faraccounting wrote: I am about half way through FAR homestudy and there are some things that I found a bit stressful.. I got so used to Cindy that when Phil came on I was totally thrown for a loop.  Cindy does most of the teaching and her style is really methodical.. a lot of lecturing, reading through notes, and going over handouts.  Phil speedily covers topics and goes straight to MC Qs.  I had problems with his pension section.  I find the inconsistency in teaching styles very hard to follow.  Is anyone else having this problem and if so how do you deal with it?  There was another instructor but he went over the material pretty well too (lease section).  I'm not complaining about Phil, it is just that his section took me twice as long to understand and I got more MC Qs wrong :(  As everyone on here seems very confident with Phil, any advice on how to do his part would greatly help!! Thanks!!

Yes, I'm with you on Phil. I struggled with Income Taxes but I almost got the full understanding by just reading the text. Phil didn't help me at all. I've wanted to skip the lectures that he teaches mainly because his voice is distracting, very scratchy, and high-pitched.

I do prefer Cindy's teaching style because I pick up the material faster. She goes over a portion of the text, then does the MCQs. Then she goes back and covers more text, and then MCQs again. I'm covering Derivatives and Hedging now and she is just awesome.

faraccounting wrote: I am about half way through FAR homestudy and there are some things that I found a bit stressful.. I got so used to Cindy that when Phil came on I was totally thrown for a loop.  Cindy does most of the teaching and her style is really methodical.. a lot of lecturing, reading through notes, and going over handouts.  Phil speedily covers topics and goes straight to MC Qs.  I had problems with his pension section.  I find the inconsistency in teaching styles very hard to follow.  Is anyone else having this problem and if so how do you deal with it?  There was another instructor but he went over the material pretty well too (lease section).  I'm not complaining about Phil, it is just that his section took me twice as long to understand and I got more MC Qs wrong :(  As everyone on here seems very confident with Phil, any advice on how to do his part would greatly help!! Thanks!!

I also prefer Cindy. I think it is just a variety in teaching styles, which is good since there are a variety of learning styles. More than anything, I like the pace that Cindy teaches at (because I am very weak in FARE) and that MCQs are done after covering material. With Phil, MCQs may be done before material is covered and even though there are benefits to this approach from a teaching standpoint, I always pause lectures and try to answer questions on my own first and then watch the process to make sure I know how to do it right and for the right reasons or pay extra close attention if I did it wrong. So, if I wasn't just told something and got it wrong, I obviously wasn't listening very carefully and that is my cue to go back or get up and take a break so that I can better absorb.

One of the things I have just learned to get over that was annoying me was inconsistency in knowing what MCQs to do. The printed list received with the Home Study 2009 for FARE was different than the lectures. And, in the Consolidations section post-July it was the worst of all. There were some questions that Phil mentioned that we had done it and hadn't, for instance. So, instead of trying to do a bunch of work to figure out what questions I need to do, I just do all of the questions now. I make answer sheets in Excel and just highlight the ones done on the lecture (so I know which ones are very important). I feel like I have a much better grasp of the material now. Originally, I made up the answer sheets and then went through and crossed ones out that weren't on the list then had to go through and cross off more or un-cross off questions per the lecture. That is just too much work. I like that for some MCQs Cindy straight up says "do not do question/sim #____ because it probably will not be tested/bad question/typo".

faraccounting wrote: I am about half way through FAR homestudy and there are some things that I found a bit stressful.. I got so used to Cindy that when Phil came on I was totally thrown for a loop.  Cindy does most of the teaching and her style is really methodical.. a lot of lecturing, reading through notes, and going over handouts.  Phil speedily covers topics and goes straight to MC Qs.  I had problems with his pension section.  I find the inconsistency in teaching styles very hard to follow.  Is anyone else having this problem and if so how do you deal with it?  There was another instructor but he went over the material pretty well too (lease section).  I'm not complaining about Phil, it is just that his section took me twice as long to understand and I got more MC Qs wrong :(  As everyone on here seems very confident with Phil, any advice on how to do his part would greatly help!! Thanks!!

Faraccounting: Which year are you using: 2009 or 2010? There was a Pensions clarification video done for 2009. From the best of my knowledge, these are done when things change or when there are a lot of calls to the instructor hotline for similar issues that maybe weren't addressed very clearly on the lecture. I haven't covered pensions yet, but I know it is on the website for 2009. Watching it may help:   http://www.totalwebcasting.com/live/yaeger/2009fareclarifica tion/

I have 2009 yaeger..where michael mcmillian is teaching inventory and stockholders equity. i struggled and somehow understood the inventory part bt Stockholders equity is more complex.n hes poorly doing the job. As i read from the below post, that michael is no longer in 2010 far.can someone pls post the new video for stock holders equity and other topics covered by mcmillian..i hv exhausted the rights to call instructor hotline...any help wl be appreciated

cpanyc007 wrote: FAR is taught by Cindy/Phil in 60/40 ratio.  Leases and non-for-profits are taught by Gary - he does very good job on these two topics, so is the rest of the instructors. Michael is no longer in 2010 FAR - inventories are covered by Phil, and derivatives are covered by Cindy.  Also, Cindy does not go over several pages of the handout, but you are advised to read it on your own - if you never had a formal finance class in derivatives, it is highly recommended that you read these pages.  It is an easy reading too.