BE THE MATERIAL!

My friend Anna sent me few words on how to prepare.. She is a brilliant young lady who never fails to surprise me and never fails to show her affection and care. Her few little words inspired me and I felt like, I should share her own words with you ..She sent me these words few days back, when I was little worried about my preparation and loss of time..

In her own words..

Best thing is to relax and tell yourself that you will do well, and not only tell yourself- believe it. KNOW it, know your material and know you are great and will do well. BE THE MATERIAL! It is a part of yooou!
You can put it in your brain and then it is a part of your memory, your brain, so it is like a part of you. Not strange or foreign. Just a part of you. So it comes down to how well you know that part of you.  

Hats off.. dear friend ♡.. 

Roger CPA Review offers 3 flexible study formats, comprehensive preparation materials, and the highest pass rate in the industry. Find out more!

On to next exam

My Next exam is BEC followed by FAR and I am Planning to appear for these exams in April. So I will be preparing for BEC this whole March along with FAR. BEC was my first exam and I passed it in my first attempt. But I lost credit so I am retaking the exam. Giving an exam that you already passed is definitely a painful thing. But I decided to block out those thoughts because it's quite unnecessary to think about that kind of thoughts. I am choosing my best thoughts that can help me pass the CPA Exam.
I used Kaplan Online CPA Review and Wiley CPA Review Book  for my earlier preparation. But my Kaplan CPA Review expired, So I decided to put my trust in Mr.Roger Philipp this time. I will use Roger's BEC Online CPA Review and Roger's FAR Online CPA Review . All my earlier preparations were done using a combination of different reviews. But I am quitting that approach this time for BEC and FAR.After keeping my feet on different boats for long, It's clear to me now that going with only one Review will help me focus better.
Once I receive my review materials, I will share with you my time table for BEC and FAR preparation.

My Yeager preparation

I bought Yaeger CPA Review Videos for REG and FAR Exam preparation. Well I already have Becker study material and downloaded Gleim test preparation software. Going with Yeager was a last minute decision. I must say Phil Yeager doesn't disappointed me nor does Cindy.


A good convenience with Yeager DVDs is, you can play them on your DVD player, relax on your couch and scribble all the notes. I used Wiley text books before but they never were my favorite. But surprisingly they sounded better when some one else is pointing out, what's in the material, what to read and which questions to do? Well it's not about reducing the burden but it's about the ease of preparation. By the way I love the jokes and smiles of Cindy and Yeager. They sound some how genuine.


The quality of paper in Wiley's CPA Review books is not impressive and their print ink even dissolves in the highlighter wetness. Make sure you buy good quality high lighters which don't bleed ink, otherwise that ink can soak and bloat on the other side. Keep away from those four color pens for one dollar stuff. Wiley's got great authors and also good cost accountants.  Though I am not impressed with the quality of their print ink and paper, I appreciate the quality of their content a lot and also the cost of their books.

I would like to give some advice on how to get little organized in your Yeager CPA Review preparation. First buy good files and file all those handouts along with the printouts of the contents of DVD and the important problems. Yeager CPA Review gives web links to their students for printing out those handouts.

    * Contents of DVD s showing the number of parts in each module, Hrs..Etc..
    * The minimum number of problems we should do...

It is important to take printouts of these files too. File them in the end and highlight each question when it is completed when you are watching videos. And do the rest of the problems and highlight them too as you complete them.


Take printouts of all the latest forms (those required not all of them) from IRS website and file them in a separate file. And finally file the notes and worked out problems in another file. If you buy a bigger file then you can file them all in one.


If possible Index your Wiley book before you start your study so that each time they want us to turn pages you don't have to search every time. Of course you can use book marks but from my experience, Indexing was helpful.


While you are watching those DVDs,  pause the video where ever you find it confusing, rewind it and go through it again. Pause it to read the text from the text book and do the problems or to note down a point. I took two hours for a one hour lecture to clearly understand what he is teaching. It's my way to follow and understand a lecture. What I am saying is it's just not watching, it is understanding and also properly noting down and working out the questions. Don't rush to feed on Phil Yeager's time before you brain storm.

Last but not the least PLAN AHEAD. Allot time and understand how much time is required for your preparation. They have more than 30 hours of videos and also decide yourself  how much extra time you need for each hour of lecture. Write a plan and stick to your plan. I am saying it again. Put this on paper. I repeat  PLAN ON PAPER. and  EXECUTE YOUR PLAN.


I also downloaded Wiley's audio review. Anita Fellar is a good reader and her voice is also good. But all she does is reading text from Wiley's text book. She continued reading even when her voice cracked at times. And I don't understand why Wiley sells an outdated audio? And why audible.com thinks a CPA Audio Review as 'Pride and Prejudice'. Guys you need to trash them every 6 months. It's not a classic. There is no comparison between other CPA Review's audios and Wiley's. Wiley thinks reading text from its text book is Audio review!! I would call it an abridged audio book and nothing else. If this is what you are expecting, you can buy the audio. I am not saying it doesn't help at all. It is helpful to revise in certain way. And they don't need a CPA to do the reading. Please Wiley wake up!!. I used Kaplan Audio for Auditing and BEC and I have Gleim Audio for REG now. And their approach is they revise the topics and ask questions which I feel is far better than reading from a text book.

Hope this helps ...
My best wishes for your preparation..

Perform

I am adding a new word to my philosophy which was the only one I missed. We need to perform well to pass. I know if we do all the other things Read Understand Revise Retain Practice we will perform well. But training ourselves in exam conditions is also very important. I wrote many small exams but didn't wrote a practice exam. I know sometimes it may be just coincidence that our badly performed simulation picked out but still I decided to train myself for the worst. 
Again saying : I won't sleep till I become a CPA.

Too many cooks

In my last attempt for Auditing exam , I used ebay bought Kaplan study manual, Kaplan audio and flash cards,  Borders bought Wiley study manual, Audible bought Wiley audio, Online ordered Bisk's Self-Directed - CPA Review Software, and handed down Becker books. I balanced one leg on Kaplan and one leg on Bisk and kept my fingers on Becker and Wiley. And finally my result came with a whopping 67 . And I understood the meaning of the idiom ' Too many cooks spoil the broth' .Lets re-frame it as

Too many CPA Reviews will make you fail

So the morale behind my own story is - Don't ever do this. Ask for opinions, read those free materials they provide, test their free software and then decide one material and stick to that.Too many Study materials

• Waste your time 
• Create confusion on how they cover the topics
• They will make a hole in your purse 
• And finally you won't finish a single material

I already tried all these brilliant approaches and made myself a sacrificial lamb , So save yourself from this kind of stupidity.

smart preparation

My cousin's wife saw me a month ago and she said "  you look disturbed.. If you prepare in a mind state like this nothing will make sense when you read. Try to relax and settle all your inner worries and then read. You don't have to read 24 hrs a day to understand or pass. If you decide to read a particular day, allot some hours and focus on studying and understand what you read.

I cried a lot that day looking at myself and what I have become. Blame on everything family problems, health problems, relationship problems name it ! But the truth is nothing will help you to pass your exam. The only thing that helps is a person or a word or a quote and your study material and practice problems and the time you invest in them.

Just keep away from all the shit that don't even inspire you to reach your goal. The goal being a licensed CPA and getting a good job that pays well and satisfies your life being a professional. Rest is pure malodorous pile of shit. Ignore my anger . I normally don't use much bad words but sometimes the point that I want to communicate doesn't reach well if I say ' There will be one time when you have to stand alone , make sacrifices , be challenged... '  OK I think you got what I mean.