What is happening everyone?
Welcome back to another action-packed edition
of the Another 71 podcast.
This is episode 108.
In this podcast we are going to cover seven questions,
including FAR lectures without notes,
passing the CPA exam without an accounting degree,
how to study for auditing in busy season,
how to pass FAR after scoring a 32,
what CPA exam section after BEC in 2023,
how to pass FAR after back-to-back 54s,
and finally, how to restudy auditing after scoring a 67.
Let's get started.
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And as always, I'm your humble host, Jeff Elliott,
a licensed CPA in the state of Kansas,
by the grace of God and to the chagrin of many.
If you have a study question, you can email me anytime,
Jeff@another71.com.
That's Jeff@another71.com.
Roxanne writes in, “I'm starting to study for FAR
“and I plan to do this.
“Watch Becker lectures briefly without taking notes.
“Read the Ninja book.
“Use Becker for MCQs and SIMs
“and use the Becker final review.
“Is this sufficient to pass?”
Well, the short answer is yes.
However, you might consider a few things.
First of all, this is the Becker Plus Ninja Study framework,
and I would nail the concepts with your Becker lectures.
If you're going to watch the Becker lectures,
you don't need to read the Ninja book.
So you should read the Ninja book.
Maybe if there's a section that you're really struggling with
and you want to hit the Ninja Book for the examples,
that's fine.
But if you have lectures like Becker lectures
or the Ninja Sparring lectures,
then you don't really need to read the Ninja Book.
So you mentioned Becker lectures without notes.
I wouldn't do that.
I would, well first of all,
taking notes makes the time go faster.
You're actively learning.
And then it makes sense that you actually get something
out of watching the lectures, so that,
I mean, you don't have to take,
I mean, you don't have to write war and peace,
but you can still take notes here and there, that's fine.
So I would nail the concepts with your Becker lectures,
take intense notes over those Becker lectures.
I would switch over to Ninja MCQ for the questions,
and then maybe use Becker for the Sims if you want to,
for rewriting your notes.
If you don't take notes, which you indicated
You probably won't.
Then I would rewrite the Ninja notes,
and then I would watch the Ninja Cram, a few notes,
the Ninja notes.
Start reading them on day one, read them everywhere you go.
Ninja audio, start listening to that on day one.
Listen to it everywhere you go.
The car, the gym, work.
You can stare at spreadsheets, pretend to work,
listen to the Ninja audio.
And on the, now the concepts phase, if this is,
so you can watch your Becker lectures,
if this is a retake, then I would watch
the Ninja sparring lectures instead.
And like I said, I would use Ninja MCQ for your questions
and then use the Ninja test bank for your, excuse me,
Becker test bank for your simulations.
And then for rewriting the notes,
the Ninja notes are just fine to do that.
And for the all comes together, that's your final review.
If you use Ninja Sparring for your nail and the concepts,
then I would watch the Becker final review.
If you use the Becker lectures for nail and the concepts,
then I would watch your Ninja Cramp.
That way you get two different perspectives
on the material.
Daniel writes in, what,
Danielle, excuse me, what advice would you give someone
who does not have an accounting degree
or background to pass the CPA exam?
Yeah, I get this question from time to time,
and there are non-traditional CPA candidates out there
who maybe they get an economics degree
or marketing degree or whatever,
and they decide that they wanna be a CPA.
So here are some opinions on that.
First of all, your bachelor's degree doesn't matter.
Is it helpful?
Yes, but whether you get an economics degree
or marketing or biology, whatever it is,
doesn't really matter because the prerequisites
for taking this EPA exam basically add up
to basically an undergrad in accounting.
So it's not that huge of a deal.
So your bachelor's degree doesn't matter.
Your review course does matter.
Now, if your review course is more geared towards
maybe MCQ driven, like there's not any lectures
that don't break things down into like,
like from a journal entry perspective,
you might have some trouble.
So definitely do free trials of a course
to make sure that you are learning the material.
So a review course is technically just to review the material,
but there's also a teaching aspect to it.
So like ninja sparring, huge on the teaching.
So accounting basics, break it down
from a journal entry perspective.
There's other instructors that do that to Roger Phillip, Roger
CPA review, and I'm sure there's others.
But those are the two that I'm most familiar with.
And so, and then, even though you don't have an accounting
degree, you can still use a normal study timeline.
If I recommend seven weeks, which I do on most exams,
you might make it seven to eight weeks.
Like, eight weeks is still fine.
Never more than eight weeks, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,
more than eight weeks, but seven to eight weeks is doable.
is doable.
