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cpaken
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Joined: 21 Sep 2009
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Posts: 6
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| Posted: 21 Sep 2009 at 05:13 | IP Logged
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Guess I am too unhappy with the product that I am finding time to post comments against Lambers to warn fellow CPA Exam candidates away. I recommend Lambers for all 3 parts except FAR.
I 130 hours of ipod videos will be very useful, but Mr. Grubbs repeats sooo much that drives me nuts. He repeats when he is thinking and the things he repeats is not important. Unfortunatly that's the time we are trying to focus to understand the concept, but keep hearing junk repeats. I don't mind hearing repeats on key concepts or key words to reinforce the learning, but repeating page number 5 times, or saying "the answer is D" 5 times or partial sentence in transit while he is thinking drives me nuts. Keep in mind that this is video lectures that you will hear over and over and if you missed something, you can always rewind back and answers are given in the book already and really don't need to repeat it over and over again.
Also Grubbs don't teach or explain much and jumps directly into multiple choices and while working on the problems, he will start refering to the concepts needed to solve that problem. Therefore, the teaching and learning is NOT systematic AND you can't listen to the video lectures over and over to learn the key concepts. The 50 hours FAR videos are slow and full of junk and incoherent mumblings.
I decided to buy another review for FAR. My time and mental health is much more important then wasting my purchase....
On the other hand, Lambers Review for Reg and Audit is VERY good. The teachers in those sections actually teaches! They talk very concise and directly to the point and when they repeats, its on important concepts that they try to reinforce in our mind. Those sections can be played over and over while driving or doing house work and you will learn a lot from just listening. For problem solving you still need to sit down, open the book and follow the walk through from the videos, but the lecture part is very well done and organized that can be listened over and over.
BEC is ok, REG and Audit both deserves praise, and FAR is a nightmare! What's worse then those lots of repeats, I had to rewind to hear them over again to pick up the overall message that Grubbs is trying to communicate. Therefore, I wasted over one month (90 hours) on those 50 hour lectures and really wasted so much time on it and still didn't really learn much except feeling very frustrated and annoyed.
Your time is much more valuable prior to the exam, so, don't stress yourself out and realized you wasted so much time on junk materials. Buy REG and Audit from Lambers and buy the other two sections from other review courses.
Also for a side note, the Ipod I received is a refurbished, Apple certified refurbished ipod. I paid above FMV of a new ipod's price and have the course preloaded on to ipod, thinking that will save me time. Wrong! Just buy the material and load it to a brand new ipod yourself. That way you will also have a backup cd in addition to the ipod and you can buy the ipod from a more reputable company.
Also, 6 out of the 135 video files has some sort of corruptions that has some sort of minor skips/jumps/blanks.
3 of my books shows copyright 2009, 1 shows 2008. Perhaps not much updates in the current year?
Overall, I lost confidence in my purchase.
I like to buying FARE section again, anyone have suggestions?
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fat manatee
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Joined: 31 Aug 2009
Location: United States
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Posts: 30
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| Posted: 24 Sep 2009 at 14:44 | IP Logged
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It is too bad you can't take it live. I am taking the live FAR class right now with Grubbs and I think he is awesome. I have taken the whole Lambers review live and passed BEC first time (of which he teaches the whole course), currently waiting on AUD results. He does have some idiosyncrasies that I can see getting annoying on tape (repeating answers several times), but he is really good in person. He is also extremely helpful when you don't understand a concept - you can just call him up and he will go over it repeatedly until you get it.
__________________
BEC 7/31/09 75
AUD 8/27/09 79
FAR 10/23/09 66, 1/28/10 82!
REG 11/24/09 78
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cpaken
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| Posted: 25 Sep 2009 at 05:37 | IP Logged
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Congrats on your passing for BEC.
I don't have problem with the BEC recordings and AUD and REG are wonderfully done. I only have big problem sitting through the FAR video recordings. If he doesn't repeats in your class, then perhaps he gets lots of comments on it and made improvement for your current class, then I am happy for you. But the ipod recording is very bad. I am listening to it right now, so, I will type up a transcribe below so people can judge it by themselves.
Before typing out the example, I just want to say, it's not just me who feel Grubbs' speaking is bad, but Grubbs himself even commented during one of the recording that his had a bad break time because his own video director is getting on him on how to speak more clearly as well as writing more clearly. So, I think Lambers, his video teams, or himself are all aware of this issue. So, if he did improve for your current live course, then I am happy for you. But for this lecture on ipod, (refurbished ipod, to be exact) has disorganized FAR recording that I feel really is a waste of time if someone is under time constrain to get ready for that part.
