In this episode you’ll hear me talk with Aaron, a SuperfastCPA customer who passed his CPA exams within 3 months during busy season.
Transcript:
Twenty nineteen. January. I just started getting back into it. I read your notes. I. I got back into sergeant again. And then like, it’s just one after the other, I passed all over for three months or so. Now I spend three months, actually.
Welcome to Episode 13 of the CPA Exam Experience podcast from SuperfastCPA I’m Nate. And in this episode, you’re gonna hear me talk with Aaron. I really like Aaron’s story because he’s a SuperfastCPA customer, he’s now a CPA. He kind of started out the normal way at this point, which would have been, I think, two years ago. He was just studying with his review course, trying to learn all the material. I think he failed a few sections in the beginning.
Then he, for a few reasons, took a year off, then came back to the study process, was fully committed because he just finally got sick of the exams and needing to pass, just kind of hanging over his head. So he came in with a new approach following our study routines or our study framework using our study tools in addition to his review course. And once he came back with kind of a renewed focus in this different approach during his busy season, he passed all four of his exams in a three or four month time span. Back to back to back to back. All passing scores, all four in a row. And so in this interview, we cover a lot the struggles he had in the beginning, the realizations he made and a lot of it. You know, he’s just kind of talking through the same things that are in our Study Hacks videos, because that is what he used heavily to influence his own study approach that he ended up using when he passed all four. So in this interview, we go through every part of the study process.
Best Place to Start
So, again, like the previous interviews, if you’re in the study process or you’re going to be within the next year, you will find this interview very helpful. And I would just recommend that you set aside the time. Well, the nice thing about the podcast format is you don’t even necessarily need to set aside the time. You can listen to this episode while you’re driving, commuting, preparing meals, getting ready in the morning. I mean, whenever it would work for you to just listen to this kind of in the background, I think you’ll get a lot of helpful tips out of this interview. Three things before we get into the interview. The first thing is if you’re new to SuperfastCPA, if this is somehow the first thing you’ve come across from us, the best place for you to start is one of our free study trainings. You will hear Aaron mentioned over and over in this interview, kind of the SuperfastCPA study approach, the daily routine. Anything about that, he’s kind of referring to the SuperfastCPA approach to studying that we teach our clients and customers. The best place for you to learn that for free is to start with one of our free training sessions. We call these are Study Hacks sessions. It’s a one hour webinar. It’s in webinar format. We only do it a few times a week and it’s one hour where we will walk you through our study process. And the idea is how to have a perfect to our main study session with your review course so that on weekdays that’s all you need to aim for is a two hour session with your review course. So you can register for an upcoming session at superfastcpa.com/passnow or just text the word PASSNOW as one word to 44222 and we’ll send you a link or there’s a link below. And this description or just going to our site, you can easily find a link to a training.
The next thing is, if you found these episodes helpful, you want to subscribe. So you get notified when the new episodes come out each week. Go to your podcast app. Whether that’s on Apple or Spotify. Just search SuperfastCPA and you’ll find the podcast. Subscribe. Please take a second to leave a review for a podcast. And then on YouTube we’ve been releasing these walk-through videos where we go straight in practice problems for a specific topic. People have been finding those really helpful. We don’t publish those on the podcast because they’re you know, it’s a walk through. You have to kind of be looking at it. So those are only on YouTube. So find our YouTube channel as well. There will be a link below in the description or again on this episode page on our Web site and you can subscribe to our YouTube channel so that you’re notified when those new videos come out. So with all that being said, let’s get into this interview with Aaron.
Interview with Aaron
It’s just crazy to think because I used to actually watch your videos a lot, you know, for the past year or so. The exams. So cool. Finally talking to you.
Yes. Yeah. Nice to meet people face to face. I’ve done a bunch of these interviews the last like two weeks and I should have done this a long time ago. But that’s one thing everyone says because like, they, you know, listen to the audios, which are my voice. And I can only imagine listening to my voice for months over and over. I guess it’s got to be somebodies voice.
