I spent almost a year on CIA Part 1 and failed it twice before finally passing last month with a 650. First attempt I only studied for about 6 weeks using just the Wiley textbook, which in hindsight was nowhere near enough. Second time I added a CIA practice test routine but wasn't being honest with myself about the weak areas — I'd take a mock exam, see I was struggling with internal control frameworks, and just... move on anyway.
What finally clicked was treating the study guide as a map, not a checklist. I stopped trying to memorize everything and started asking "why does this matter to an auditor" for every concept. Risk appetite, control objectives, the COSO framework — once I understood the reasoning, the tricky application questions made so much more sense. I also did timed 40-question sets daily for the last four weeks instead of marathon study sessions.
Total study time for the third attempt was about 90 hours over 10 weeks. Anyone else here grinding through Part 1? Would love to hear what's working for you.