CPA Exam Preparation: Your Materials & Process

In this video we're going to cover what materials you actually need to pass the CPA exams

what types of materials are crucial for the process, and then some of the things that

are out there that aren't really that important, and how to tell the difference

More importantly, in this video we're going to cover the single biggest factor

besides your materials that will determine whether you pass your exams or not

So to start out, the absolute worst thing you can do is try to skimp on the materials

Now that doesn't mean that you have to go out and buy the most expensive review course

not even close. What I mean by that is sometimes I'll get emails from candidates who are trying to

order a series of textbooks off of Amazon that are used, that are several years old

and that's just not a good approach. The CPA exams, it's such a high ROI thing for the rest

of your career and your career earning power that it just it doesn't make sense to skimp on

the materials up front, which really just leads to a higher chance of you failing sections

Let's say you mess around with old textbooks for three or four or six months and you fail a few

sections. You would have been far far ahead both financially and mentally at that point

to just start with the correct materials from the beginning. So basically you will want a full

review course, but again you don't need to go out and buy the most expensive review course on the

market. Now if your firm is just going to pay for Becker for you, that's one thing and that's great

but a lot of candidates out there have to put their own money on the line for their review course

So here's the big secret you need to know about review courses. Any big name review course that

you've heard of, whether that's Jaeger, Becker, CPA Excel, Roger, you know there are several

Gleim is another one. Any of those will have the information that you need to pass. There is no

review course with any magical powers that makes this process easier than any other review course

I have a whole separate video about this topic that's pretty long that goes into the details of

how to find the best review course for you personally and the video is titled

The Best CPA Review Course. I'll link to it in this video or there's a card we'll put on right

now. But any of the big name review courses will get the job done. Now here's the big factor. There

is one feature that the review course you choose absolutely needs to have and that is unlimited

access. So what I mean by unlimited access, it just means there's no time limit on your access

to the review course and I recommend this for the simple reason that back in the day, even just a

few years ago, any review course had kind of an 18 month time limit and of course that's the same

time limit you have from the exam board to pass the exams. Now the thing that doesn't make sense

about that 18 month time limit for the review course access is that starts day one, like the

first time you log into your review course. The 18 months from the examination board doesn't start

until you pass your first section. So that 18 months of access gets away from a lot of people

because let's say you spend four or five months to finally pass that first section, especially if you

start with one of the harder sections like FAR or REG. So you've spent four or five or six months of

your course access just to get to the starting point of your 18 months for the exam board. So

luckily a lot of the review courses now are offering unlimited access on some of their packages

and that is what the video I mentioned breaks down is. Basically by price, which packages out

there from the different review courses give you unlimited access at the different pricing tiers

So refer to that video for the specifics on that. But the main thing you want in your review course

is unlimited access because life gets in the way, you don't know what things will come up

and 18 months can go by quick. And if you're investing your own money in your review course

you don't want to have that 18 months run out and have to either repurchase access from that

provider or go and pay for another full review course. That's the worst thing that can happen

Now having said all that, the single biggest factor that I mentioned is your personal study routine

your study habits, your daily study routine, and then your study methods. Those are a million times

more important than what review course you choose. You can buy that $3,500 review course that has

everything under the sun, but if you can't get yourself to sit down and study each day every

single day for months on end, you're never going to pass these exams. The expensive review course

again, it can't do anything magical for you. You have to be the one that sits down and you get that

you have to have a reliable system of getting that information into your brain and retaining

that information. And that is of course your daily study routine and your study methods

One of the most common questions I get asked in emails is, how many hours do I need to study for

FAR or REG or whatever? And that question kind of drives me crazy because not all studying is

created equal. Your study methods matter. There are very ineffective ways of studying and most

people just sit there and watch video lectures and it's very low impact on your brain. It is very hard

you know, a 20-minute video lecture covers all this information and then you can spend the time

doing that and then go to the questions and you still have no idea how to answer the questions

I don't want to get off topic, but there are study methods that are very ineffective

but a lot of people spend 80 or 90% of their study time on these highly ineffective study

methods and then on the opposite end you have very effective study methods, but under the normal

way of studying, most people spend most of their time on these ineffective study methods. When if

you simply reverse that, you could spend less time studying and get dramatically better results

And that's exactly what we cover on our study trainings and I'll tell you more about that in a

minute. But just understand that you can pour hundreds of hours of sitting at your desk

you know, and you think you're studying, but it's what you're doing is ineffective and you will go

and you will fail those exams, whereas you could put in half the time if you were just using highly

effective study methods and get dramatically better results. So these highly effective study

methods I keep mentioning or these accelerated study methods, they're not advanced, it doesn't

take a genius to do them, it's just a very different approach to the study process and you

can use any review course. You take these strategies and you just apply them to your

review course, it doesn't matter what review course you're using. So you can sign up for one

of these free sessions at the link below or at superfastcpa.com slash training. This is a training

it's literally one hour that can save you months and months of time and frustration. So I would

highly recommend you attend one of these sessions. These are the same exact strategies that I used

I mentioned in the previous video, where I failed the first time studying the normal way

and then I switched to my own ideas about studying. Once I was working full-time, I studied

an average of two hours a day and in this one three-month window I passed all four sections

So those exact study methods are what you're going to learn when you attend one of these

study sessions. So again, these sessions are free, but each session has limited spots, so make sure

to grab a spot on one of the trainings right now while you are thinking about it. Don't put it off

the sooner you watch one of these trainings, the faster you can implement these strategies

and start getting much better results in less study time each day