Up next in 10
My Top 3 CPA Study Tips
2K views
May 3, 2024
Free Study Training: https://www.superfastcpa.com/study-secrets/ It really is possible to pack in a ton of high-quality study time each day, by the time you're done with work, so you can take the evenings off! Learn how here: https://www.superfastcpa.com/study-secrets/
View Video Transcript
0:00
Here's exactly how I passed all four of my CPA exams in one three month period
0:04
while working full time, studying an average of two hours a day with my review
0:09
course. That was on weekdays or on work days. So first, I would study in the morning
0:15
So I would do a two hour session before work. Now, this alone is crucial and would be a game changer for most people
0:23
because when I was trying to study after work, I'd be worn out
0:27
I'd be tired. My brain wouldn't work. It would be a struggle to just fight myself through the whole study session
0:34
because I was just tired and worn out. And then the other thing was things come up in the evenings
0:40
You know, you have friends or family that want to see you. There's just things going on in your normal life
0:45
So I switched to the morning and that's key all alone because you lock it in
0:50
That's what I always tell our customers. You want to lock in your daily study session
0:55
So the two hours happens. You do it consistently. You build that into your to your day
1:01
So before you even start work for the day, you've accomplished your key
1:06
big, valuable task for the day. So you feel good about it
1:09
You don't have to dread your evening study session. You don't have an evening study session when you follow this format
1:17
So two hours in the morning. The other thing about the two hours in the morning is
1:22
you get really good at something you do every day. So if you're inconsistent in your study process and you really only study
1:30
two or three days a week, it's really hard to gain any insight
1:35
on your process itself. You're never going to get good at the process itself
1:39
But when you are, when you do get good at the process, you can literally spend less time each day because the time you do spend
1:46
is so effective. And that's what this two hours every day does for you
1:50
So two hours in the morning. Now, the first 90 minutes is going through new material
1:55
OK, first 90 minutes is going through new material. And you what I did was a questions first approach
2:04
So instead of watching the entire video lecture and confusing myself and having to start it and restart it 50 times
2:11
I would go straight to the practice questions. And again, you get good at this process
2:17
You would go through the practice questions or I would go through the practice questions and you go through 15 or 20 questions
2:25
And obviously, you're using them as a as a learning tool at this point
2:29
It's the exact same thing as the video lecture. You're just going straight to the most testable parts of the lesson
2:37
And you can try this for yourself. You go to any lesson in your review course, you can watch the entire video
2:42
lecture and then read the entire chapter. You'll have this huge amount of information
2:46
But then if you go through the practice questions for that lesson, you will see
2:51
patterns. And what you'll find on most lessons is you're really only seeing
2:55
questions from the same three or four or five key ideas from the entire
2:59
lesson. You go through the questions first. Now, for a lot of lessons, you'll learn everything you need to know about that
3:05
lesson from just going through the practice questions and reading the explanations. Read why an answer is wrong and then read why
3:14
the ones that are right, why they're right. And you learn in the same context that you're going to see it on exam day
3:21
The other thing is we teach our clients is this focus of
3:26
studying to pass. So you're spending all this time going through questions, whereas most people, they
3:32
don't realize it, but they spend 80 percent of their study time watching the video
3:36
lecture, you know, reading the chapter, highlighting the chapter. All that stuff is very passive
3:42
That's why it doesn't stick in your head. But when you have to think about a question and try to choose an answer and then you
3:48
see the answer, see what the explanation is, there's something about that that's a
3:52
lot more sticky to your brain. And so you learn much faster and it's active
3:58
It's active learning versus passive learning. The video lecture, you know, you press a button and then you just sit back for 30
4:05
minutes or an hour. And it's easy to just waste your time doing that
4:09
Now, obviously, with this question first approach, I know I'm just giving you all this
4:13
information right here. We have a free training on this. This two hour session takes an hour for us to walk through
4:21
