I'm not going to sugarcoat it: FAR destroyed me. Failed in January with a 68, then again in May with a 71. I spent probably 400+ hours combined across those two attempts and still couldn't break through. The problem, I finally figured out, wasn't time — it was that I kept studying the wrong things the wrong way.
What actually turned it around for me was treating every FAR practice test like a diagnostic, not just a score check. After each sim or MCQ set, I'd spend 20 minutes mapping out exactly which subtopics tripped me up. Governmental accounting was my nemesis — GASB fund types specifically. Once I built a one-page cheat sheet just for that, my scores jumped 8 points in three weeks.
Anyone else have a specific section that felt like a brick wall? Also curious whether people think the study guide approach or MCQ-heavy drilling worked better for the conceptual stuff like leases and revenue recognition. Third attempt I passed with a 79 and I genuinely still can't believe it.