It’s so ingrained in my mind at this point, I would always use it. Right. Commutes and stuff like when I go at it, you know, watching the hockey videos to. You know, just constantly remind myself how to get through it. So very appreciate it. Thank you so much for that.
Yeah, man, I’m glad. I’m glad it can help. So you’re. I was going to kind of jump in and see if you’d want to comment, but I forgot. Ah, you’re all done then. You’ve passed all four, correct?
Yes. Yes. Cool. Last June. So. Yeah.
Nice. So in the beginning, how did you get started with the study process? Did you just get a review course and just kind of jump in? Or how did it all start for you?
Yes. Yeah, sure. So I just you know, after graduating, I was always told you need to get a review course. So I just got one straight off the bat and just jumped straight into it. So, yeah, it was exactly that. Straight out of college, actually. So. Yeah.
Nice. And what was your experience the first few months? Did did you feel overwhelmed or did you just kind of. Did it click off the bat or how did it just how did it go in general?
Sure. So, yeah, it was definitely very overwhelming. Definitely nothing in school really prepared me for like the amount of content I was gonna be covered in each section. Just, you know, you really start to think back at like, you know, the courses you take and like how much of a gap there is really sometimes between the exam itself, how it’s tested, and then you compare it to like, you know, your final exams in accounting where you know, your midterms and stuff like that. So, yeah, definitely there’s a gap there. And I realize that very quickly.
Nice. Were you just kind of doing it? What I always call the normal way where you just watch the lecture, then read the chapter, then go to the questions or what was your actual approach each day?
How Aaron Got Started
Yeah. So actually, I used a program. I’m not sure you’re familiar with it. Surgent CPA. Yeah. Yeah. So they’re actually very big on the analytical part of the question. Did you take them and you go to the section? So I actually thought that process, I wanted to do the traditional method. OK. You got that, in my opinion, really doesn’t work. You know, that’s how I would learn and go about stuff when I was in college. So, yeah. Then I started implementing surgeon’s method of going through the course and, you know, upon finding SuperfastCPA too. I know that that was very emphasized in the course. So I was like, you know, why am I fighting the Surgent and SuperfastCPA go to the this. So I immediately went into that and. Yeah. And if you don’t mind me mentioning this too, it’s very helpful to read your notes first and then go into the course itself like the textbook and stuff because it notes really like direct. You know what’s important, especially with like the pension accounting for far and cost accounting for back. The notes you had there were like very to the point.
Yeah, a lot of people have been saying that and that’s not something that that I, you know, actively tell people. But it makes sense. And, you know, I didn’t have I kind of created the whole SuperfastCPA thing after I was already done for a few years. So I obviously didn’t have my notes in the beginning when I was studying. And so I had never just thought of that. But I’m doing these interviews. Probably like 80 percent of people have mentioned that exact thing, like reading the section they were about to study. And so I need to start recommending that to people as well.
Yes. Yeah. That’s huge. That really helped a lot, especially like literally couple minutes before the exam, too. You know, you start getting those doubting feelings and you’re like, oh, wait, no. Like, this is all I need to know. Like, you know, especially for WREG to, like, be something that I always threw me off was like the business law aspect, the contracts part, the portrait section you have there. I was like, oh, wow, I actually do. It’s like I need to stop thinking double thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nice. What was the timeline like? How long did you how long into your study journey or whatever did you come across SuperfastCPA?
Sure. So let’s see. So I got Surgent in twenty seventeen. Towards the middle of the year and then twenty eighteen I believe. January or so is when I found super-fast. So after failing all the first time in twenty seventeen, I was like, you know, I need to supplement this somehow. So I thought, you know what? Why not super fast, right? And I decided to go super fast. And I know there’s like a bunch of other supplemental courses, but you know, I know like ninja offers, like all these other things, too. But I was like, you know, my goal is super fast.
You get to do it really fast.
Like, I’m not I don’t I don’t really want to supplement with more. I mean, a surgeon already had a good amount of questions, but I wanted some, like, more concise notes, audio notes. And I know. Yeah, it’s like a bunch of packages. And I wanted something simple and super sessoms like.