Alex writes in, “My name is Alex and I wanted you to know,
if you had a moment to share some advice with me on the CPA, as you can
imagine, I'm a first-generation college student and a 2020 grad
who significantly impacted my CPA.
I applied for my NTS in May 2020 and started
relentlessly studying for FAR through Becker.
I made it through the course,
but got my NTS approved in October.
I managed to sit and pass FAR that same month.
I then started studying for auditing through Becker,
while also starting my full-time
public accounting job in tax.
I've been in a chaotic cycle of working, studying,
taking exams, and cutting everything else out in my life.
I managed to pass regulation with Becker and BEC,
and BEC with a free trial of surgeon.
So passed reg with Becker and BEC
with a free trial of surgeon.
Okay.
In the meantime, I lost my FAR score.
Hey, been there, done that.
Most recently, I used only the audio notes
from NINJA for auditing.
I was traveling a lot and thought
the audio would be most beneficial.
I listened through them two and a half times.
I felt positive walking out of that exam.
But yesterday I was hit with a 62,
which is a drop from my last score of 70.
I was listening to your podcast this morning and resonated with your story of celebrating
too soon and then losing far, so I thought you might be able to help.
My regulation score expires on January 30th, excuse me, June 30th, 2023.
My BEC expires on December 31st, 2023.
With busy season, I'll be working anywhere from 50 to 70 hours a week and I'm trying
to figure out what to do.
If I don't have a solid plan for passing, that's not in the cards for me.
I don't want to necessarily use my CPA to sign tax returns.
Still, I'm fully aware that those letters will significantly impact me if I try looking
for a position outside of public accounting firms.
I still have Becker, an option to purchase one section of Surgeon at a discount, and
I really did like the layout of NINJA.
All right.
A lot to unpack there and I like including the full question.
It takes longer to listen to but there's just a lot here and it kind of gives you the full
perspective.
A couple things starting out.
Number one, you lost your FAR credit.
Excuse me.
For your FAR credit, been there, done that.
I also lost my FAR credit.
It's not the end of the world.
like at the time.
Now, you study for auditing using only the Ninja Audio,
and I would never recommend that anyone do that.
I mean, the Ninja Audio is a supplement.
I have seen people pass with only the Ninja Notes,
but that also is not a best practice.
And only listening to it two and a half times, I mean,
I think if you're using the Ninja Audio as a supplement,
you should be getting through it once a week.
So if you give or take,
so if you're studying for seven weeks,
you should be getting to the Ninja Audio seven times.
So that still wasn't enough.
So I am not shocked that your score dropped
from a 62 to a 70, excuse me, from a 70 to a 62.
Doesn't surprise me at all.
And so your regulation score expires mid-year,
BEC expires at the end of December.
That's probably the more scary one to me.
That way you don't have to take
any of the discipline sections in 2024.
And not only do you have to pass
FAR and auditing,
by June, you have to study during tax season,
busy season to do it, great.
Okay, so this is what I would do,
and I'm going to assume that you're going to stick
with Becker and Ninja.
If you decide, if you liked Surgeon
and want to use Surgeon instead of Becker,
sounds like you get a discount or whatever, that's fine.
I'm going to assume that you're going to stick
with the courses that you already have purchased.
So the Becker Plus Ninja study framework,
and I'm going to try to apply this to studying
during busy season in particular.
So the concepts are the same.
Nail the concepts with your Becker lectures,
take intense notes of your Becker lectures,
then switch to non-stop MCQ with Ninja MCQ,
just rewrite your Ninja notes,
and it all comes together with the Ninja cram.
So that's great, you know, great.
How do you do it during busy season?
That is the question.
And I still think that people can study 20 hours a week
during busy season.
Is it fun?
No.
Is busy season miserable?
Yes, I loved it so much I did two of them and got out.
So first things first, whatever time you normally get up,
get up an hour and 15 minutes earlier than that
so that you can actually study for an hour before work.
Why an hour and 15 minutes?
Well, it takes you 15 minutes to go on the coffee pot
and sit there and stare at your phone
and check Facebook or whatever as you come to plate
whether or not you actually want to get up.
And hopefully by the time the coffee's done,
and it's super important to set that up the night before
'cause if your coffee's not ready to go,
you're just not gonna do it.
So an hour and 15 minutes.
So if you normally get up at 6.30,
then you need to be getting up at 5.15.
And if you're going to get up and study before work,
then actually study before work.
Like, looking at Facebook or whatever app,
while you're waking up is dangerous,
because that can turn into a 45-minute session
on scrolling through reels.
Bad idea.
