FAR

I was going to dominate FAR.  Coming off of a Regulation fail, my first time not passing one of these tests, I was bound and determined that I was going to nail this test.  I even got all gutsy and purchased the Wiley Test Bank so I no longer had to do questions out of my book with a pencil and paper, I could rock through a bunch online and then follow how many I did and what areas I was strongest it. 

Oh..FAR stands for Financial Accounting and Reporting.  In short…GAAP/IFRS/Journal Entries/Financial Statements/Government/Non Profits/Investments etc. How you ‘account’ for all that.  It’s by ‘far’ the biggest exam covering the most information.  The Yeager DVD has 50 Hours of lectures.  Put that in perspective will you…if you take a class during a semester in college, it meets once a week for what 8 or 10 weeks?  Even if you meet 3 hours a week for 10 weeks that’s 30 hours in the classroom.  50 hours of lectures is a TON.  It’s almost taking a full year course.

I did 2477 multiple choice questions (they were being tracked remember?).

This is when I ‘built up’ my study habits.  What I mean is this…you know when you start running and you can only run like 2 miles but then you just force yourself to go more and more even though it sucks, and then pretty soon 2 miles is like nothing?  That’s what I did with studying at this point.  I used to watch an hour of lectures each night…during this time I was up to 3 hours.  I would go out to Starbucks for 6 hours at a time on the weekend and hardly stand up from my chair.  I had a plan, it was all tracked out, I was flying through these lectures, complete focus, no deterring me.  FAR  is a lot of information and this was the hardest part during the studying.  When you’d finish one section you forgot what you studied 4 sections ago.  Remembering what certain things were valued at was tough, remembering the differences between IFRS (International Standards) and GAAP (U.S. Standards) got swampy, but you just keep going.  I was keeping my chin up.  I decided that I was better than this exam and it wasn’t going to beat me.

I took this test April 9^th at 8:00 am.  It was the day after Easter, which was sort of dumb, because my poor family didn’t have any fun while I was stressed out and studying.  I got to the exam early, again, and got in early.  I was ready.  This was a 4 hour test and my plan was 45 minutes for each testlet and then 90 minutes for the SIMS.  I got through the first testlet in 30 minutes, the second in 25, and the third in 30 again.  That was a problem.  My testlets were easy…sad but true they were not getting harder.  They were embarrassingly easy (Note: if you are taking the CPA exams and you don’t know if your testlets are getting easier—they probably aren’t.  you will know.)  Please just let me out of this exam! I tried not to think about it and went on to the SIMS.  I felt good about the SIMS, or as good as one can feel when getting beat up, no really they were okay.  Nothing about these tests are easy, so these were not any different, but I felt like I did okay with what I was given. I left the testing center feeling numb.  I just wanted to be alone, but I had a husband and 2 kids at home.  All I wanted to go do was watch Hart of Dixie reruns and eat junk food.  It didn’t happen. 

I had REG rescheduled for May 11^th and had to get started on restudying that right away.  My plan was to have passed this test and then take REG in May and then still have my summer.  No studying during the summer, what a dream.  Luck would have it I would find out this FAR score 2 days before my REG retake.  To look or not to look before the test, that was the question?

Next up- REG restudy and waiting for FAR Score.