The Financial (FAR) portion of the CPA exam was the most difficult of the four exams due to the amount of content it requires one to know.  It took me 7 weeks to study for FAR.  This was the second CPA exam I sat for following Regulation.  The order I took the exams were Regulation, FAR, BEC, and then Audit.

I started studying for on June 10, 2019 and it took me four weeks to get through the FAR Becker book which includes the lectures, multiple choice questions and simulations.  The fifth, sixth and seventh week included going through the final review, taking the mock exams, and doing hundreds of multiple choice questions everyday.

Within the first four weeks of me going through the FAR content, I made sure to keep up on previous chapters by going through multiple choice questions and reading old content.  I kept up on old content by using a retrospective revision timetable.  I got this idea from Ali Abdaal’s YouTube video where he describes how to use the retrospective revision timetable for studying.   A retrospective revision timetable is simply a spreadsheet for each section of each chapter.  I would then color code each section based on how well I knew the content, as well as put the date in the row so I could see when I studied it last.  Reviewing the content (for me) meant going through all of the multiple choice questions in that section, read through the section in the book and make sure I understood the content.  I would always ask myself if I could explain the concepts to a 5 year old.  As Albert Einstein says, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”  

Scroll down to see snippets my retrospective revision timetable spreadsheets or you can go to my Google Sheets here.

If I scored well on the multiple choice in one of the sections, and understood the content really well I would mark the section green.  If I didn’t know the section well I would mark it yellow.  And if the section was very difficult I would mark it orange or even red if I really needed more practice.  I tried to make sure that all previous sections would be reviewed within the past 3 days.  This started to get very difficult near the end of the book since there is so much content.  But it is definitely necessary to review all the old content so you don’t forget anything and the retrospective revision timetable spreadsheet makes it easy to track everything and make sure no sections fall through the cracks.

By week four have gone through all the content and feel somewhat confident with the sections.  During the remaining three weeks I did the following:

• Do each of the Becker mock exams at least twice
• Do roughly 200-400 multiple choice questions a day.  The Becker personalized review session is an amazing tool to use that quizes you on your weak topics.
• Do a few simulations each day to get a feel of what the FAR simulations will look like
• Do the free AICPA Mock Exam on the AICPA website.  I have seen some of these questions and simulations recycled on the exam.  However, I can’t say this is true 100% of the time.
• Go through Becker’s digital flashcards as well as any physical flashcards I have made for myself.
• Go through and review any of the red, orange and yellow sections in my retrospective revision timetable. (but don’t forget the green ones no matter how confident you are)
• Do the multiple choice questions in the final review software (extra multiple choice practice)
  • I do believe multiple choice questions are the best method to pass since I feel that many of the MCQs are recycled on the exam in one way or another and this will get you half of the way there on the exam if you do well on the MCQs.

I took the exam on July 27, 2019 and found out I passed on August 22, 2019.  This was such a great feeling since I was now half way to being a CPA and I have passed two of the more difficult exams by now (REG and FAR passed).

Below are the screenshots of my timetables for each chapter.   Here again is the link to the Google Sheets.  Good luck!