You just woke up an hour early so you could
watch stupid videos.
Don't do that.
So get up an hour earlier,
and while you're commuting, assuming you commute,
listen to the NINJA audio,
and at lunch, let's say that you get an hour lunch break,
and you know,
lunch, or every culture, every work culture is different.
If it's frowned upon that you're sitting at your desk,
like not working, then you might have to like leave
and go hide out in the cafeteria or something like that,
or down the street at the proverbial coffee shop,
whatever it is.
So you can still study for 45 minutes at lunch.
Then before you leave work, if you can swing this,
you know, some people have to pick up kids or whatever,
if you can swing this, study an hour before you leave work.
And then at night, from nine to 10, study another hour.
hour. So that sounds an awful lot like studying three to four hours a week, or
sorry, study three to four hours a day, which you do that Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday. Let's say that you hit four hours each day, which listening to the
to the Ninja Audio to and from work to and from the grocery store, whatever it
is, that counts as study time. So you turn your drive time into study time and it
that counts toward your 20 hours, it's great.
So, like, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, four hours,
so you're at 16 hours by Thursday.
You get up Friday morning, you study Friday at lunch,
and you're hitting 18 hours,
and then maybe you study for two hours
on a Sunday afternoon.
There's your 20 hours, okay?
And was it really that horrible?
No, it's not.
I mean, all things considered,
it's really, spending 20 hours a week
that way isn't that bad.
Your loved ones won't even hardly notice.
Obviously adjust it.
If you can't stay an hour after work,
then that's an hour from Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday, that's going to have to go into Saturday afternoon
or Sunday afternoon or split it, like you get it.
But definitely take Friday night off
because you and your loved ones need that break.
And take Saturday night off.
You and your loved ones need that break.
And it's a whole mental health thing.
And so granted busy season complicates it,
but you can take everything that I said
and conceptually apply it to your own situation.
Couple more things, Ninja Notes,
read them everywhere you go.
Ninja Audio, listen everywhere you go.
It counts as study time.
If you nail the concepts with your Becker lectures
the first time, and this is a retake,
watch Ninja Sparing instead,
do Ninja MCQ for your questions,
Becker test paint for your simulations.
Excuse me.
And if you didn't re-write your notes,
or if you didn't take good notes and you want to,
then re-writing the Ninja notes is fine.
And again, if you watch Ninja sparring for your concepts,
watch the Becker Final Review
for your all comes together as your cram.
If you watched the Becker lectures for your concepts,
then watch the Ninja cram.
Ronnie writes in, “My name is Ronnie.
I'm going into my second year as staff and busy season is rolling upon us.
I need some advice.
I just watched your episode 106 first CPA exam score release of 2023.
I got somewhat of a plan in place.
Is this plan applicable to me?
I've taken FAR two times already.
One time in September, scored a 29,
and the second time in December, scored a 32.
I've not studied as much as I needed to,
and am somewhat of a procrastinator.
I'm not a read the book, page by page person,
so I utilized Rogers CPA reviews lectures
and took notes and MCQ
as much as my attention span could handle.
I felt more confident going into the second exam,
but still struggled to remember concepts
when the exam day arrived,
which means I probably need to put more hours in.
I also bought the Ninja subscription,
but only used the notes and audio.
The hardest part for me
is where to start.
How to know when to move on from topics
and how to keep my attention span on studying.
I'm tired of failing and ready to move on
and ready to be more serious.
I would really love to pass far
before busy season gets really busy.
What I got from your video,
A.K.A. my next plan of attack is Roger CPA.
Utilize cram lectures.
I've already watched the course lectures.
Take intense notes from the cram lectures.
Then Ninja CPA, nonstop MCQ.
I've used a lot of Roger MCQ,
but I still have some I haven't seen.
Rewrite my notes.
My notes from Roger are the Ninja notes.
Three Ninja cram videos as a review before the exam.
I was thinking about taking the exam
before February 14th or March 9th,
which would be more realistic for my situation.
Can the CPA study plan help me to pass
or be very close to passing on my third attempt?
Apologize for the wrong email.
I want to give you all the information I can.
Hey, no worries about the wrong email.
Love it.
Okay, I like your plan.
Except,
I would not nail the concepts with your Roger Cram.
You scored a 29 and a 32.
You need to go back through those Roger lectures
and take legit notes.
And if you're struggling with your attention span,
taking legit notes will help you.
Will help you keep your mind on it.
And also,
with MCQ, you mentioned
that you've seen a lot of the Roger questions,
and that's fine.
Yeah, switch over to Ninja MCQ,
but you also take notes over the MCQ.