Yeah. And that’s kind of yeah. That’s kind of a balance is like, you know, I could make these a lot more robust, but then you’re crossing into the territory of what the review course already does. Exactly. Which is too much. Which is too much info usually. Exactly. Yeah. So you mentioned failing audit once. How. How did it go from there? Did you or did it did you pass your first section eventually. And from there you just kind of had it figured out and you passed the rest after that.
Getting Sick of Not Being Done
Sure. So actually it’s you know, it’s just kind of a pride thing. I actually felt. Audit twenty. Seventeen. And I didn’t I like at the time when I had Boss SuperfastCPA, I also was not taking the exam seriously. I think there’s a lot of I don’t know what the word is like cell phone accountability for that. Right. You know, there’s that whole aspect of like, I have a course, I have a supplement like I just don’t like. I got this right. But really at this time. And I know in the course you mentioned that there’s like no magic pill or anything like that. Like it’s literally like you mentioned getting up at 5:00 a.m. And once I started doing that, I was like, OK, like this is kind of working, right? Yeah. So to give you a timeline on that, I actually passed everything during tax season. So nice. You mentioned a law in the courts, too, that it’s all about discipline.
Right. Now, that’s kind of what I factored in. So to give you a timeline, I fell about twice and then 20 19 on January. I just started getting back into it. I read your notes. I. I got back into surgery again. And then like, was just one after the other. I passed all four of them in three months or so. In a span of three months, actually. And I took like a gap year. So because, of course, life gets in the way. Well, I’m not going to lie. I remember that like you would always say to like, you know, I’m always going to bother you. It’s going to bother you. Just take the pills. Just do it. And, you know, during tax season of 20, 19 last year, I was like, you know what? It’s time I’ve been out of school for about a year.
So, you know, it’s a it’s been pestering me. So I read through FAR, I read through all of that. Actually, far as notes is what really helped me a lot. Mm hmm. To pinpoint exactly what I needed to go through in the course. So I did far in about one month. And then after passing, I saw after taking that, I was like, you know what? Whether or not I passed. Right has to go next. So I did WREG. And then I was like, you know, what should I say? An audit like one more time. I know. I felt it three times. And then, yes, I fit it in. And then when that scores came, I was like, well, I passed all three. I guess I might as just well do back during tax season. Yeah. The methodology for that was going through the nose, as I said, which I was very surprised that that was not mentioned in your course. That about the CFF trust.
I’m going to start saying that a lot. Yeah
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And then and then getting into the horse and all that. So yeah, if you really want to you can literally do it three, four months.
That’s that’s awesome. I love that. And that’s funny too because like there is such a big difference because like when you first started you were putting in a decent amount of time. Right. There’s such a big difference to just kind of like owning the. Commitment. Exactly like this. I’m doing this now like I’m 100 percent serious. This is really all I care about. Besides your job or whatever. Exactly. And like you said, you know, you can just make such a drastic difference. You ended up passing in just a few months, aren’t you? Yeah, that’s that’s cool.
Discouragement Leads to Breakthrough
Yeah. And after all, like the discouragement and taking the gap year, like, I still think that it’s very much possible, especially if you follow the exact method methodology that you set where it’s discipline, it’s not gonna stop bothering you. Oh also yeah. I remember this about this too. About the course is like whenever I had a time to walk around right after, you know, like during tax season, I would take him up on where I go, try drive an electric car. So I would just sit in my car. And while it’s charging, I would be going out through the nose, I’d be up to questions. And some of the questions were very similar to the ones insurgents said, if I needed more elaboration, I knew where to find the question right into the app and I would just locate that topic in insurgents. So yeah, that was huge to about like fitting in chunks of the little mini sessions. Yeah, that was pretty cool. And it definitely worked. Like I said, I did it during tax season, which was like 60, 70 hours a week.
So that is that’s crazy. So. So you work in tax then
So I used to work in taxes. So.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I worked in auto when I was out at the firm and a lot of nonprofit and government. So our busy season was like the last few months of the year and not so much January to April but.
