Jennifer says I'm trying to follow the NINJA framework while studying for the CPA Exam using only NINJA CPA Review Materials and noticed that I'm having problems retaining the information. I'm so focused on taking notes of what I feel like is important in the notes section of the NINJA framework, that I'm not retaining anything that I'm reading. I'm essentially rewriting the entire BEC NINJA book because I feel like I can't pick out what the most important parts are. How do I take notes and make it through the entire book? I'm also a visual learner. So any advice would be appreciated.
Okay if you find yourself using NINJA CPA Review materials or anything else, getting stuck in the CPA Exam weeds like you're just slogging through video two out of 20 or whatever or you're having trouble with NINJA Book. You're like man everything just seems important. I'm writing it all down. Just get through the book. Get to the videos as quickly as possible and check it off your list.
Scan, read, whatever. Get through it in like two weeks. And then close it and move on. Try to write down some of the important stuff. If you can't just read the examples, read the example problems, look at the bold text. The advantage that you have with the NINJA book over the other books is that the other books are a phone book.
Some of you Millennials can Google what a phone book is. I'm getting to that stage in my life where I'm old enough to where I'm now laughing at millennial jokes which just means that I am really old. So I'm pushing 40. I'm not there yet. But I act like I'm 17. And so the advantage that the NINJA BEC book has over other books is that for some of the sections the NINJA book has 50% fewer pages than some of the other big-name textbooks out there because NINJA only contains what is actually on the CPA exam.
So it's not an accounting textbook. It's not a phone book of regulations and standards to read.
It's just – if it's on the exam, it's in there. If it's not it's not. And so you can get through it a lot quicker.
If you find yourself getting bogged down, just like if you find yourself getting bogged down through this long-winded answer jump into your MCQ software.
So if you have NINJA MCQ and you're struggling to get to the NINJA book, you find yourself struggling to figure out what stuff you should write down, jump into the NINJA MCQ software and start taking notes over the things that you miss and just move on.
So if you find yourself getting slowed down by your videos, getting slowed down by your book, you're being OCD and you can't make it through two chapters because you writing everything down, cut bait move into your CPA Exam MCQ software and move on.
It's much better to get through the material at a reasonable clip and get it through it in six, seven, eight weeks than to spend three months on it because you were just being OCD about the whole thing.