Some of the repeats are so extremes that it's just too funny, but I didn't write down the example before, but just pick up any sections from my current listening, say, chapter 11, and since repeats are all over, so, I can easily give you one basic example: Chapter 11, Part 7
Grubbs: "You can do this either way, you can do this either way, ok? good, let's then look on question 63, let's look question 63. Question 63, question 63, Question 63..."
That's 20 seconds right there. Then his explanation of the solutions to that problem, can drag out and repeating it in segments like:
Grubbs: "ok, so vacation is easy, 'cause no body has taken any right? so, vacations, vacations we got 6 employees, vacations 6 employees, 6 employees, times 10 days, times one hundred dollars a day, one hundred dollars a day, so that's given you 6 thousands dollars, 6 thousands dollars..." (this 48 seconds with the necessary repeats will let people lost the sight of overall picture)
when I concentrate and trying to understand what his is explaining and 48 seconds later I would get it, and said, Oh! That was simple, he was trying to tell me "6 employees * 10 days * $100/day=$6000." But so much emphasis on a few words and after repeating it too many time, I frequently gets lost of the overall message, get gets very tired of trying to focus and gets very annoyed and discouraged that got lost and had to rewind and re-listen to it again to listen beyond the partial repeats.
This example is not bad and is just taken from my current point of study as a quick example. Some of the repeats are so bad and we repeats 6 to 7 times on some of the words, then move on the sentence and repeats more words again and after so many repeats I got lost of the overall message and remembered all the partial words that got repeated, but forgot what the message was and more frustrating to had to rewind to listen to those over again to try to ignore the repeats and get the overall message.
I am glad to hear that he is extremely helpful to explain questions in your class and available to phone calls. I don't doubt he knows his materials and willing to go over it repeatedly until you get it, but those hours of video recording gets very frustrating to me, especially during time crunch that I am trying to rush to get prepared for an exam and sat in from of the computer/ipod and feel so annoyed by slow and ....
yes, I am sure Grubbs is a good person and I don't have anything
against him, and for live class it's ok to repeat, but necessary for
taped sessions which you can go back when missed something and when he
is skipping problems he really don't need to read the problem or give
out answers, and repeats the answers over and over since the answer and
work out solutions is in the book. All those repeats of non-important
items is just wasting time and make hard to focus on real issues.
A combined issues of slowness, repetition, teach in reversed order like chapter one, without any teaching we jump directly in to problem 1 and while solving the problem then teaches concepts needed to solve the problem, which may work ok for classroom, but for recording, we have the advantage of listening to the lectures/teaching a few times to help understanding, review, or even memorization the subject, but if teaching is buried in side of MCQ solution explanations, then listening over the lectures gets very dragged out and adding on top of that with lots of repeats...just really not working for me. So, I am hoping to help other fellow exam candidates to warn them about it.
Besides, the low quality taping with small ipod screen really makes it headache to read and follow along. What's worse is the taping and the book is different version, or he will say he didn't write that part of the book, so he is using his own material to teach...but we can't see the screen and can't find that in the book and the taping also zoom out too much, so we have large white borders on the tiny screen.....Besides of what I mentioned in my prior post, there are just too many problems with this products that i really feel I wasted too much time and the material is not working.
Since my last post, I do have a update situation. I did call Lambers regarding many of the videos has skips/blanks/corruptions, so, I had to pay $20 shipping to get replacement CD. During that phone call, I did confirm that ALL the ipods used is all used/refurbished and go on to explain they need to do that to cut down their cost...etc, and apologized that it wasn't disclosed properly about the refurbished ipod.....etc. But when I get charged $280 for ipod and without the disclosure of refurbished, then by the price charged, I thought it would be new....but I guess Lambers' standards is not high and if their product has bad video sessions, customer have to pay to get replacements.
I also confirmed that the 2008 book I have is the latest and they explained to me that books has months of long delay to get it ready and get printed....etc. So, that 2008 book IS their latest prints, but if I buy PDF version instead of actual book, then I would get a newer updated material... Funny, isn't this a challenge for all review course? I am hearing other competitors is releasing 2010 book in November?
