After I passed REG, I just had 1 exam left. The entire process you dream of being on your last exam. I was sincerely hoping that I would be extremely motivated and ready to go, but the truth was, I was bored. Some things I did to help were:
1) Get that exam scheduled a.s.a.p. My test date was August 6th, this was 13 months from the day I took my first exam. I figured the "6th" had served me well before, and it would serve me well again :).
2) Line up care for my kids, so that they'd be able to be away the week before this last exam. It's not fair to anyone when they have to be around me the week before this test. Plus, the 3 exams I had passed, they had all been away for the week before. The 2 that i had failed, they had been home. Trend? I think so.
3) Study- no brainer right? But I had to decide if I wanted to watch all 50 hours of lectures again. I didn't want to, oh how I didn't want to, but I did anyway.
4) Run! I started running again- 3-4 days a week, but it really clears my mind and I needed something else besides working and studying to fill my days. This was probably the best choice I made in the exam process.
So anyway, I got down to studying. I started June 5th and my exam was Aug 6th, so like I mentioned I gave up my entire summer. Honestly, by this time I was just always in a study mode. It had been over a year, and while it wasn't easy, and was certainly not fun, it was what it was, and I just was in such a groove you couldn't get me to change. Maybe some of that last test motivation was kicking in after all.
This time I did buy Ninja notes from Another 71. I highly recommend them. I read 20 pages of notes every single night before going to bed, over and over and over. I probably read the packet 20 times at least (I had it in my ibooks so it was super handy).
The weekend before the test, I studying 17 hours. It was tiring. My exam was monday morning so Sunday I made sure to only study until noon, giving my head a rest for the remainder of the day. Monday I woke up, and went to Starbucks for coffee/oatmeal and then headed to the test.
The excellent thing about this test is that it was hard. And it stayed HARD. It was 4 hours of 'drain your brain', but that's what I was ready to do. The SIMS were challenging, but I felt like I knew where to go with all of them. Almost forgot to do one of them, I thought it was finished because I had done a very small portion of it, but then when i clicked on it, with 6 minutes left, I realized it wasn't done. EEK, Thankfully, I was able to finish it super quick!
Honestly I walked out knowing i passed. Or at least I had the feeling of "if I didn't pass, I have no idea what the AICPA wants from me, because I did well."
I was just so happy that now was a waiting game and nothing was on the horizon to study.
The next day I went to work and got put on a new project. A big project. My boss later told me he almost told me about it the week before my exam, but didn't want to overwhelm me. That seriously may have saved me.
I found out sitting in traffic on August 21st. Mike was driving and i was checking forums at another 71. I saw that people with NTS's that were higher than mine were getting their scores. I was soooo nervous, but figured it's now or never. So I got on NASBA's website and checked. I PASSED. and the sweet cherry on top was that it was the highest score I had gotten on any exam. I almost threw my phone. I was so excited!
So that was it. No more intense studying. Just an ethics exam (take home- i'm almost finished with it) and an application (also in progress). Send it all in, give them $50 and that should be it.
AND then I got a promotion at work, and a big pay bump, so as one of my co-workers put it "you've had a really good month."
Yes. I have, and I earned it!
No comments:
Post a Comment