Recommended EA Study Course/Materials

[dmann]

I have decided to schedule to take the EA exam sometime next year after tax season. To prepare, I have been looking at various websites to purchase EA exam review materials. My question is: What's the best and most highly recommended place to order some EA review books?

Any help will be appreciated. Thanks!

[Uncle Sam]

EA Course Materials

There are many different ones - but one of the more common ones that I have heard of recently that get candidates to pass are Gleim.
In fact - my wife is studying for the EA exam and has passed one of the parts (has the other 2 to go) - and Gleim's materials did it.

[sea-tax]

I have decided to schedule to take the EA exam sometime next year after tax season. To prepare, I have been looking at various websites to purchase EA exam review materials. My question is: What's the best and most highly recommended place to order some EA review books?

Any help will be appreciated. Thanks!

my advice besides studying is real life/ hand on use of the tax code. As you prepare returns look up the answers first before you ask another pro the question. If you do this you will slowly but surely remember certain issues that posed problems for you. If you didn't have to ask the question then you may already know the answer. Good Luck

[DaveinTexas]

EA Materials

I have decided to schedule to take the EA exam sometime next year after tax season. To prepare, I have been looking at various websites to purchase EA exam review materials. My question is: What's the best and most highly recommended place to order some EA review books?

Any help will be appreciated. Thanks!

I used the Arthur EA Review study guides from California. Here is a link to their site: http://www.eareview.com/

To be completely honest though, I had a good working knowledge of the major subjects on the exam by reading and studying The Tax Book. I read the entire TaxBook before the materials were shipped to me. Once I received the materials, I was amazed at how much I knew by reading TheTaxBook. In fact, for the fun of it I took the 2005 exam that ArthurEA sent me before reading any of their study guides, as per their recommendation to focus on my weak points, and I was 6 points shy of passing all four parts----older exam.

Take sea-tax's advice and study real world materials. Don't get caught up looking over previous exams; one of the reasons is because the 2006 exam is very different from the 2005 exam. My advice would be to order TheTaxBook and read through it, then if you feel you need a book with sample questions or case studies; then order the ArthurEA exam review. I liked it because it gave examples and it listed the previous years' exam questions and answers---although this may not be helpful for future years' exam.

That's my two cents. Thanks again to the staff of TheTaxBook for producing such a wonderful product and I hope much continued success comes your way.

Good luck on the EA exam dmann!

[Bees Knees]

Don't get caught up looking over previous exams; one of the reasons is because the 2006 exam is very different from the 2005 exam.

That could be because 2006 was the first year the exam was administered by a private company, as opposed to it being administered by IRS in previous years. Maybe 2007 will be more close to 2006, I don't know.

In years past when I took the exam, there was not much difference from year to year, so the best way to pass the exam was to practice taking the previous year until you could score 100% on all questions. Over 70% of the questions would remain the same from year to year, so you were guaranteed a passing grade if you could get 100% on the previous year exam.

[snowbird]

Best?

I doubt if there is a "best" review. It will depend on your learning style and current state of knowledge. It had been 30 years since I had my college tax courses and I was not active in tax preparation. I knew that I would not be able to wade through some dry text material.

I used the Lamber's course that consists of 40 hrs of video by Arthur Reed from Bentley College which included reading material and computer software testing by WiseGuides. This fit me well since presentations have been my major method of acquiring information for the last 20 years. Here is the link ...

http://www.lamberscpa.com/ea_intro.html

I took the test in 2005 under the old 2 day format and passed all sections on the first try. If you are not familiar with software testing formats, I would suggest you get one of the practice testing softwares. It is different using the software compared to hard copies.

Best of luck!

[geekgirldany]

I recently posted about my experience with Part 1 exam. Actually there were several questions from the previous exam on the exam I took. A few were questions that they had reworded. So they are using test questions from previous exams.

I am currently studying Part 2 and still using Gleim. I am taking 3 days to study one section. I believe the first time I took the test I overwhelmed myself studying. So at the rate I am going it will take me two months to study Part 2 then I will take it around the end November/beginning of December.

[dmann]

Thank you for the recommendations. I'll probably purchase the Gleim materials as it seems to be the least expensive. I also have the Tax Book, so I'll probably use that as well to supplement my studying. Thanks again, and wish me luck. If I study enough in the next 2 months, I'll more than likely take the 1st part this December and the others sometime next year.