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I used Becker to study for the exams.
Sorry for such a long post. Also this is scatterbrained but it’s really what helped me get through it all.
Start at the end. I recommend thinking about the day of the exam. Plan the whole day out. One of the worst feelings I experienced taking the exams was the few hours leading up to the actual test. On my first attempt (FAR) I had all my books and notes and flashcards in my car and I realized I had no plan for quickly reviewing everything before the exam. Never again I told myself, right then and there I decided that the next time I took an exam I would have a plan for a final parking lot review.
First accept the fact that you only have so much brain power and you need it for the test. You can not afford to burn several hours reviewing everything right before the exam because in the final hour of the exam if you are mentally exhausted you may make mistakes. Design a final study process that you can fully review in about an hour to save your brain power.
I piggybacked on the Becker outline, for example BEC has 6 modules so that’s 10 minutes per module. The challenge is limiting what you review to only those concepts you absolutely need to review. Each topic is different so the material you study will call for different ways to review. If you break a module down into its components you will be able to figure out what will trigger your memory. Some sections include math problems so I printed one or two MCQ’s to review and that’s it. Some sections are based on understanding formulas so I either picked a few flashcards or made a one page note sheet (more on this later). Finally some sections are based on principles like the ERM or COSO so I defined the concepts in my own words and basically made a page or two of definitions. Pick your review material wisely the last thing you want to do is review things you have down and sacrifice valuable time that could be spent on things you don’t. This approach saved me from siting for the exam reading a question and drawing a blank.
The never ending study loop.
I didn’t run into anything in any of the exams that was particularly hard when isolated by its self. Given enough time and access to the book I could work my way through a topic and come to a conceptual understanding. The problem I had was the shear volume of information. I read the books, watched the videos, completed the sims and worked the MCQ’s for each section. But…by the time I made it through all the material I forgot a ton of stuff. I found myself having to go back and re-read complete sections and watch the videos and was stuck in this never ending loop of having to re-learn everything.How I broke the loop.
I broke the modules down into days BEC has 6 modules so I forced myself to get through one a day. This way every 6 days I reviewed all the material. I did not let so much time go by before I reviewed a topic that I had to relearn everything. In a typical 6 week study period that’s 42 days allowing me to fully get through all the material 7 times.This may sound crazy but this schedule forced me to get to the main points quickly. The first week was hardest because I would read the section watch the video review the sims and take 10 MCQs for each section (took all kinds of time). I made an excel sheet and recorded all my scores. After the first week I knew based on my MCQ scores just where I was for each section.
The second week if I scored a 60% or better on the 10 MCQs I took the first week I reviewed the flashcards only and took 10 MCQs (not seen or correct). If I scored terribly the first time I re-read the section and reviewed the sims then took 10 more MCQs. By about the 4th week I was trending about 70% for all sections, some sections I scored in the 80% to 90% range but I never skipped a section. Some sections I was still scoring below 60% and had to go back and do more a thorough review. By this point I had gone through almost all the MCQs for each section and knew exactly which sections I needed to spend more time on.
By the 5th week I found I could get through easier modules in as little as a couple of hours. I would then spend more time on the harder modules. I broke from the one module a day theme but held the get through all modules in 6 days. ie. I could burn through all of module 1 in an hour all of module 2 in about two hours and would spend one or two days on just module 3 or 4 where I struggled the most.
By week 6 I was scoring in the 80% to 90% on all sections save about 5 of the more difficult sections.
Don’t linger
While taking MCQs or Sims if you find yourself drawing a blank or burning a ton of time on one question STOP, take a guess and use the answer to learn what you don’t know. I found that If I could not work my way through a problem it was because I had some incorrect method for approaching it. If you linger on a problem you burn into your mind the wrong way to approach it. The longer you spend doing the problem wrong the longer it will take to unlearn the bad method and the longer it will take to learn the correct way. You have to keep moving, the things you miss on the first or second pass you will pick up later on.
Grouping similar things.
From concept to detail. The concept will help you remember the detail. Again back to BEC for example there are a bunch of Ratios ( financial, debt, profitability..ect) and memorizing them in detail by them selves can be confusing. There is nothing worse than taking an MCQ and trying to figure out which ratio (or ratios) you need to figure out the answer. I grouped ratios and formulas onto one page by concept. This helps because you can identify the concept in the question, then recall all the formulas associated with it, then zero in on the detail and pinpoint which ratio/s to use. This also helps you consolidate your studying because in a lot of cases formulas and rations and principles used in one module are seen in other modules.
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