Hi Utesa....I failed FAR the first time too,69, and finished off with REG (which i was studying when i got the FAR result) and came back to FAR. I wasted about 3 months- excuses, Christmas, New Years etc, but finally decided i have missed out nearly one year of my kids lives (they are 3 and 2) by studying and not giving as much time to them as i would have loved to....the best way i can make up for it is the complete my CPA, get a job i deserve, and provide them the best i can! My 3 year old son motivates me too, he keeps telling me to get back to my books so that i can buy him lots of toys once i'm done (lol)...I used to dream too, i realized making notes while you are studying helps you stay focussed, and i refer to these notes while i attempt the MCQs the first time. My study this time is alot more detailed, the last time I attempted FAR just becoz i had scheduled my exam and rushed through it too quickly. Do it once, but do it your best...another thing that helped me was making a schedule from today to the 'reasonable' date of the exam. Schedule which topic, the MCQs etc....and give time to do a final revision, and the AICPA tests.

Like Divya, I like to enjoy my study too, so once i'm done with home-stuff, i like to relax and spend the next few hours focussed on the books/tests...

If you would like I can send you the schedule I made for myself, you can just change the dates.

You will be a CPA, just stay focussed, be happy and use this forum to share your apprehensions!

It's not easy to recover for a depresion over a failing section. For me, it takes a long time to concentrate and my mind wanders very easily. But I'm glue to my chair and read or at least try to read my BEC material. And, little by little i'm learning something about my next test.

Utesa, I'm in a worse situation as you are. I know every single topic of FAR. I'm confident about my knowledge. But since I didn't have chance to complete the simulations, I only did the communication and like 10% of the other tabs. I'm prepared to take FAR again. The bad side is that it will take another 4or 5 weeks of my life + $250. he good side is that I know all the concepts for FAR, so it should be easier to study for the 3r time :/

#1. The secret to passing the exam is to study everyday during your lunch break, every night when you get home from work for at least 2-3 hours, study Friday night as late as you can, study all day Saturday and Sunday, and repeat this vicious cycle. The day that you get your score is the day that you should pay for your next exam. The day you get your notice to schedule is the day that you should schedule your exam date. I recommend scheduling the exam for the latest possible day in the testing window or on a Monday, since you would have been studying all Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday.

#2. As soon as you get out of the exam and before you drive home or to a bar, regardless of whether you think you passed/failed, start taking notes of everything that you remember that was on the exam. Write down every question you can remember, write down every subject you came across that you had no clue what the exam was talking about, write down evey single thing you remember about the exam! Carry this piece of paper and a pen with you everywhere for the next couple of days in case you remember any additional stuff. This list is going to be used to improve your studying to make sure that you know all of these things so well that if you encounter anything similar they will not be the reason you failed.

#3. Start studying again for the exact same exam you just took regardless of how well you feel you did. Forget studying for the next exam. Basically, you are not allowed to stop studying for the same exam until you receive your score that says you passed, because if you take off the 2 and a half weeks it takes for you to receive your score, you're going to forget a lot of the stuff you studied already. You need to keep everything fresh constantly. Only study for one exam at a time until you get FAR and AUD out of the way. If you are just starting, study for FAR first.

#4. If the study materials you are using currently aren't doing it for you, get some more. You should be learning the same information from no less than 4 different sources. Get books, get audios, get videos, get notecards, get software, get better software. If your study material is older than 1 or 2 years, get the newest edition. Spend as much money on review materials and retaking exams each quarter. Don't let 3 months go by without taking at least 1 exam. Spending money on this stuff is a mental and financial committment. It is an investment in your future money making potential and job security. All of these costs will seem like chump change in the long run.

#5. Forget your friends, family, significant others, pets, and plants. Forget your hobbies, hygeine, health, and hair appointments. Forget listening to the radio, surfing the internet(except for CPAnet), going to the movies, eating in restaurants, and watching TV. Forget religious gatherings, weddings, parties, holidays, vacations, facebook, birthdays, concerts, and rare astronomical events. They will only stand in your way. If I forgot to mention something, it is because I took my own advice and forgot it already.

#6. You can pass the CPA Exam! I know you can. You must be willing to sacrifice everything though. Instead of counting sheep, you should be going over accounting treatment for the exchange of nonmonetary assets and all of their exceptions in your head before you fall asleep. The exam is all that matters now! If you can't see that, then you will never see 4 passing scores inside of 18 months.

All of you are awsome ... reading all these beautiful words REALLY helps me at this time... thank you so much!

I have printed all your ideas and encoragement words, as soon as I finish saying "Thank you so much" I will schedule my exams (S) with Prometric so I feel engaged. I will skip F5 for now and start with those lectures I knew very well so it is just refreshing this weekend. (I started with my struglings lectures - bonds and leases) I think that had to do with the entire no wanting to study also.

Hopefuly I do not have to sit 14 times but if that is what it takes to be a CPA then 14 times will be.  No sure about tip#5 forget hygiene and health?  :) 

The more I see how the people who are about to pass and those who passed wrote their tips, the more I realized that this exam is about dicipline more than anything else. 

Again Thank you very much. I WOKE UP right now!!  what I was thinking?  :)