Right, right. I mean I guess you could also say it’s like throughout the year too, because you know, all these weird fiscal year end stuff like planning. Yeah. So there’s really no escape in terms of like finding the time. There’s no escape whether you do tax or audit. Literally just quitting time.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s the thing is like everyone. I mean, everyone’s busy and people don’t realize it, but your daily routine is already kind of set. Exactly. Even if you don’t think you’re a routine person, it’s very hard to just say, yeah, I’m just going to throw this extra thing in which is studying for hours a day. That’s not just going to happen. You know, you have to. Be strategic about when you’re going to study, not just about how you study, but exactly, yeah. Anyways, so one other thing I wanted to ask that you mentioned so you said after you watched our videos that you started studying in the morning. So so what did your actual daily study routine look like before that? Were you just trying to study at night and stuff like that?
Study All Through Your Day
Yeah. So actually, it was very dispersed throughout the day. You know, you’re not working hard or you’re not. I guess, like taking it seriously. You’re like, oh, I have two 3 hours here. Let me just look at the video and pretend like I’m observing or. Oh, yeah. I got it right. So I’m sure you know exactly what kind of studying that is. And then, you know, the whole I believe like the whole concept of the 5:00 a.m. thing is literally because there’s no distractions. You’re you’re like, you know what? I woke up early. Like, I I need to study. Otherwise I could be sleeping right here. Yeah. Anything like that. You know, like an opportunity costs sort of thing. So. Yeah, to ask your question. It was very undisciplined on unmotivated, in my opinion. I mean, motivated. You want these Amphlett like no drive. There you go.
Yeah. And then. Just like an estimate when that was kind of your approach. How many days a week do you think something came up where you pretty much didn’t really study at all?
So.
I would say maybe like three times a week to be on it. Yeah. It’s just very, you know, like you’re talking about like going out with friends, right. Randomly instead of studying or. Yeah.
Yeah. And I mean obviously not to rub it in. I mean I don’t personally care. But just to for the sake of this interview and people listening, that’s what I’m always talking about. It’s like if you leave your studying for after work, it is so easy for a million things to pop up even if you miss one or two days a week of studying. You know, that’s like 20 percent of your overall study time. It’s a huge.
Yeah. I mean, there’s a saying that says truth hurts. So that was true, especially when I would get my scores. I was like, wow, like there’s a saying, too. Like, I always forget how the saying goes, but like the day of you will regret if you don’t study but the like, whenever you’re indulging in anything else, you’re like. So, like, you know, you will regret it.
Well, what I always called that was fake fun. If I just if I had avoided studying or or really, really anything like you said, once I found out I failed far the first time, that’s when it really became serious to me. Like I’m going to do whatever I can to not experience that again. And so all my old favorite time waster like games reading ESPN on my phone or whatever. As long as I had those exams hanging over my head, I couldn’t really enjoy anything. So it was like I might as well just forget all this until I’m just done.
Not Spending Too Much Time on Practice Simulations
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think like also a huge key to the whole thing was not focusing so much on simulations because that was what was really taking up a lot of my time. Actually, I forgot to mention that too. The first time I went around with it, simulations were something I was like. You know what? Like this proves whether or not I know the material, but in reality, it’s the multiple choice, right? Like you, you would you will know how to do the simulations. And I remember in the Study Hacks part, I found that in the tavern L6 simulations. Like what? I must go to study simulations. So when I found out about what that’s so counter intuitive. No, no, no. You were right. It completely good. I was so I was like so surprised. I was like, what? Because, like, really, when you go into the exam, it’s it’s a tough choice. It’s like a coin toss to be on. Exactly. And then you start. I don’t know if you ever experienced this, but you get like a simulation that’s still art. You start thinking, oh, this one will count. This is probably the one that doesn’t count. But then once you start realizing, like all of them are just as hard, you’re like, oh, which was one that didn’t count. Right.
Exactly. Yeah.
Yeah. It’s almost you know, if you spend tons of time just going through practice seems to like be ready and then you get those on test day. It’s almost even more of a. Throws a wrench in the process because you’re like, holy cow, I spent so much time and this still this is like just seems like a different language.
Exactly.