I am sorry. Putting all the facts together, I just wouldn't recommend buying FAR from Lambers. Wasting money on bad material is bad enough, but to me it's much more important not to waste valuable time and the stress when examination date is approaching.
On the other hand, if anyone tries to save time for other 3 sections, the recording and other teachers have done a great job, so, you can pick up study time by listening it while you drive, while you exercise...etc. I learned a lot from listening to those sections, and reinforce the learning by sitting down with book open to go through the materials.
For Lamber's FAR, No, I would still warn people away, especially if one is under time pressure of looming examination dates, then you will regret your time lost just like me.
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overthemoon
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| Posted: 26 Sep 2009 at 17:49 | IP Logged
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I just started working on FAR from Lamber's and decided to start with Chpt 7 and I agree that Grubbs does repeat himself too much and relied too much on MC ?s. I hoped maybe that was due to the subject matter (Accounting Theory). Then I went to Chpt 10, which is taught by another guy (whose name escapes me) and he's not bad. I guess that's the only chapter not taught by Grubbs?
I don't have a date set for taking the exam since I am still on a job hunt, but I wanted to focus on FAR 1st because it is the most information and I chose to go ahead and do Lamber's because the subscription does not expire like other review courses. I am very sad to hear that the rest of FAR is so bad!
As for the materials, I opted to get the lectures on dvd instead of for the ipod and I too had some technical difficulty and had to have discs replaced but they did not charge me. I don't know if it's because of the format I chose or what, but they replaced the discs for free and even through in a Lamber's pen.
Also, they told you 2008 was the latest copy of the books? The ones I got have a 2009 copyright (except audit which is 2008), but the FAR book is different from that used in the lecture AND the pdf. They also told me that I would have access to updated information via the dvds and software even though I have the hard copy of the books. I don't know what's going on, but I'm not liking that we're hearing conflicting stuff from the Lamber's people...
My biggest complaint with Lamber's so far is in regards to simulations, or lack there of. Before I ordered I asked the customer service rep if the software included simulations that mimic the testing experience- I went so far as to ask about the split screen option, spreadsheet, etc., and I was told it did. However, not only does the software not mimic the testing experience for simulations, it only has them in pdf format! When I called customer service about the lie, the man seemed very upset that I was told false information and I was told that I'd hear back from him about what happened after talking with the salesman. This was over a week ago and I haven't heard back yet.
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cpaken
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Joined: 21 Sep 2009
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| Posted: 27 Sep 2009 at 01:26 | IP Logged
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Your DVD files are much bigger with better resolutions and large file sizes. My ipod update files are much smaller and lighter to ship. Also, they have discontinued their ipod program, so, their extra left over stock of
replacement CDs are useless inventory, so, it doesn't cost them to send
me left over CD to replace my bad files.
I am glad they didn't charge you for your DVD replacements. They charged me because they know their econ theory very well..... "What ever the market can bear", so I guess I shouldn't show my willingness to pay to fix the problems. Shouldn't be too honest with tricky sales people I guess.
Yes, 80% of the recording are done by Grubbs, other teachers teaches well, and they DO teach first, then go over problems to put knowledge to use, and point out pitfalls of how to apply the knowledge of what we learned. Grubbs likes to defer teachings to later and likes to teach in reverse order. He start all the recordings with introduction to his backgrounds (but we only need to hear that ONCE in the intro, not every chapter) and after useless time lost then jump directly into MCQ without teaching, read the problem, then say B is the answer because that's the definition and that's it. Yes, I understand the problem and answer, but that's very shallow knowledge if I understand it. If I don't, then I need to go back to the book to read and learn on my own since Grubbs focus on LOTS of "practice" of what we should already learned from school. So, I need to learn on my own if I don't get it and don't expect watching the lecture again to learn from Grubbs. Once MCQ are all answered and spread some of the teachings into answering the questions then that's it for the long recordings. So much time spend to get very minimal learning. After lots of time put in, I will either had a good review of what I already know, or had to learn the "lecture" portion on my own. EVEN if after hours of MCQ's walkthroughs with very minimal time spend on the lecturing makes me wonder if such shallow coverage of the materials is enough to pass the exam? Is the whole chapter's material all covered in depth in just 25 to 35 problems? So, if I know how to do those 35 MCQ's again, then that means I learned that chapter? So, 16 chapters of 35 MCQs will be enough knowledge of the material for me to pass FAR? My exam confidence is so low right now.