But we go a lot more specific in each of these points. You can register for one of these free trainings at any time by clicking the link below
4:27
the video or just clicking this video. But going back to this. So you're two hours in the morning
4:33
That's the first 90 minutes. We refer to this now as planting the seeds because you're not trying to master each
4:38
lesson the first time you go through it. That's another big problem with the normal way of studying
4:44
When you try to master each lesson one by one, you know, and then you go two
4:48
months without seeing the stuff you studied the first few weeks, you will
4:53
forget huge portions of that. So what was the point of mastering it, you know, and spending 20 hours mastering each
4:59
lesson? So that brings me to the second or the last half hour
5:04
So the first 90 minutes is this planting the seeds, the question first approach
5:09
gathering context about each lesson. And then the last 30 minutes, you're going to set up a review testlet and every review
5:15
course can do this. It's it might be called quiz builder or custom
5:20
assessment or whatever it is. You generate 30 questions. So, again, it resembles a test day testlet
5:27
You generate 30 multiple choice questions from all the lessons you've previously been
5:32
through. And this is how you end each day's study session. So this obviously helps you fill in the gaps
5:39
You're constantly repeating, refreshing. You're re-reviewing all the stuff that you've already been through so that you're
5:46
getting better at all topics as the weeks go by, as you get closer to exam day
5:51
instead of spending a huge amount of time up front on each lesson and then just
5:56
forgetting it, which when you say it like that, you would agree that doesn't
6:00
make any sense to do it like that. All right. Now, step number two in this whole process was I didn't realize
6:07
that at the time why this was so effective. I was just doing this out of necessity
6:11
I didn't feel like two hours in the morning was enough or I just wanted constant
6:16
practice. So I would study from my phone like crazy. So I would I got other study supplements and, you know, they weren't
6:24
optimized for mobile. There wasn't a mobile app at the time that had all this in
6:29
it like we have now at SuperfastCPA. But that's for this reason
6:34
Anyways, I would do it anyways. Just every time I walked across the office or I was waiting for a planning
6:41
meeting to start or I was in line at the bank, anytime I was in my car, I was
6:45
listening to audio notes. I just viewed this whole thing as I don't want to have to redo any of this
6:51
I don't want to waste all this time and money. I want to get these done. So I filled up every spare second from my phone, you know, during the day
6:59
during the workday. And it's just amazing how much extra study time and exposure you can give yourself by studying from your phone
7:08
in all the little gaps or all the nooks and crannies of your day. And that was that was a game changer
7:14
And so that is why now with SuperfastCPA, we created the study supplements that
7:18
we have. They all work nicely in the app. They're simple to understand
7:23
The questions are simplified so that you can do them on the go without, you know
7:27
trying to switch to the calculator app anyways. So that was a huge thing
7:33
So the two hours in the morning on weekends, I would try to study four to six
7:37
hours following the same approach. But on weekdays, I would I would just do two hours in the morning
7:42
Then I would try to study from my phone as much as I could. And then the third thing was making my own flashcards
7:50
And so when you come up to a topic that's really hard for you to understand or as
7:54
you're doing these sets of 30 each day and you keep you keep missing
7:59
questions on the same topic, that is when you stop and you take the time to
8:03
literally explain this concept, whatever it is, this concept you're struggling with
8:08
or you keep forgetting. You explain it to yourself out loud. Until you until it clicks in your own mind
8:15
So you come up with some way of explaining it to yourself that makes sense to you
8:20
And that is what you write down on a flashcard or you can do them digitally
8:24
With like Quizlet or something like that. So you end up with these flashcards that have all your weak areas, but written
8:32
in an explanation that you came up with. So it makes sense to you
8:37
And it's dramatically more effective than trying to go back through flagged questions or using the flashcards
8:45
that come with your review course. Because, again, it's the stuff that you personally have struggled with, but in an
8:51
explanation that you understand because you came up with the explanation and it's in
8:56
your own words. So those three things, the two hour daily study session in the
9:00