And that’s that’s a great point. That’s a I mean, I know I say that in those videos, but again, multiple people in these interviews have been pointing that out that. Spending so much time on multiple choice questions and like reading the notes, you get to kind of understand the concepts really how they work together, and that makes answering the Sims. The format of the same could be, I mean, you don’t know what it’s going to look like, but if you kind of know how the pieces fit together.
Then that’s how you’re able to film it. Yeah.
Repeat Everything, and Then Repeat It Again. Repetition
And something I heard you mention, too, that I found really interesting was the fact that you said. Oh, like if you start like something about like ignoring the like there’s a bunch of people on online that say, like it. You see the question repeatedly, you won’t know the material would really like the more you see it, even if you memorize it. Question. There’s only so many ways you can ask it. So I never so once I started realizing that I was like, oh, like the first time around, I was like, I’m like, I’m memorizing the question. I’m not memorizing the concepts. But really, like, there’s only so many ways they can ask to the point where it was literally ingrained in my brain. I can honestly say like a few questions where I was just like, you know what? I know exactly what kind of tricks you’re playing.
I know. Yeah, I know. This is really asking. Yeah, that is. And people people email me sometimes like I think I like went through all the quizzes or all the questions once on your app because I saw one that’s the same. And I’m like, okay now do that till you’ve seen them all like 20 times because that’s what you want. Repetition is king. You want to see everything 50 times if you can.
Exactly. Exactly. Especially with like I remember, there’s one question that always appeared on the up where it was like the depreciation question calculate like straight line depreciate or something like that. And at first I was like like I’m already I’ve seen this so many times. But then like when I started seeing different variations of it, like on sturgeon, I’d be like, oh, OK. Like, the whole purpose of this question was to get familiar with, like the way they ask you all these things, because the questions are very tricky. Put any kind of like any answer you could possibly get. It’ll appear so. Yeah. Yeah.
Oh yeah. Pressure. I mean that’s how their setup is. They’ll go and make key mistakes in like the calculation and you know, whatever answer that leads to that will be one of the choices. Yeah.
So I got the answer right. Like I know how to answer it. No. You have to literally make sure you answered it correctly.
Yeah. Well I love what you’re saying here. This has been really good because you’re just it helps to have someone on here that’s like everything you’re saying ends up being right instead of me always telling people, just listen to me. I’m telling you the truth.
Yeah, no, it’s literally right.
What was your approach to. Because what I’m always talking about is if you’re building rereview into your daily study process, you don’t need to do the big two week final review. What was your approach to a final review or what did you do in the last few days before an exam?
Sure. So I actually I do remember you said something about like you should always be like building up on what you know. Right. Like going back. Yeah. So I never really experienced stuff like a huge build up where I had to, like, you know, brain dump everything and just like go through all my notes. It was more like I would just open up the app, like when I went write to the test center, maybe like an hour or so before I could see, you know, the anxiety and everything. Yeah, probably just I would just get my notes do like the multiple choice questions. And then I would read like I mentioned earlier, I would read any section where I was doubting myself, such as like, you know, like business law, part and rag or the pension accounting cost accounting and back pension accounting in part. So for me, it was never really so much about like always reviewing like crazy. It was more like, okay, I just need to look at the notes. There are so many ways, etc. etc. And I was actually a huge proponent of like getting a good amount of sleep the day before. Yeah, because if you really study as well as you should, it should have been no reason to do anything crazy, right.
Yeah, I like that. If you’re just kind of nailing the daily process, you don’t have just this huge pile of whatever you want to call it at the end to sift through.
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
Studying in the Mornings
Yeah. Like I said, as a supplement, I think it definitely helps, especially with a program like Surgent that has analytical portions. I think it went really well, especially like, you know, like I said I would read maybe like the first part of like, you know, Gapped Iver’s for like the first section far and then I get into surgeon and. Oh okay. Like this sounds familiar. I kind of brush upon this like I SuperfastCPA today. Yeah. Especially like sitting at Starbucks like at work. Sometimes I would print them out just the portions that I needed and know that I was studying. I would sit at Starbucks, get a highlighter and highlight and then I would have it on my side and whatever. Like a typical concept came up. I would just like go to that section and just see like the bare bones of it. Right. What you really need to know because they put way too much detail sometimes and the explanations of like what the heck? Let me just make the same thing. It’s like you translated it to immediately, which.
