Often times CPA candidates are inundated with information as they study for the CPA exam. Lost in the shuffle are some of the simple tips that can greatly improve your CPA exam score.
1. You can take time off. You may be mentally exhausted after writing two sections of the CPA exam. You might want to give yourself a month of CPA exam free living in order to start fresh for the next two sections. The common attitude among CPA candidates is that they rush to complete all four sections in the 18 month time window. This may not be the optimal way of studying for you! It all depends on your personal circumstance. Let’s say for example that you passed two sections of the CPA exam and now you working long hours at the accounting firm because there are a slew of corporate tax returns. You might be best served by taking a month off.
2. Do not aim to know everything. The idea is to know the bulk of the information that will be tested. However, you will have to reconcile that you will not know everything. No one gets a perfect score on the CPA exam. Thus, if you find that you are stuck on one particular topic you may choose to ignore it. The trick is to be strategic in your ignorance.
3. Try to condense your study notes as the exam approaches. Typically, a candidate will start with a slew of information as they plough through mountains of material in the CPA study review. However, as the exam day approaches you want to be trimming your study material. It is for that reason that we recommend you use a CPA study guide. However, our study guide is generally intended to be used as you study in your last month of exam preparation. As you move towards the last few days of CPA exam studying you want to be working with condensed notes that are even 10X less than our 100 page CPA study guide.
4. Create rewards. Most CPA candidates use food as a reward but stuffing your face with ice cream might be counterproductive if you do it for an entire 18 month period. However, small rewards should be used to encourage your daily study habit. You can reward yourself in a number of creative ways such as renting a sports car that you’ve always dreamed of for a day or spending an afternoon watching a sportsmatch. However, I’ve yet to see one CPA candidate who can consistently maintain a disciplined schedule without a system of rewards.
5. Manage your sleep schedule. For most of the students that we’ve mentored the patterns are quite clear. The first casualty of CPA studying is exercise. However, the second casualty is sleep. The common tactic is to use buckets of Starbucks coffee in order to squeeze out another hour or two of studying. However, caffeine after 5 p.m. generally can interfere with your sleep schedule. Thus, it is important to monitor your sleep. For some people six hours is sufficient but for other people eight hours is necessary to recharge the batteries.
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