Like, studying for the CPA exam is boring, breaking news.
Taking notes helps break that boredom, okay?
So I liked everything else that you said.
Ninja Notes, watching the Ninja Cram.
So a couple things.
Read the Ninja Notes from day one,
read them everywhere you go.
Listen to the Ninja audio.
Day one, listen everywhere you go.
And then,
so, normally I would say if this is a retake,
watch Ninja Sparring lectures instead of the Roger lectures,
but I don't really feel like you studied correctly at all
the first or second time using your Roger Lecture,
so I want you to go back through your Roger materials
and take notes.
But normally I would say if you've already watched
the Roger Lectures and studied correctly,
then switched to Ninja Sparing instead.
Again, Ninja MCQ for the questions,
the Roger test bank for the simulations.
Make sure you rewrite notes.
I really think that you need to take notes.
So I would not rewrite the NINJA notes.
You need to take legit notes
because you're really struggling with,
number one, remembering what you studied.
Number two, your tension span.
And so if you watch the Roger Lectures for your concepts,
which I recommend in your case,
then I would watch the NINJA Cram for your review.
(silence)
Haris writes in, “I passed BEC, it was my first CPA exam.
“Which one should I take next in 2023?”
Great question.
Lots to consider as we look at the 2024 CPA evolution.
I'll say January through June exams, it doesn't matter.
So I'm a big fan of getting far out of the way first
or early if you can.
But July through December, definitely take auditing next.
You want auditing out of the way.
Auditing becomes the new far in that
far is losing some material.
Auditing is not.
Auditing is gaining material.
that's absorbing some of the material from BEC.
Take auditing first, get that out of the way.
You've already passed BEC, so that's like,
you passed auditing and BEC, you're in the clear for 2024.
Great news.
And now that I'm looking at it,
I'd probably switch these around, take FAR last,
because FAR actually gets easier in 2024.
I'll talk about that more later in another video probably.
But so I guess for July through December exams,
I take auditing, then regulation, then FAR.
Ignore what I have on the screen.
But auditing, then regulation, then FAR.
Jana writes in, “I'm studying for my FAR attempt.
“I've already passed auditing.
“My last two CPA exams scores for FAR were both 54.
“I don't know what I'm doing wrong
“because I'm studying the simulations
“and the multiple choice questions
“and I do well on the practice questions.
“I've been using Becker.
“I switched to Ninja for this test.
I don't know how to pass,
because obviously I'm not doing something right.
Okay.
So two ways to answer this,
there's the ninja only path
and then there's the ninja supplement path.
And so I'm gonna cover both of them.
So for ninja only,
so taking FAR, pass auditing, 54s,
So, you really just need to study this way.
And it's the, it's a ninja only study framework.
First of all, nail the concepts
with your ninja sparring lectures.
If you don't want to watch ninja sparring,
you can read the ninja book instead.
That's fine too.
But I would start with ninja sparring,
and I would devote about two weeks to that.
Nail the concepts with ninja sparring.
And take intense notes, if you can.
“take intense notes over those ninja sparring lectures.”
If you're reading the ninja book instead,
then take intense notes over the ninja book.
Non-stop MCQ, ninja MCQ.
Take intense notes over your ninja MCQ.
If you miss it or you get it right
but you kinda guessed, write it down.
Write down what little fact nugget are they asking about.
Then rewrite your notes.
So rewrite the notes, or you can rewrite the Ninja notes,
that's fine too.
And then it all comes together.
You wanna watch the Ninja Cram.
So rewriting the notes takes about a week,
so do that two weeks out from your exam,
all comes together, Ninja Cram.
You're hitting your Ninja MCQ,
starting with your weakest topics first
and working backwards until you're scoring 75,
like 75%, obviously a 75 on the CP exam
is not a 75%.
I believe it's more like an 85 to 90%, but that's just me.
You're hitting your MCQ areas, your weak areas in your MCQ,
and working backwards.
And so your weak areas are governmental accounting,
leases, inventory.
You do 20-question mini testlets until you
score 75% on that topic, and then move on.
The weekend before your exam.
So ideally you take your exam on a Monday.
Huge fan of Monday exams.
Because you get Friday, Saturday, and Sunday
to hit the ninja cram and then also review.
So your final weekend you wanna watch the ninja cram.
That's the ninja only study framework.
If you're going to go the ninja supplement path,
then you wanna use your Becker Plus ninja.
And that's the other concepts with your Becker lectures.
Intense notes over your Becker lectures.
nonstop MCQ over Ninja MCQ and rewrite your Ninja notes
and then it all comes together with the Ninja Cram.
