[Guti]

65,54, 72, 67 I also see a pattern on your scores, so do whatever you did on exam 1 and 3 plus the advice above.

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[Guti]

I went from a 71 to an 84 just by following the below advice. I didnt even bother with the research simulation,so based on pure knowledge, I could have gotten an 87% by doing the research part.

I got a 69 the first time I took FAR. I think I made the mistake of focusing only on MCQ questions on my first attempt and I didn't have an effective study plan to focus on J/Es or sims–my score report reflected weaker on sims and stronger on everything else. I have seen too many people with a score report that says they were stronger on every section except for sims and too much advice that has told people to ignore having a focused study effort on simulations which really hurt me the first time I took FAR.

So, here is what I would suggest that helped me slay FAR on my second try as well as some other things I wish I had known when I started.

Take FAR as your first exam and follow it with AUD! These two have a lot I was able to roll into AUD right after my miss on FAR and pass it easily. Then I was able to roll back into FAR studying without forgetting too much. I really don't know how people can leave FAR for one of their later exams. If I was going to throw in the towel, I wanted to know early and have the toughest test first! I seriously think FAR was 3-4 times more difficult than AUD so I would have hated to have to do that one later.

Get the Wiley Test Bank and only answer MCQ questions until you get to about an 80% for each section of FAR, The reporting on this test bank is nice because you can see graphically how you are scoring on all of the sections so you have the proficiency you need. If you are trying to get higher much higher than 80%, you are getting to a point of diminishing returns and you need to divert your attention to studying J/Es and Simulations. Until you are at the point where you are scoring in high 70s or 80s consistently on the MCQs you may not even want to schedule your exam date because you are just wasting your time. Sometimes I wonder if the people who get tons of failures in a row are using the real exam as a diagnostic exam–if you can't score in the 75+ on the test bank, you probably have no business taking that section at all yet.

Also, one thing I notice about people posting about doing MCQ questions is they say they do an ungodly number of MCQ questions during their study sessions and then complaining about not passing. Don't fool yourself about MCQ–the number of questions attempted doesn't translate into a actual learning. Sometimes it would take me hours to get through 20 questions because I was spending a ton of time trying to figure out what I didn't understand in my book. The point is that you shouldn't confuse blowing through a ton of MCQ question with studying–you are just blowing through questions and not learning.

As for the actual exam, though, you need to move through the MCQ questions like lethal Ninja from Shinobi–30 minutes per section should be your goal. I was at 30 minutes, 40 minutes, 40 minutes for mine because the testlets got harder. Your 80% on the test bank should give you confidence to know you are prepared to tackle them quickly. Start chopping off heads of the MCQ questions as quickly as possible and keep moving like you are in a Bin Laden compound or something. If a couple of foot soldier MCQ questions get away with just a flesh wound DON'T spend time chasing them. Remember you are there for the BOSS at the end of the level AKA the sims. Whenever the test tricks you to spend too much time on an obscure MCQ, think of Arnold Schwartzenegger or some other action star saying…”GET OUT..GET OUT NOW” with whatever movie scene you can think of where some dumbass is trying to get everyone killed because they freeze when the grenade is in the foxhole! LOL

You MUST, MUST, MUST go through and write down every journal entry entry in your FAR book and you have to do try to work through every FAR sim in your book. You will have to do it on pencil and paper because the Wiley test bank isn't good enough to prepare you for the sims based on what is in the software. For my final review, I completely ignored doing multiple choice questions since I already had an 80% on all sections and only focused on sims and journal entries. Of all the stuff I said before this is the ONLY thing that improved my score so much. Even if you can't predict the sims that will show up, having confidence in how to tackle that type of problem will pay dividends. Furthermore, you will better learn the more advanced content that you will see in the MCQ questions. This is the area where I was able to improve my score.

40% of the scoring on the exam is sims so you have to spend time preparing for them. Trying to increase your score marginally by continuing to pound MCQ questions after you have gained proficiency at 80% isn't going to translate into a lot more points on your exam. The amount of effort for the amount of marginal increase in score isn't worth it. However, if you can take your sim score from a 50% to a 75% by putting in a little more effort on preparation will make a huge difference in your final score.

If you have just failed with a high 60s or low 70s, I wanted to give you my experience how I raised my score to help, if possible. To summarize here is the gameplan…80% on all sections of Wiley, schedule your exam, spend your last 40 hours of prep time doing nothing but journal entries, extended examples, and sims from your book on pencil and paper. (mine was a gleim book).

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[Guti]

The only advice I can give is to just do as many simulations as you can before the exam. I went from a 71 to an 84 by doing a tone of simulations from Gleim.

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[Guti]

I think it depends on how good the lectures are. I have Becker (too dry) for Audit, but Im using Roger. Since he actually teaches Audit, I think I would be lost if I don't follow his lectures after I read the book.

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[Guti]

Edited Sorry 🙁

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[Guti]

Kricket's advises are always great. She is very down to earth and humble unlike some other people I know that have struggled with this exam yet they think they are the smartest person on this forum.

Kricket for president!

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[Guti]

Wow, only 55 out of 94,000 candidates got an almost perfect score of 95.5 and above. The success rate is .0005. Those individuals must feel so proud.

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[Guti]

awynash said to ask anything, and I was just curious cause I thought my friends were kidding when they said that. I have a lot of Indian friends from GA tech,so not disrespect to you or anyone else from that country. I'm just curious to know,but you are right I should have asked that at the lounge thread.

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[Guti]

awynash, do they still have arranged marriages there? I have a friend from India who told me that they are now a little more open minded, and you get to go on one date before you decide if you want to get hitched.

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[Guti]

You got that right naranja.

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[Guti]

Skynet, the best advice that I can give you is to stick to one part until you pass it. When you go from one to the other and jump between concepts, you making it worse. The second advice will be to start looking for Accounting jobs all over the country. I know you dont have kids cause you are a young player so that makes it easier to relocate. The more time you spend in retail, the worst it will be. When I graduated at the age of 26 (had too much fun to leave college), I couldn't get a job in Miami after graduating,so I started applying all over the country with Monster.com until I landed a job in Atlanta.

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[Guti]

Skynet, How many parts have you taken thus far? You have a Bachelors Degree in Accounting and never worked in the field? You don't like South Florida? Dude, we have a big country here. You never thought about relocating?

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[Guti]

I just think that in about 5 to 10 years, if you are not a CPA, you wont have an Accounting job. I also think that salaries for CPAs in the US will drop just to be able to compete with outsiders. I guess that is the bad side of a Capitalist society. I always thought that Capitalism couldn't be that perfect. The flaws of Capitalism are beginning to show thanks to technology and globalization. Our middle class will shrink sooner than we expected.

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[Guti]

1st time i took FAR Skipped Ch 10 and IFRS—-67

2Nd time I took FAR Skipped Simulations

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71

3Rd time I took FAR did not skip anything

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84

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[Guti]

Audit_This, you are right. Thanks!

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[Author]

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