I thought i'd post this as a new topic:

I want to offer my 2 cents from a different perspective.   Too often i hear posters say, know this, study that....

I also notice people who fail and fail again and again - yet they study hundreds of hours, memorizing everything.  Yet they can't seem to pass.  And then there's the people who pass at ease, doing seemingly minimal amount of studying and the whole process is a cake walk.  Are they smarter than the former group?  Partly, and my reason is this - these people have either consciously or without knowing, learned to approach the exam by donning their Auditor hats, or creditor/investor's hats.  It's possible to memorize everything, but it's the whole, "don't work hard, work smart" saying.  My belief is that the whole objective of the CPA exam is not assessing how good your memory is, but whether you are capable of approaching the questions from the perspective of an auditor or user of the F/S's.  That's why memorizers are doomed to fail - becuase not everything is covered in their prep as often you'll hear, i studied my a$$ off for A but got B.  Instead know the framework - why things are the way they are is the key to passing with ease.  I'd have to say, alot of it is common sense and that goes a long way when you are encountering foreign material for the first time and you have to make an educated guess - which is often the difference between a pass and fail. 

For me, my study is basically half assed, anybody that watches my habits will be appalled.  I watch tv and read the text during commercials.  My boss was giving me sh!t everyday cuz i was sleeping through the Becker classes and giving me speeches about committment, but yet, he couldn't pass a single exam and i'm done.  My secret is know the fundamentals - it sounds so obvious but it isn't.   I'm not advising you to rely  on educated guessing as it's the sure path to disaster, you still have to read and do the necessary prep work.  All i'm saying is there is an easy way through the exam - don't go brute force doing 200 hrs of studying.  Understand the basics, and know why the rules/principals/guidelines/policies are set up the way they are and the objectives they are trying to achieve.  That's what the CPA exam is trying to assess.  They want CPAs who can think, who can intuitively spot problems when things don't seem right, CPA's that are able to protect the public, and themselves...they don't want memorizers who probably will end up tarnishing the rep of the profession.  

Just as an example and i apologize for using you as an example.  A poster was asking why show deficits from developmental stage separately.   My first thought was, ok, this guy is just not going to pass, no matter how hard he studies.  Becuase he is focusing on the wrong things, he just doesn't get it...if you followed my advice, you know that from the creditor/investor perspective, you know that readers will want to know that this company is now profitable even if the R/E is still negative from development stage.  I may be wrong, i may be right, but this is my reason and i don't recall reading anything about this.  Common sense...or maybe not as common as one would think.

Andycibc, I couldn't agree with you more. I've had the same approach since grade school.  However I find 2 problems that people using this strategy face:

1) Listening to what other people are doing.

In school all I ever hear anyone talk about is how everyone is studying every waking moment, going through flash cards, doing practice exams, cramming the night before....

For some reason, even though I have confidence in myself, it always makes me feel like I'm not doing enough.  It's almost like all my classmates are in competion for who can have the worst possible social life while studying for the exam.

Meanwhile I didn't take a practice exam, just glance at the practic Sims, and skip the supplemental questions.  Just focused on the concepts

2) Procrastination/Bad Attention Span (Maybe its just me though)

Because I am a procrastinator I tried the Becker "in class" sessions (which are worthless because you listen to the same CD you get in the self study material) before doing self study.  I was terrified because I was stuck in a classroom for 8 hours listening to CD's and I retained maybe an hour or 2 of material. 

Even when I do self study I find I can only do 10 or so MC practice questions at a time before I have to play a game of Starcraft , eat, watch TV or exercise.  It probably takes me longer to get through the material than most people.

However, with that being said I would not have passed Audit using any other approach.  So many questions require common sense thinking that are not covered by Becker.... However the other half are exaclty the same. 

My reasoning is if you can grasp topics/concepts you can get the questions covered and not covered in Becker correct on the exam.  If your going for memorization you got a 50% but you're going to struggle on the rest.  Plus I think audit has a very small, if no scale.

Another thing I would add to the common sense strategy is the "Pick C" approach.   I found myself about 10 times in FAR having no freakin clue how to do a question, clicked "C" right away and moved on.  Because of this I finished my exam with about a half hour to spare and just went over my WC about 10 times.

Everyone I talked to said they ran out of time on FAR and I think a major reason is because if you get a few long complicated questions it might take 5-7 minutes for each.  I said screw it, because I didn't know the material all that well and I figured if I made one mistake I was boned anyways so I just picked C

If all else fails.... Pray.   I really doubt my raw score was above a 60%for FAR but somehow I ended up with a 75.  I logged into NASBA just to confront my failing score and was utterly shocked when I saw it.  FAR has to have a rediculously huge scaled.   I guess as long as you get more questions right that everyone else with the same version you can pass even if you raw score was a failing score.