um what's up everyone so all summer i've been studying for the cpa and i haven't seen any recent videos with people talking about what helped them while studying so i thought i'd share some tips and tricks that helped me out and today we're gonna start with far the longest and probably the hardest one it was definitely a challenge so let's get you guys some help [Music] so i think one of the key components in my success was becker i did use becker i was lucky enough that my employer covered all the costs so i didn't have to pay anything out of pocket shout out employer uh but i definitely recommend it and i noticed a lot of different options different pricings but i thought i would go where the packages would each have and maybe give you some recommendations of what i would pay for and what i wouldn't pay for if i was the one paying for the review course so let's go on my computer and check the packages out yeah so here we have the becker course where you go to buy everything so as you can see there's three packages and luckily enough if you're buying the becker course now the best package actually has a thousand three hundred dollar discount so obviously if you can get your hands on this discount i would definitely recommend getting the pro because at the end it's cheaper and it has everything but if there's no discount you have to pay the original price now we have to look at the options um so obviously the cheaper one you only get it for two years which should be enough to you know pass all the sections but you have to take that into account the main difference in my opinion of what the pro has that it's a game changer is the final review capstone course which i'll talk about later it's definitely big time and it helped me out a lot the flash cards and the mcqs and the one-year cp subscription eh you know not really needed honestly if you're between the premium and the advantage i would get the advantage and but if you can get your hands on the pro whether it be your employees paying for it or paying for some part of it and you can pay the rest i would recommend it because of the final review course but if you want to save the advantage is more than enough you can just take notes and review on your own later you don't need the final review book but yeah these are the packages obviously right now the pro has a great discount that i would definitely take advantage of but if not honestly the advantage is more than enough so yeah those are the main packages now let's go outside so i can tell you what really helped me uh while studying for the far cpa exam let's go so yeah like i mentioned if you get the pro package you're gonna get these two books you're gonna get your main book that has all the material very thick and you're gonna get the final review book which is a lot thinner which is great at summarizing everything which is why i recommend it so if you don't know how becker works the main book has 10 units and each unit has anywhere from six to i think it was nine modules obviously each module is different in length what i did is that i studied either two or three modules per day maybe sometimes four depending on how short or long they are and that took me around five weeks to finish i did two units per week if you look at the becker online page i'll put a screenshot here uh you have your lectures which i would do after reading each module so obviously in books and beers i'm a big reader so i think i retain information better if i read so i would read the module watch the lecture at 1.5 speed so i would speed it up if you want to like focus on something like stop put it slower but mostly 1.5 speed if you think that you know a section for example i think i know bonds pretty well i didn't watch the lecture for bonds but i still read it then i did all the multiple choice after the lectures there's also some bonus multiple choice but i didn't do those whichever ones i got wrong i did them again and try to understand why i got them wrong and i actually skipped all the sims because again there's a lot of information if you wanted to do everything you could but it would take you a lot longer and after you're done with this monster i would then go to the final review book if you have it very thin and it's a great way to remind you of things because obviously after five weeks of studying you're more likely than not to have forgotten like the first couple weeks especially this book is definitely great because it summarizes everything it reminds you of stuff and it has more multiple choice questions that you can do so actually i only did two thirds of this book because i only had five days but i definitely recommend finishing it if you have the time so i did two days of this book got through two-thirds of it and then becker has three mock exams which is like a simulation of the real thing i did one each day before the exam so three days before the exam and then i would take notes on whatever i got wrong on the first one i got a on the second one i got a 69 and on the third one i got an 81 so a big bump and what i'll tell you is that obviously i was very stressed because you need a 75 to pass but after doing some research you you do have a bump uh because becker tends to be a little harder than than the real thing and they probably don't give you like partial points and stuff like that so there's no there's normally like a becker curve which is like 15 points so keep that in mind don't stress and i could tell you that i did get an 87 so that's that's a 17 point curve from the first of market sam which is huge so definitely don't be stressed if you don't get higher than a 75 on the marks anything above a 60 should be okay if you review the topics you missed and i also wanted to touch upon the exam date because i didn't see a lot of information about exam day so what's gonna happen is you're gonna show up you show them your id you go into a little cubicle mine had noise cancelling headphones which was pretty cool and you're going to log in or put like a number that your notice to say it has and they're going to give you a piece of paper a pen not a pencil i've heard a lot of people being pencil guys and a simple calculator that personally i didn't use i used the excel feature within the testing site it's literally excel you click excel and it opens excel you have all the functions you have everything so that was definitely very helpful as far as exam um don't stress i remember leaving stress because i couldn't really figure out two sims i thought i got them completely wrong but at the end of the day without really being sure on two sims i still got an 87 they always say you're gonna feel terrible after leaving the exam but don't worry like you'll if you put the work in you'll you probably did fine some key takeaways that i'll leave you guys with is keep going uh you're gonna be stuck on certain topics for me with leases that i just hate there's a lot of information that i didn't really it didn't it wasn't clicking for me i just keep going have the mentality of when i at the end i'm gonna come back and review leases with a fresh mind it's all about mental endurance this test is just as much about mental endurance than the technical accounting skills that it teaches you so just keep going try not to stress yourself out you're going to do fine if you put the work in again slow and steady wins the race it's a matter of putting the work in and just staying consistent but yeah definitely if you have any questions let me know i'll be happy to answer them just comment them down below if you like the video subscribe and yeah if you have any questions any comments let me know and i'll answer them good luck with your studying keep going and you're gonna pass it i promise [Music] you