Yeah. So after you switched to studying in the mornings. What do you estimate your total time? Like, how long did you aim to study in them in the mornings? And then how much time do you think you were adding in with like the app or whatever else you did the rest of the day? If you put everything together, how much do you think you were fitting for each day?
I guess I would factor in in the sense like how long it took me or patchy PSC section like how many hours. And I actually did take detailed statistics on that. So actually far took me about 80 hours. Right. Took me about 60. That took me actually. Ironically, Beck took me about 100 hours because at that point I was already so burned out, I did not fail. Yes. Drilling and drilling and drilling. And then the third one I took. I keep forgetting the third audit. Audit is the one that I kept failing. I probably put in one hundred twenty hours in that one after doing like the 5 a.m. things. SuperfastCPA method like. No, no B.S. method. Right. Yeah. So I I told myself audit all the people always like downplay it as being like the easiest one or one of the easiest ones. Obviously I’m not doing something. I didn’t do something right the past 2 3 times, so I’m going gonna put in the most here. Yeah. Contrary to popular belief, AFA is very possible in 80 hours or so if you’re doing it the right way, which you need discipline brushing up whenever you have the time. It’s it’s. Yeah. I think it’s reasonable.
Niaspan. Yeah. Audit is like I said, I was working an audit at the time and even though I was just the new staff, I feel like that helped a lot. And if someone has not worked an audit, it’s very. Because it all sounds exactly the same. That’s like the big problem. It all sounds exactly the same. But all those you know, there’s like 20 different types of reports and the wording has to be exactly the same based on the paragraph and then all the audit rules. But anyways, or not, it can be really tough. Yeah. We might. I can’t remember if we covered this, but your actual test day experience from failing audit a few times and then once it clicked and you started passing your sections, what were you trying to keep in mind like during the test or or what helped you on actual test day in terms of like motivation? Just what were you. I mean, anything like what were you keep trying to keep in mind, were there specific timelines to finish the NPC queues by or.
Aaron’s Test Day Strategies
Oh, ok. OK. So like the strategy on test day. Yeah, sure. So first of all, I think that so I mentioned sleep was huge. Like it’s definitely like a marathon. So like I told myself, I’m not going to go in with two or three hours of sleep. So I went in with a good eight hours. I went to the test section about 2 3 up to 3 about an hour, hour 3 before on the actual test. I told myself, you know, like I just remember having a lot of anxiety, but I told myself there’s nothing worse than getting the score and like failing. Right, like wasting my life. So I told myself no more than three minutes on question. Like, yeah, like flat out because the simulations is what you’re really trying to tackle. And at that point, like I said, about 80, 60 hours and to review material, you already know all the ways you’re gonna ask the questions. So really the multiple choice questions portion probably took me an hour. Thirty two hours max. And I want to allocate two hours for the simulation. Yes, that’s perfect. That’s. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know. That was very emphasized in the course as well. Yeah. Like literally repetition. Like there are questions where I was just like, you know, like I said, I know exactly the trick here. It’s already ingrained in my brain. Yeah. You guys are going to play with me like this. And I will always also flag every question like so whenever I had a doubt, even like the slightest doubt, I would flag it. And then when I finish the section, I would just go back and then I’d just be like, OK, I did the best I could. Like, let me just make sure that they’re nothing like, you know, huge portions. Always like reading the question completely. And I call myself like twice where I was like, oh, wow. Like, I’m glad like this.
Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, you can be asking something different than you thought or not.
Exactly. But yeah, I think, Max, an hour, 30 to two hours for multiple choice because the simulations.
Yep. Yep. That’s exactly what I would say. What was your way of doing note-taking or making flashcards or what did you do any of that.
