Brad is a new weekly Club 75 Blogger as he documents his journey through the CPA Exam.
He has been a member of Another71.com's Club 75 since November 2010.
Hi my name is Brad and I am from Salt Lake City, Utah. I finished an MBA with an emphasis in Accounting in June 2010 and shortly thereafter began studying for and taking the CPA Exam. Currently, I work as an accountant at a hospital.
I first studied using old Exam Matrix and 2010 Wiley CPA materials. I heard about the new additions being added in 2011 and attempted to knock off as many tests as possible in 2010. This was probably not the best plan ever.
I did not know what exactly I was getting into. I figured that since I got through graduate school, it cant be that bad. That was a mistake because the CPA Exam tests are a very frustrating, depressing, and exhilarating gauntlet to navigate through. They are, in my opinion, much harder than any semester of school.
I must add it was very helpful to have a loving and supportive wife at home. She was basically a single mother through this time with how busy I was working and studying. I studied about 500+ hours between end of July and November. I first took Auditing in August 2010 and Regulation in September 2010. I failed both with a 69 and 71 respectively.
I was very frustrated and depressed about this. The waiting for scores and then getting a fail was very frustrating. I was honestly thinking about throwing in the towel until my wife said to me well do you want to be a CPA or not?. This helped me to realize that despite the frustration I was feeling with my 2 fails that I needed to keep at it.
I next took BEC in October and FAR in November. I passed BEC with a 77 but failed FAR with a 71. I was glad to have at least one pass done. I then realized something needed to change so I turned to another71 for help.
I had scheduled retakes for Auditing and Regulation scheduled both in November. I barely passed REG with a 78 and whizzed by AUD with an 84. The difference I think in the REG was reading Jeffs 50 things to know about the CPA Exam and using the notes for Auditing. Unfortunately I didnt get it in time for the FAR.
What have I learned from this? Well to start you need to be ready and willing to put in a lot of time studying and also get good effective studying material. If one way isnt working dont keep pounding your head there but rather try a different method. We all learn differently so what may work for one wont necessarily work for you. (Dont use old stuff)
At this point in time I am using Yaeger CPA Review to study for my FAR retake scheduled in February. I am going through the Yaeger lecture DVDs and hope to finish them by the end of next week. I hope my base knowledge from studying the first time around coupled with studying with Yaeger and Wiley again will help me to pass FAR. I wished I would have used Club 75/Yaeger sooner. I think it would have given me the edge to pass FAR the first time around as it helped me pass REG and AUD on my retakes.
Until Next Time,
-Brad
