My final exam.  Why it took me 4 months to pass Audit: I started studying for audit on September 16th, 2019.  This was during the first semester of my fifth year of college.  I was studying for the exam while taking classes, being an RA and being involved in a few organizations at school.

I made my way through the Becker lectures and the content in about four weeks and then had about five weeks for reviewing the content to learn the topics better.  Most of my studying during the five weeks included doing multiple choice questions, simulations, and the digital flashcards.  Each day I would get through 2-3 modules.  This included watching the lectures, making the notes in my book, doing the multiple choice questions and completing the simulations  When I would feel unsure about topics I would either rewatch the lectures, read the book, or do even more multiple choice questions.  Within those five weeks I took the Becker mock exams, did a lot of multiple choice and did simulations.  I would also stay up to date on old knowledge by doing multiple choice questions from previous chapters and would track in a Google Sheet when the last time I reviewed a module.  I used a retrospective revision timetable.  See my post for FAR for an example here.

To speed things ahead, I took the exam on November 11, 2019 and found out that I didn’t pass on November 22, 2019.  The night I found out was not fun at all but I rescheduled a retake the next morning.  I personally don’t think I took it as seriously since I had school, my RA position, my friends around me, and I was a little too confident after passing the other three exams first try.

I rescheduled the exam for January 2, 2020 at 8:00 am which was the first available time slot for 2020.  This gave me about 5 total weeks to study before the retake.  The great thing was that I was able to study over Christmas break which gave me a good amount of free time with no distractions.

During these five weeks I realized that I didn’t understand some concepts very well.  I made a Google Doc and I typed out all of the topics that I needed to understand better and tried to understand the terms or topics.  I realized I was taking some shortcuts when studying the first time and thought that if I felt good on the MCQ for the respective section, I was good to go.  This idea that I would pass with mainly MCQs and not using all the Becker content was false.

When I was studying for the retake, I borrowed physical Becker flashcards from a friend that worked at Big 4.  These cards were more in depth than the online flashcards at the time which helped me realize I didn’t understand the content well enough.  According to Becker, these more in depth flashcards are available online now, so there is no need to go out and find Becker’s physical flashcards.  And after speaking with Becker, they don’t sell the physical flashcards anymore either.

I also completed the final review when I studied for the retake and that helped a lot.  I should never have skipped over that during my initial attempt.  I did the final review for all of the other sections and passed first try, so I should have continued to do the final review for Audit.

What I did different the second time studying for audit includes:

• Doing the final review
• Finding my weak points and putting them into a Google Doc and trying to understand the topics
• Doing the more in depth physical flashcards (these are online now for free through Becker).  These flashcards helped me find my weak points.
• Not having as many distractions around since I was on Christmas break
• Doing the personalized review sessions in Becker.  This tool uses an algorithm (look up machine learning or spaced repetition) to give you more multiple choice questions that you don’t answer correctly and less questions that you do answer correctly.  This helps you study efficiently by quizing yourself on the difficult topics only.

I found out that I passed Audit on February 3rd and I was probably the happiest I’ve ever been knowing that this journey was complete.  I studied for a total of 8 months (May 2019 – December 2019), and it was difficult, but I would not have changed a thing.  I learned so much from this journey and I hope you can learn from my mistakes.