Strategies: Multiple Choice Questions on the CPA Exam
So, I was reading a post over at SmartCookie – CPA to Be about how she studies for the CPA exam. She mentioned spending time with a co-worker doing multiple choice questions and mentioned that they try to do at least 100 a night!
Now, I’m not sure how long that takes her, but I added up the hours I spent going over the first 100 multiple choice questions for the REG section of the CPA exam, and it took me over 3 hours to do those 100 problems! I definitely don’t have time to do 100 every night!
Now, I do what Roger suggested as a good CPA preparation tactic- I do the questions slowly and read each answer to understand the rules behind it, whether I got it right or wrong. I usually take some notes. I know I won’t remember it all, but I figure the notes will help a little bit of it stick in my head.
When I finally finished the slow round of multiple choice questions when I was studying for FAR, I never went back and did them over at a higher speed. (Roger suggests that you go back and do this, but I just didn’t have the motivation.) I did use the software to do timed practice questions, to make sure I could judge how quickly I needed to move on the real thing.
Anyone else out there who has a different approach to multiple choice questions?
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Hi, yes I do…I was going crazy trying to figure out how to study for this test. The problem is, that the CPA review is not a CPA study. You can’t study for this test like you did back in college for a test on material covered in class. It’s not a textbook approach (read the chapter and answer the questions)…there is too much information in one module to do it that way…you’ll never remember.
This is a REVIEW…which means it is info you already know from having gone to school and RE-Viewing it…looking at it again…so…my approach is as follows and it is working very well:
Do all the questions in a chapter first. Spend about 1 – 1 1/2 min on each one. Yes…the first round will take a while. For Cash, Marketable Securities, etc.. it was about 2.48 hours the first round. Then see what you got right or wrong. The answers in the back of the section tell you what questions correspond to what subsections…so if questions 1-6 were on Cash…and you got 3 of them wrong…then you go back to the subsection of “cash” and read and take notes or make flashcards on it. Then go back to that set of questions 1-6 and do them again, this time knowing what you just read. Then you’ll understand better and get the questions right. Do that for each set of questions for a section that you did wrong. The next day, re-do the questions again as a review/refresher. Then go on to the next section.
Try it…it works for me…cuts the time in almost 1/2!