morning so that it happens every day, no matter what. Number two is the studying from your phone
9:06
We refer to this as mini sessions. Number three, making flashcards in your own words
9:11
Those any three of those or ideally all three together, that will
9:16
change the game for you, make the study process much more effective and you're
9:20
done by the evening. That's the big thing. Two hours in the morning, study from your phone
9:26
You're done by the time you come home from work or you're done with work. So then you have the evenings free to do whatever you want
9:33
So if these ideas make sense to you, but you'd like to hear a more
9:38
fleshed out explanation of each one, we have a free one hour training that I
9:42
mentioned a minute ago that you can watch this free one hour training
9:46
It's a training webinar and we will go through these keys, but in a lot more
9:50
detail and actually explain them like the questions first, are they planting the
9:54
seeds? We walk through that, what that actually looks like. And then we just go into more detail to sign up for one
10:00
You can click on the video or the link below the video. Go to the registration page, choose an upcoming time that works for you and then do
10:07
not miss it. Again, if what I just went through sounds like it makes a lot of sense
10:11
to you, then do yourself a favor and attend one of these free one hour trainings
10:16
This is one hour that will honestly save you months and months of time and
10:20
frustration. We also have our podcast, the Superfast CPA podcast, where I
10:25
interview some of our past customers. We have published over 50 of these interviews now
10:30
We're person after person. In some cases, these people were struggling for years with their CPA exams
10:36
failing sections over and over. They came across one of these same type of ads
10:41
Watch this same training. And then it changed everything for them. I was doing my work and I would keep seeing your videos pop up on YouTube that you
10:48
advertise that people can be working full time and pass this exam and you can
10:53
still have a life. And like it was those three things. And I think that last one was the most important is have a life
10:59
Yeah. The hour training. Yes. The hour training. I signed up for that
11:03
I sat down and I listened to this and I got your program and I went on to pass all
11:08
three of my exams before December. And so I'm so super thankful
11:13
And I told everybody about Superfast. What you're doing right now, it's not working
11:17
Give this a try. Know that sometimes you do feel like you're not doing enough
11:21
But God, it works. It works. I studied about half the time I studied for the others
11:29
But, you know, I stuck to the Superfast method. So maybe maybe it'll work out
11:33
And I made a 90. So it was like 91. I made a 91. That was actually my highest grade
11:39
And I was like, well, OK, I guess this method works. And I said, you know what? I'm going to do that
11:45
I'm going to just kind of like embrace the study method. And then I passed
11:50
And once I passed FAR, that was my first exam I passed. I just told myself, like, I'm not going to fail again
11:56
Like I know how to pass these now. And I didn't pass the next three in a row. Yeah. I owe my CPA license probably to your service
12:02
So thank you so much. It helped me more than you probably know
12:06
And then like it's just one after the other. I passed all four of them in
12:11
three months or so. It doesn't like have to be this weight like around your neck
12:15
So, yeah, I basically did that for all four tests and I passed all four of them
12:19
Yeah, it was like a super condensed period of time. I hadn't I had failed like a bunch of exams, thousands of dollars
12:25
essentially down the toilet. The study tips, I think, kind of connected the the dots for me
12:29
and made that happen. So pretty sweet. Also, as part of the training, you will get the slides from the training
12:35
which you're probably going to want. And then we also give you a mind map at the end of the training
12:39
that has all the strategies just in one easy to visualize or easy to understand process or view
12:46
So click on this video or the link below the video. Watch one of these free one hour trainings
12:50
It will make a huge difference for you. Simplify the study process, help you make it much more effective
12:56
especially if you feel like you've really struggled with the study process itself
13:01
or establishing a consistent daily routine or if you just feel overwhelmed with the amount of material
13:07
The strategies in this training will help you solve all three of those kind of key problems that most candidates face
13:13
So click on the video and register for a session and I will see you on the training
#Accounting & Auditing
#Eye Exams & Optometry
#Tax Preparation & Planning
#Training & Certification