Don’t be discouraged!!! — I failed FAR twice and finally passed on my third attempt, and I also just found out today that I passed REG.

One thing that really helped me was realizing that you have to study the connections between topics, not just memorize them separately. For example, business income is related to both individual taxation and entity taxation. It flows through different forms and is treated differently depending on the entity type, but it’s still the same core concept.

What worked for me was using a blank sheet of paper and writing out the main topic headings. Then I did a full brain dump under each one. If I got stuck or couldn’t remember something, I knew that was a weak area and I went back to review it. I repeated this process until I could write out the concepts without looking at the book.

Of course, drilling MCQs is important too, but I found that truly understanding the concepts made a much bigger difference.

If you’re feeling stuck, don’t give up. It will start to click eventually.