and the right answer makes a lot of sense.

One of my biggest problems and why I get some of the questions wrong is simply reading the question wrong or not reading the whole question before I try to answer it. I’ve come to this realization at a pretty good time.

With just under a week I am going to start focusing more on the questions and taking my time reading and understanding what the actual question is before even looking at the answers.

Hopefully this will help me as I’ve always been a bit of an anxious tester. If I can just remember to breath and read until I understand, I feel like it won’t be due to those types of errors if I don’t pass.

Another thing I’ve been noticing as I’m going through the multiple choice questions is that I start thinking about what I would write if the question were to come up in the written response section. This might be a bit because I’m dreading this section quite a lot as I am not the best technical writer and have on occasion forgotten how a memo should look when formatted correctly.

Thinking about the different questions is my way of preparing for this section. I think that as long as I have thought about the topic and looked up more information about it if I can’t think about enough information to even fill a paragraph, it will be better than writing practice sections. My first draft of papers was never the same as my final draft anyway and would probably not be the most beneficial way to allocate my study time.

I am going to get back to my multiple choice questions for now and will update again after the test.

Good luck to everyone testing in the next week!

CPA Exam candidates are wondering what to do if their exam was affected by the recent earthquake on the East Coast or will potentially be affected by Hurricane Irene.

I contacted NASBA and here is what you need to know:

• Candidates are advised to contact their local testing center on the day of the exam to see if it is open. It is it is the responsibility of the candidate to try to test.
• Road conditions etc. may make it difficult or dangerous to get to the testing center and in these cases the candidate should email NASBA (cpaexam@nasba.org) and attach either a weather report or a newspaper clipping describing the conditions in the area.
• NASBA will then contact Prometric to ask them to clear the candidate’s no-show status and assist them in rescheduling.
• If necessary, NASBA can extend a candidate’s NTS.

-Jeff

Stephanie is a weekly Club 75 Blogger as she documents her journey through the CPA Exam.

So I took AUD on Thursday, and they might call FAR The Beast, but the AUD TBS were quite beastly!! I had been practicing an insane amount of MCQs the days leading up, but still didn’t hit some topics as hard as I wanted.

I whizzed through the MCQ and even though I tried to slow down, I finished them all in almost 90 minutes. Then I took my sweet time on the TBS and took a little over 90 minutes for those. I came out of the exam with about 45-50 minutes left on the clock.

I’m not usually a fast exam taker, but the AUD MCQ have no calculations and I’ve been practicing so many that I think I got very quick at them. I think having a lot of time for TBS was good because I got to check some answers in the literature.

Last time I took AUD I failed with a 71 and I was so upset I said I was done with the CPA and didn’t take another exam for four months. Going into and coming out of that exam I said I nailed it. I’m very wary to say that I think I passed, but I prepared pretty well and Roger CPA Review certainly did a fine job of preparing me fairly painlessly.

Now I am onto FAR. At first I was trying to choose between Becker and Roger for my review course. One of the “perks” (HA!) of having taken the exam so many times is I get a “2nd chance discount” from a lot of review companies, so my options for reviews are a little easier on the pocket book.

I ultimately decided on Roger CPA Review because I loved it for audit. Roger is easier to watch than most other courses I’ve tried, and I love how the lectures are broken up. Also, I was pleasantly surprised because I ordered FAR last Friday and got it by Tuesday!! Wow!

Study Hard!! I will be lounging today and maybe writing out a study plan later today.

Erica is a new weekly Club 75 Blogger as she documents her journey through the CPA Exam. She has been a member of Another71.com’s Club 75 since July 2011.

Hello All. My name is Erica, and I have just recently become a CPA candidate in the state of Texas (one major thing to check off the list and still a ways to go). This journey, which I have only just begun, has been overwhelming at times. I have already found myself procrastinating.

I met all of the requirements to become a CPA candidate in Texas in January. However, I just barely got my approval letter before the Texas requirements changed on July 1. While I was waiting for my approval letter, I found myself eager to study and now fear of the unknown and the multitude of opinions on how to study have quelled some of my eagerness.

I am glad that I found Jeff and Club 75. He has a plan, and that’s what I needed: a PLAN of action. With his NINJA notes and Roger CPA Review, I hope to become a CPA soon.

I am starting this phase of my journey with the BEC section of the exam. I chose this because I was an economics major in college and feel like this would be the best way to ease into the exam with material I am most comfortable with.

Some of you might be asking, ‘If you were an economics major in college, why are you taking the CPA exam?’ My journey to this point is a little unorthodox. I have a BBA in economics with a minor in marketing.

My first job out of college was with a large brokerage firm. I decided after a year or so that placing people’s stock and mutual fund trades was not for me. So I switched departments within the firm to their accounting group, which completes the daily accounting for the firm’s mutual funds.

Even with their training, I found myself confused by the way certain entries were made. I didn’t understand WHY behind a lot of the entries. I decided to go back to school to take a few more accounting classes, since I only had to take the bare minimum for my actual degree, to hopefully clear up some of the confusion.

Once I understood the WHY behind a lot of journal entries I was making, I started to enjoy my work more and more. By that point, I realized I was close to meeting the qualifications to sit for the CPA exam in Texas. I wanted something to show for all my hard work so I decided to keep going.

I finished up my accounting classes in January of this year. My journey has been full of twists and turns so far, and I can only guess that this phase will also have its own twists and turns.

I just received my login for Roger CPA Review, and I can’t wait to start. His site fits with my somewhat obsessive compulsive need for a plan. I am going to use his 9 month study plan, slightly modified, along with Jeff’s NINJA notes.

I look forward to starting this next phase of my journey. I’m taking one last weekend off and then hitting the books on Monday!

Hope everyone has a great weekend and keep studying!

I’m giving away a Wiley CPA iPhone/Android App today at 5pm Eastern.

A winner will be randomly selected.

To be eligible:

1. Go to http://www.facebook.com/another71
2. “Like” the page if you haven’t already
3. “Like” the my post about the App Giveaway and then tell me what you’re going to reward yourself with after Passing the CPA Exam!

See you on Facebook,

Jeff

Wednesday (3/23) morning, I am giving away a 2011 Wiley CPA Android App of your choice.

Details on the Another71 Facebook page.

Wiley CPA Review has invited Another71.com readers to vote on the name of their CPA Exam Software.

The survey is just 3 short questions and they payoff is that you get a coupon to save 40% on any Wiley book THIS WEEK through their site (aka – you get it for $20).

Survey is closed. Wiley will be e-mailing you your coupon shortly. Thanks!