Sure. So actually I. Actually, yeah, I did. I did have a notebook where I would write down the questions where I had trouble and then allergies go back to like surgeon and stuff. But in terms of like hard topics, I would say that like I would because I took very different approaches when it came in a far I was most scared of it. So my notebook was called to three. I probably have seen those 50 page yellow notebooks where like, I don’t know what was. Yeah, I probably use like three of those and I would just write down like any question where I just kept feeling like, yeah, yeah. So that’s kind of how I went about it. But then after a certain point like there’s a diminishing return. So like maybe about like I know I mentioned like 80 hours and too far like maybe about 60 hours, then I would stop writing and it’s like it’s not helping. So. So, yeah, that’s kind of how I went about taking notes. I wasn’t. More than anything, I wanted to get through everything. Right. Yeah. On on like one or two questions that I didn’t understand.
Yeah. I think you said the key thing is you don’t want to basically rewrite the whole lecture in your own notes because that’s pointless. You do want to focus on the things that you just personally struggle with for whatever reason and then not make you kind of force yourself to find a way of understanding it. If you have to write it out.
Exactly. Exactly. Because it’s very easy to dwell on a question on one question that like is more than likely not going to show up, to be honest, because it’s so it’s only so many there’s like I believe like 70 questions or so that they ask depending on garfish more or less. So yeah, no taking like I’m for it, but at the same time it’s like after a certain point you really shouldn’t use it as a crutch.
You know, just you’re you’re passing your fourth section. What was you remember the moment you found your fourth passing score? What was that like?
Finding Out He Was All Done
Yeah, it was amazing because it was actually my sister’s birthday as well. So I notice you’re lucky I passed. Otherwise, your birthday, I’d be in my room crying. Yeah. Yeah. So it was amazing.
You know, I was actually cleaning my room recently. And, you know, I mentioned that I printed out the notes and stuff. I actually kept everything like my notes and stuff. And I was like, well, like, you know, like I said, it’s so crazy talking to you. And like, Cee Lo removed it, like literally like I could. I don’t know. It’s just it’s just crazy. I would use it on my commutes and stuff and all that. And then, you know, actually something that I forgot to mention, too. It’s one thing to hear the notes, but like you also should read them, right? Like, I feel like people tend to think the audio notes are like can fulfill everything. But when you hear it and then you read it, it makes you like connect it and it makes more sense. So, yeah, yeah.
That is something I tell people is you want to do both for sure because both together. It’s what is that word synergy. It’s like greater than the sum of its parts. Both together is worth a lot more than doing either one by itself, even if you did it a lot. So yeah, that’s a good tip. OK.
And so if you had just one help, whatever you want to call this one final tip for anyone studying or what do you feel like it was your biggest turning point? What’s like the one tip you would give to two people?
Sure. So I think the biggest thing is like for for the NTFS, I believe, where you pay for all the exams you’re going to take. Honestly, just pay for all of them. And after you come out of an exam, come out thinking you passed and just get to the next one. Like. Like whether or not you passed. It’s like yours. It’s not lost time of year going onto the next one. And especially I know you mentioned starting with FA, I started with audio. And like, I really regret not starting in FA because FA literally seeped into all of them. So that is true. Yes. No. So I would say like don’t like the program itself is called SuperfastCPA. Like, don’t don’t do it in a year. Like, you can literally do it for five, six months. And of course, everyone has other things to do, all that stuff. Like for the year that I took as a gap year, it was not. It did not stop bothering me.
So do it for your mental state or for your career.
And yeah, it’s definitely possible. So. Yeah, yeah, cool.
I wasn’t aware of your, you know, story or whatever that you once you got serious. You passed that quickly. That’s awesome.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I I I told myself, well like you know me could do it right then I can do it too well for sure. You know I think it doesn’t really matter what your background is. It’s literally like the m.p.’s approach that you put forward. Like literally. I wish I would have sounded like straight out of school so could have saved a year of my life.
Yeah. Well I appreciate you saying that. I’m glad I you know, I’m glad it was helpful. I love hearing that from people. Yeah. So. Yeah, yeah.
