Ben is a NINJA CPA Blogger.

Hello from the snowy artic of Utah!

It is another week and all I can say is WOW! We have had temps around 20 degrees and I have to tell you that I do not like it one bit. I know some people probably live places colder, but for me this is unusually cold for Utah this time of year. I mean, I live in a desert and it is this cold?

This probably means that I have little excuses to be outside, and more encouragement to be inside studying. My family has elected my house as its gathering point this year, which is fine. However it does create the obstacle of trying to study during the holidays where I will be required to do more cleanup and help around the house in anticipation of the event this Saturday.

I am sure that I will eat way too much and generally not want to do anything, including studying. (I am just being honest and if you are honest with yourselves I bet that you feel the same way too – studying around the holidays really sucks!)

I have been studying for my rematch with REG. With less than a month to go I am trying to study harder and learn more. I have started by taking a chapter at a time. I will start by reading the main sections over and making notes as I go. I also make flashcards for important topics that I feel like I don’t have down as well as I would like.

I then jump to the Wiley MCQs. I have been electing to do every single question this time. I then take notes of thing I miss as I go along. Then I review again and do batches of 20 MCQs at a time until I feel pretty comfortable with each section.

I find that it is taking time, but I don’t want to miss anything important. Before I wouldn’t do every single question, I would jump straight to the batches of 20 MCQs and I now feel like I was missing some material I might have captured had I gone through each question at least once.

I am also taking time every couple of days or so to hammer out some simulation practice. I know I need the knowledge, but for tough sims I feel that I need more. I need to be able to search the database for answers I don’t know or can’t remember.

I need to be comfortable with doing sims. So I have to tell you that I need to do them so I don’t freak out when I come to the sims because that has been historical for me, do well on the MCQs but fail on the sims. This is one reason why I have not passed yet, I am positive of this.

Anyways, I hope your Christmas shopping is done and that you are making headway on your own personal studies. Until next time….HiYa!