Sarah is a NINJA CPA Blogger.

Hey NINJAs,

I’m finally off my high from receiving my passing BEC score almost 2 weeks ago and the reality of my AUD retake has kicked in full force.

I hit AUD hard when I started studying 2 weeks ago, I knew I didn’t give it my all the first time and after passing BEC, I knew my revised study plan had worked and it needed to be implemented into AUD.

I spent the first week re-watching all the videos, reading word-for-word the study text, and diligently taking notes. My first time through AUD was also my first test experience. I’ve posted before thats it’s hard to know how to really study until you’ve been through the trenches and that was my case with AUD round 1.

My first time around, I watched all the videos but because of a class that the state board didn’t accept, I had to take another accounting class to meet the requirements. This left me studying for AUD for 3 weeks, stopping to take an online class for 8 weeks or so then picking the studying back up.

I had way too much time and didn’t bother reading the study text as I assumed it just covered the same material as the video. That was my biggest mistake.

For BEC and AUD, round 2, I’ve shortened my allowed study time and really immersed myself in the material. I’ll have put in 4 weeks total by the time I retake AUD on July1.

I’m down to my last 10 days of studying. I’ve been through every single question on my review material and every question of the Wiley MCQs. I think this really helped me with BEC; I knew that I had seen at least every possible review question once and most of them multiple times.

I felt like with AUD round 1, there were more questions/material I hadn’t seen than I had. I don’t won’t to ever feel that way again during an exam.

In my last 10 days, I plan to do at least 3 sets of 90 questions each day. I should be able to do 90 in the morning, 90 during the work day, and 90 in the evening. If I can hold onto that pace, I will do 2700 MCQs in the next 10 days. Sounds like a daunting task when I write it out, but I know I can do. I’ve already answered 2300 MCQs just going through all the questions once so 2700 is doable.

My plan is to take and hopefully pass AUD in July. I’m signed up to take FAR on 8/26, the last day of my NTS. If I can pull out a first time FAR pass, I’d have 3 of 4 completed by the end of the summer and then try to pick up REG before the end of the year.

At this point, there’s still hope I can be done this year and I’m holding onto that hope to push me through this AUD exam.

Till next time NINJAs, study on.