Ninja notes, read those, and this applies
to the Ninja only framework
and the Ninja supplement framework, both of them.
Read those Ninja notes everywhere you go,
listen to the Ninja audio everywhere you go.
The store, the laundromat, the gym,
no, do people still use laundromats?
I guess if you live in an apartment complex
I have a laundry facility.
Ninja audio, everywhere you go, everywhere you go,
everywhere you go, at work, if you can swing it,
everywhere you go.
Now you have to decide,
even with the Becker plus Ninja study path,
you can still watch the Ninja spine lectures
if you're kind of tired of your Becker lectures.
You know, if you've watched it,
well you've already watched them twice,
so maybe you want to for your third time.
So Becker owned by a big company,
lots of money invested in their software, so do we,
but they're an even bigger company.
I would use NINJA MCQ for the questions
and NINJA and the Becker test bank for the simulations.
You can use NINJA test bank MCQ for the simulations too,
but I would just, I'd switch 'em up.
And again, rewriting the NINJA notes are fine.
If you watch Ninja Sparring for your nailer concepts,
then watch your Becker final review.
If you watch your Becker lectures for nailer concepts,
then do the cram for your all comes together phase.
Shahid writes in, “I got my audit CPA exam result
“a few days back and unfortunately I couldn't clear it.
“I got a 67, how do I start studying again?
What do I do differently this time?
Well, I'm going to cover this from the perspective of
you failed the CPA exam, now what?
I have other videos on the NEDGE study framework.
I cover that all the time.
I'm gonna cover this from a you failed the CPA exam,
now what perspective?
because it's super important.
First of all, you're not a failure.
I get emails all the time from people.
I don't know, I'm an auditor and I can't pass auditing.
I feel like the stupidest person in the world.
What's wrong with me?
Am I not cut out to be a CPA?
No, you are simply just struggling
to pass a standardized accounting test.
You're not a failure, you're not dumb.
This means the CPA exam, it's a rigorous exam
and you're studying accounting material in a vacuum
and it's standardized tests, all that.
It's not real life, so you're not a failure.
Number two, you're not a cram or X number of points
away from passing.
Yes, in your case, it would be eight points.
You're not eight points away from passing.
You get emails from people, “Jeff, score 73,
“I'm only two points away from passing.”
Thinking about just watching a cram,
but getting back in there.
No, terrible idea.
You will score worse than you did the previous time,
more than likely.
So, in your situation, you were at a 67 on exam day,
or in that other example, they were a 73 on exam day.
How many days have passed since exam day?
How much information did you cram into your head,
head into your exam, then you go barf it out
in the Permeasic Testing Center,
you're not exam ready today.
So you're not a cram,
and you're not x number of points away from passing.
So, you know, that's my soap box.
There are two paths forward.
Path number one,
repeat everything you did to get that 67,
and then hit weak areas,
and in your case, there'd be quite a few of them,
and then add a supplement like Ninja Monthly.
Obviously I'm biased,
but Ninja is the most used study supplement
and I believe it's the best.
Again, I'm biased.
Path number two, and this is probably
the path that I recommend for you.
So you need to take your current materials
and then filter them through the Ninja framework.
You know the concepts, intense notes, non-stop MCQ,
just rewrite your notes, and it all comes together.
If you didn't use the Ninja framework before,
you definitely need to use it now.
So, you know the concepts with whatever course you're using,
take intense notes over whatever course you're using,
then switch to Ninja MCQ, then rewrite your Ninja notes,
then watch the Ninja cram.
There's other videos on the Ninja framework,
that's it in a nutshell.
Weak areas.
So for auditing, if you are just really struggling
with audit sampling, really hammer audit sampling
in the MCQ, watch a sparring video over audit sampling,
watch the cram lecture over audit sampling,
hit those weak areas, like pick three of them,
at least three, and then obviously you wanna add NINJA
if you're using the NINJA study framework.
So that's for a retake to pass.
If this is your second retake,
aka your third time taking an exam,
only do path number two.
Only use the NINJA framework,
hit your weak areas, and then add NINJA.
If you're on your third time taking an exam,
I'm gonna say you don't have my permission
to do path number one.
Obviously you don't need it,
but you're asking me for advice.
I only do path number two.
Alright, well that does it for this episode
of the Another71 podcast.
If you have questions, I have answers.
Hopefully some of them are even right.
You can email me, jeff@another71.com.
That is jeff@another71.com.
Until next time everyone, be good, take care,
and I will talk to you soon.
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