I think one huge thing too is like it’s like it’s not a magic pill. Like there’s it’s like ninety five percent of your effort. Right. Like someone you provide is like what will help guide you to like pinpoint and make the most use of your time. And when I realize that too. I was like, oh wow. Like. Which I would have literally found this when I graduated.
So, yeah, yeah, that’s such a good point. Yeah. So people ask me all the time, how fast can I pass if I buy this? And I’m like, well. What do you want me to just throw a number out? I mean, these these are tools they can’t help you from, like if it’s just kept inside your pocket.
But yeah, that that question is more like I would say, like, you know, like how. I don’t know when I when I used to hear that question, too. Kind of like how lazy can I be to pass words.
Exactly. Thanks. Yes. Thank you.
That’s a great way of saying that’s not the way to go about it, because literally, I know so many people who get like four-point hours and stuff and they can not pass this exam because they’re lazy studies like somehow they get four-point. I was doing the bare minimum. This is not one of those exams for sure.
For sure. Yeah, it is this personal effort. I mean. Yeah, you just do your wrestle with yourself quite a bit. Figure out the process.Like I said, I literally listen to your videos stream for like.
It’s like you’re someone who really watched the videos and you cannot. You’re almost like repeating it back. And this will be very valuable. So, yeah, this call had a lot of good soundbites, like all of them have been good.
But this has been this has been really good because I can tell you really like understood it literally clicked when I like when I actually took the time to sit down and listen to everything, I was like. This is literally a marathon. And I don’t know, especially the whole simulation thing, too. Like when I saw that whole video, I was like, really, like, really been studying wrong this whole time.
Like like, I can’t get over that.
Using the SuperfastCPA Notes
Like when I found out about the simulations. Right. So suddenly I was probably the biggest thing. And like I said, like, yeah, you should really say, like, study the notes before you even read the textbook or anything like that, too, because they’re already so concise. Like I went through it maybe like two hours. So yeah, hours of my time to know everything or have an idea. Just everything. Course you do that.
That’s that’s what one guy was saying. He was like I would just because you can read the notes all the way in like an hour and a half, two hours. So I would read them each week and then this certain part on the weekdays that I was about to go into and it just made it so easy like. Huh? That’s good idea. Yeah, I need to start telling people that.
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, I like it. I like. I know there’s like a lot of options like ninja stuff, but it never crossed my mind again. I was like, I’m trying to get this done as soon as possible.
So that’s awesome that you pass that quickly.
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much. Like like when you said it was possible, I was like, you know what? Let’s give it a try. Like. Like what is there to lose? Right. Like I already lost like a year. My sanity.
Yeah.
Here, like I’m sure you know completely especially how you mentioned how you studied like a whole summer and then just score back when I heard that I was on a different level because that was me. Yeah. Times actually it’s why it’s so. Yeah.
Yeah. It’s brutal. All right buddy. Well yeah, I appreciate it. It was fun talking with you.
Sure. Thanks, Nate. Take it. Have a good one, man.
All right. So that was the interview with Aaron. Like I said, if you’ve watched or listened this far, you heard the whole thing. Hopefully you found that really helpful and eye opening in certain parts. We covered the ins and outs of the study process from start to finish pretty much. We also touched on a bunch of mindset things and just kind of the concept of wanting to pass the exams and kind of putting in the time. But you’re not really sure what you’re doing and then how different it is. Once you have a actual routine that you know is going to work and you have that full, deep level commitment that you’re fully committed to just seeing this process through and you’re going to execute every single day.
And you can see how that worked for Aaron when the first few months he kind of struggle, even though he was putting in time. And then he takes the year off. He comes back by following our strategies and he jumps straight back into it. And then within three or four months during his busy season, he was at able to pass all four back to back to back to back. So thanks for listening. Again, look us up. Look up the podcast on your favorite podcast app. Subscribe, leave a review and then if you want to be notified when those new practice problem walk-through videos get published. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and if you want to join us on one of these free walkthroughs through our study routine and how we teach our clients to study. Go to superfastCPA.com/passnow or click the link below in the description to sign up for one of those free study trains. Thanks for watching or listening. And we will see you on the next episode.
