I passed the CPA back in March 2017 but decided to stop in the old stomping grounds here at A71 to say hi. I realize the test has changed a bit since I passed but here would be my advice.
Ask my fiancé or any of my family or friends and they’ll let you know that the 16 months that I banged my head against the proverbial CPA brick-wall was not one of the most enjoyable periods of my life. Any CPA candidate will let you know, CPA does not stand for Certified Public Accountant but rather “Can’t Pass Again”. After struggling (aka failing) my first 3 tests over the first 7 months of my CPA journey, I felt stuck. But then I reevaluated everything and discovered the 5 key solutions to get me to the promised land.
1. Purchase a review program that works best for how you learn.
Seriously, this sounds obvious but barely anyone follows it. Almost every review course on the market offers a free trial period. If you’re smart, use EVERY course’s free trial until you pass your first test. If the course that you passed with works for you, buy it. If not, take a step back, EVALUATE YOUR STUDY HABITS (see pt2), and try a different study course if need be. I personally purchased 3 over my journey because I didn’t know better and purchased the “best”, aka the one that marketed well, before trying any other review programs.
2. Schedule and evaluate your study habits daily
The CPA exam, unless you’re already a tenured accounting genius, is not a walk in the park. Like a lot of things in life that take effort, if you’re not planning for success, you’re planning to fail. After my early failure I started creating daily schedules of which chapter and how many MCQs (Multiple Choice Questions) I would complete. Shoot for 20 hours a week. Personally, I liked to do 2-3 hours every weekday and 8-10 hours over the weekend.
3. 80/20 rule
After you have successfully figured out which study program works best for you and have a schedule you can follow, you have to figure out how you LEARN. This was one of the hardest parts for me and unless you have taken strenuous exams in the past, you probably don’t know how you learn best. Check out my post on How you learn for more on this. Spend 80% of your time on 20% of the review material. Generally a given review course will have 100+ hours of videos, 1000+ pages of review books, dozens of pages of notes, hours and hours of audio notes, etc etc. Figure out which of these ways of learning works best for you and spend 80% of your time on that 20% of material. For me it was MCQ. When I first started studying I tried to do everything, watch 4 hours of a video, do 2 hours of flashcards, read the notes for an hour, then do an hour of MCQ. I realized that those first 7 hours were ultimately WORTHLESS for how I learn. After changing up my study habits and doing 80% MCQ and 20% everything else, that’s when the passes started coming.
4. Evaluate your prior knowledge and experience and leverage it for your first pass.
This may be counter intuitive to some but in my opinion, leveraging prior education and work experience to get that first pass can be critical to building momentum. I can’t tell you how many colleagues I have that tried to pass their first test and couldn’t do it, so they gave up. Take the test that you can relate to first to build momentum. As an example, I have a B.S in Mathematics and a minor in Business. After going back to school for my accounting credits I still was a little shaky on book keeping and financial statements. I tried to hammer through FAR without a good foundation and it just did not work. I decided to go to a subject a bit more calculation and business intensive, BEC, and received my first pass! After that I had momentum and went on to finish the exams.
5. Take 2 exams every testing period and most importantly, DON’T QUIT.
One thing I noticed other CPA candidates doing when I was testing was they would spend 10-14 weeks studying for one test, fail it, and then feel like the world had just ended. Many of those candidates decided to quit after doing that twice. Put some pressure on yourself and take 2 exams every testing period. Yes this will cost more if you fail them but I assure you, even with 10-14 weeks of studying you will NEVER walk into a testing center feeling 100% confident and ready. Schedule your first exam on the 2nd or 3rd week of the testing period, that way you have the entire dead month to study for it, and your last exam the last week of a testing period. This means from the last test you took, you have 6 weeks to study for the first and 6 weeks to study for the second.
Done! 9 tests over 16 months. Failed first 3 with Becker. Passed 4 of next 6 with
Ninja MCQ.
FAR: 39,59,TBD
BEC: 74,79
AUD: 77
REG: September
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