Kelli 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 April 2011.

Well here it is the end of week two of Audit study. I always laugh at the beginning plans when I reach the end of a week because they never turn out like I envisioned. I thought I would squeeze some exercise in to my regimen. Yeah right. Exercising completely out the window, I am lucky that I got enough time in just to study.

Even if there were more hours in a day, something else will always come first. However, I did stick to the study part which is an overall amazing accomplishment. Now that I am two weeks in to the Yaeger program for audit, and finished module 3 with tons of review of the first 3 modules under my belt, I have an observation that may help some people out. This is with regard to CPA software.

I started with Becker and switched off to Yaeger for 2 parts, FAR and Audit. I loved Yaeger for FAR, they totally nail explaining the dirty details of financial accounting that Becker kind of leaves a person hanging with conceptually for a lot of stuff.

I have always said Yaeger with the Wiley book for FAR is like going to a college class and having it all laid out on the table and explained very well. Becker takes pronouncements and bullets them into an outline without a lot of explanation sometimes, and then throws complicated calculations out there without help on how to get the answer.

But, things I like about Becker:

1) The practice multiple choice is right in the software with the lectures so there is no jumping back and forth between a video from one program, and practice software from another.

2) They read just about every dang page in the book to you through their PowerPoint-like screen, even if they don’t explain it all.

Things I don’t like:

1) Not a lot of explanation sometimes on difficult topics

2) Leading you into a false hope that highlighting will help you study

3) Pages and pages of bulleted pronouncements

4) Their chapters do not easily follow the content specific outline for the exam which makes it hard to go back and study the areas you were weak in because their material does not mesh well with the order of the COSO and there is a lot of hunting and pecking involved.

5) They leave me more worried about whether or not I have met the video and practice requirements for the week rather than have I nailed the material enough to move on to the next topic…makes you lose focus on the content and more on “did I get it all done on schedule.”

Now with Audit, Yaeger is not reading many pages, hardly any in fact, and I find that in the first 3 modules, most of the pages were skipped. We jumped right to the multiple choice and were advised to read on our own. WHAT?!?#?! Do they realize how bad enough it is to sit through 3 to 4 hours of a video, and now they want me to go back and read? Are they crazy?

So now I am totally conflicted. I like the Becker for making me look at the book, but I don’t like it because pronouncements are not written for lay people, simpleminded folk like me, who need more words to tell me what is going on.

I like Yaeger/Wiley because there is more regular explanation, but I don’t like it because I am going to have to do more work. GAH! Do I go back to Becker and have them read to me, again, which, for the first 4 times around (yes I said FOUR), apparently didn’t work? Since I am here for round 5?

Or do I just plug along now with Yaeger and hope the book material picks up a little more? I am really hoping that with the upcoming modules there will be more in the book, but I am not hopeful. I am going to have to revamp my study schedule again, and my goal is to read the first 3 modules (chapters) and take better notes.

Not a whole lot of note taking going on from just doing MCQ’s with the video. I am just a little disappointed and grumpy right now. I am thinking this has to be me and my problem and I need to come up with a better solution for studying this. I just have to face it, I am going to have to do more work than I planned, ugh.

Thank goodness I rescheduled my exam to the end of August so I have time for all this junk now. Being that it is now almost 10:30 p.m. and I am beyond annoyed, I am going to bed to rethink this whole thing and start fresh tomorrow morning. And yes, I am going to stick with Yaeger, because they helped me pass FAR where the other guy failed.

I hoping they get me through Audit now for the last time too. I will be reading and taking notes on my own before I move forward. Happy thoughts, happy thoughts…..You know, it’s ok to get a little discouraged sometimes because it makes your focus different.

~Kelli~