Other teachers has the "lecture" section of the recording, so, I can play the recording over and over to learn and memorize the material, then watch how they solve problems and do practice problems on my own. Believe me, if you feel you know the material from just school or lectures, by the time to actually get to solving problems, it's very different challenge, but if the teacher Doesn't teach the concepts and do all the practice for you, our knowledge is weak. Based on most people's recommendation to do FAR first, I was going to do that in October, but now I decided to do FAR last because i feel lack of confidence and lack of support in my study material. I am still trying to find and buy courses for FAR section to get help because I don't remember much of my accounting courses from 15 years ago. To make sure I don't get out dated materials again, I plan to pass the other 3 exam first, then buy new latest FAR from other company and try to study it again.
I guess Grubb's style works for "REVIEW" Course, but if anyone studies it and is weak on certain area, then you need to seek other help. This is truly a "REVIEW" of what we should already learned in school and don't expect comprehensive learning from long hours of Grubb's recordings that wasted too much time on unnecessary repeats, or keep deferring the teaching to later and keep saying "we well go over that later in chapter xx" and later he will say we did this in prior chapter xx before, but to remind you this is about xxxx. I had hard time to jump back and forth between chapters to get better understanding of the subject, but sooooo much talking and necessary repeats with so little essence in the true teaching.
Simulations??? LOL! You are right, I pretty much finished listened to all the lectures and don't recall any simulation examples/walkthroughs, just lots of MCQs. Sure, due to so much of the repeats, I probably have dozed off during those problem solving sections and may have missed any simulations, but from what I do remember, I don't recall ANY simulations. Grubbs did do some problems, and the video will show a screen to say "problems is no longer on the exam, but it's a good practice to do." So, you are right, Lamber's Video recordings on FAR is weak on teaching and weak on simulations, and filled in with lots of junk during those 50 hours of video recordings with wasted repeats that doesn't help but actually takes away your concentration and focus on the real materials and hear over and over with Grubb's introduction to his backgrounds. Yes, I am sure his is very knowledgeable, work experience...etc and like fat manatee said, he is a nice guy and helpful heart to answer questions. But unfortunately after spending so much time on it and end with lot's of frustration and lost of time and money.
Ok, I want to be fair, I am not saying Lambers is material is all bad. Other sections and teachers are great. So, don't give up and go through those materials. For example,
I benefit a lot from Mike Farrell's Law. Yes he repeats a lot too, but those are excellent repeats on very key concepts to help you memorize the materials. I find it very useful and I recorded his lecture portion on a separate MP3 and hear it over and over and feel I pretty much memorized most of his teaching and feel knowledgeable and confident for the exam by just listening during my driving time and minimal practice time in front a desk. This saved me a lot of time and ease of learning.
Arthur Reed's Tax portion is informative, and to be safe, he covered a bit more then the exam, but didn't waste too much time on those extra materials and I like it, it's better be safe then sorry. What's more is the "bonus" materials and application of the teachings are very interesting "tricks" for tax planning like how to get around PSC when he explain the rules...etc. It's so interesting that I wish I can learn more and feel those knowledge will benefit me as a future CPA.
Garland's teaching on Audit and half of the BEC...boy, he really focus on the "knowledge". He wasn't kidding when he said the way to pass is "knowledge" so, his lectures focus so much explanation of the concepts and put emphasis on issues and give many examples to make sure we understand. Excellent teacher and very useful recordings to listen over and over for understanding and memorization. This is also a great material to study while you drive or workout. You will learn a lot and save time.
All those sections are fast, to the point and packed with info, so that when they walk-through the MCQs and explain, I well say, oh, yah, that's right and remember their lectures and the concepts and reinforced the knowledge and applications in tricky situations.
Again, I only have problem with Grubb's sections, which is 80% of FAR and 50% of BEC. Fortunately BEC is easy, so, it's ok to have bad material or lack of review support and you still can pick it up and pass on your own, but unfortunately FAR is the biggest sections filled with important materials that if you are weak on those 80%.....Game Over! Well, I admit I am not ready for FAR and really need to look for other help from other companies, and decided NOT to waste more time on the replacement CD I just received.
Time is much more valuable then the cost of the material. Just think how much salary you can make in a month or two AND gain work experience from those time spend for useful things Vs. compare to the cost of the material for FAR. Dollars you can earn, So I regret wasted my precious time on Lambers' FAR course, and hope my bad experiences and comments can help other fellow candidates.
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Topic: 2009 Lambers Review on Ipod
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