NINJA CPA Review: How to Pass the CPA Exam with NINJA Only

An easy-to-follow, step-by-step plan for studying any CPA Exam section with NINJA CPA Review as your only course.

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Written by

Jeff Elliott, CPA (KS)

Founder, NINJA CPA Review

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This page is for one kind of CPA candidate: the one studying with NINJA and nothing else.

No Becker.

No UWorld.

No $3,000 box of textbooks holding the closet door shut.

Just NINJA CPA Review, a calendar, and 20 hours a week.

If that’s you, this is your playbook.

Follow it one section at a time, repeat it for every section you have left, and you’ll know exactly what to do on any given day of your study plan.

Not a NINJA yet? Start Your Free Trial.

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What Is the NINJA Study Framework?

The NINJA Study Framework is a five-step study cycle you run once for each CPA Exam section.

Every letter in N.I.N.J.A. is a step:

Nail the Concepts (2 weeks)
Intense Notes (ongoing through Steps 1 and 3)
Non-Stop MCQ (2.5 weeks)
Just Rewrite Your Notes (1 week)
All Comes Together (1 week)

Most CPA Review courses teach and test at the same time.

You watch a lecture, work a batch of questions, watch the next lecture, work the next batch, and then circle back and work the whole test bank again during review.

NINJA splits learning and practice into separate phases.

You learn the material first.

You take notes on it.

Then, you open the test bank and work through it once, with purpose.

That one change cuts out the duplicate work and gives you back a real chunk of your evenings and weekends.

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Your NINJA Only Toolkit

On the NINJA Only path, every piece of the framework runs on NINJA CPA Review materials.

Here’s what each study weapon does and where it shows up in the Framework:

NINJA Book is your textbook for Step 1. It covers the concepts you need for the section without the padding.

NINJA Sparring is the video lecture option for Step 1. Same job as the Book, delivered in a format you watch instead of read.

NINJA Notes are condensed notes you read in your downtime from day one. They also work as a backup set to rewrite in Step 4 if your own notes come up thin.

NINJA Audio turns your commute, workout, and laundry pile into study time. It runs in the background of every step.

NINJA MCQ is the test bank for Steps 3 and 5, including NINJA Simulations for the week before your exam.

NINJA CRAM is extra firepower for Step 5 when a weak topic refuses to move.

NINJA Study Planner puts dates on every step so you’re not guessing what week you’re in.

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CPA Study Plan Timeline (20 Hours a Week)

At 20 hours a week, one section takes about six and a half to seven weeks from start to exam day.

Step	Time at 20 Hours a Week	NINJA Tools	Goal
Nail the Concepts	2 weeks (14 days max)	NINJA Book or NINJA Sparring, NINJA Audio, NINJA Notes	See every topic once
Intense Notes	Runs alongside Steps 1 and 3	A notebook and a pen	Build your own review material
Non-Stop MCQ	2.5 weeks	NINJA MCQ	Learn from every question
Just Rewrite Your Notes	1 week	Your notes or NINJA Notes	Lock it into memory
All Comes Together	1 week	NINJA MCQ, NINJA Simulations, NINJA CRAM, NINJA Audio	Get weak topics into the 70s

Twenty hours a week is the floor. Below that, you aren’t really studying; you’re dabbling.

One way to hit it with a full-time job:

• Two hours a night Monday through Thursday
• Take Friday off
• Six hours each on Saturday and Sunday
• NINJA Audio in the car counts as part of the 20

The flexibility is what makes this study framework so great.

Want to take Sunday off instead? Add an hour Monday to Thursday, and study in the morning and at lunch on Friday, and take the rest of Friday off.

Don’t forget: the NINJA Audio study time counts toward your 20. Turn down time into study time.

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Why MCQs Wait Until Step 3

Working practice questions on material you learned 20 minutes ago feels productive. It mostly measures short-term memory.

It’s like hanging drywall before the framing is up. You can technically do it, but you’ll be redoing it later.

And that’s the real cost. Candidates who work questions chapter by chapter end up working the test bank a second time in review, so they work through the same questions twice.

Here’s a conservative estimate of the time that costs:

Say a typical course has 10 lecture modules per section with 50 assigned questions each. That’s 500 questions worked during the lecture phase.

At two minutes per question, 500 questions take 1,000 minutes, or about 17 hours per section.

Across four sections, that’s 68 hours. Retake two sections along the way, and that’s six exams, which pushes it past 100 hours.

At 20 hours a week, 100 hours is five full weeks of studying you don’t have to do.

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NINJA Study Framework: 5 Steps to Passing the CPA Exam Faster

Step 1. Nail the Concepts

In Step 1, your job is to get through every topic in the section once.

Not master it. Get through it.

Pick your source: the NINJA Book if you’d rather read, NINJA Sparring if you’d rather watch. Then set a hard deadline of 14 days.

When day 14 arrives, you close the Book or the lectures and move to MCQ, finished or not.

The deadline matters for three reasons:

1. A deadline forces pace. Without one, reading expands to fill whatever time you give it.
2. It keeps you out of permanent learning mode, where you always feel “one more chapter” away from being ready and never book your exam.
3. Step 3 is where a lot of the real learning happens anyway. Every question gives you a right answer and three wrong ones to understand, so gaps from Step 1 get filled there.

While you work through the concepts, keep the other tools running:

Play NINJA Audio on every drive. A 30-minute commute each way adds five hours of review opportunity a week.

Read NINJA Notes during downtime at work, at lunch, or in the pickup line. It’s fine if the topics are brand new to you. Seeing them early makes Step 1 go faster.

If something doesn’t click, check it in NINJA Notes, write down your question, and keep moving. Getting stuck on one topic for three days is how 14 days turns into 30.

You’ll be tempted to stay in the Book one more week. Don’t. The Book will be fine without you. 😀

Step 2. Intense Notes

Step 2 doesn’t get its own block of weeks. It happens the whole time you’re in Steps 1 and 3.

As you read the NINJA Book or watch NINJA Sparring, take notes by hand.

Focus on the things you’re most likely to forget:

• Formulas and calculations, step by step.
• Lists, thresholds, and deadlines.
• Rules and their exceptions.
• Anything you’ve reread twice.

First attempt or fifth retake, the rule is the same. Take the notes.

Yes, it’s slow. Yes, it’s tedious. You know what’s slower and more tedious? Studying the whole section again in three months.

These notes become your study material in Step 4, so write them like future you is going to depend on them. Because future you is.

Hate taking notes from scratch? Use the NINJA Notes as your starting point and add your own comments in the margins.

Step 3. Non-Stop MCQ

Concepts done. Notes taken. Now you open NINJA MCQ and stay there for two and a half weeks.

At 20 hours a week, that’s about 50 hours of questions. At a pace of two minutes per question, you’ll work roughly 1,500.

Work in study mode, where you see the answer and explanation right after each question. The goal here is learning, not scoring.

Keep your notebook open the whole time:

Missed a question? Write down why. Was it a concept gap, a misread, or a calculation slip?

Got it right by guessing? Treat it like a miss and write it down anyway.

Read the explanation even when you get it right. The wrong answer choices are often testing a neighboring rule you’ll see on exam day.

Watch for memorization. If you start recognizing questions and clicking the answer before you finish reading, your scores will climb and your understanding won’t.

Slow down and explain to yourself why each wrong choice is wrong before you move on.

Skip the Mock Exams

NINJA MCQ includes unlimited mock exams. We still recommend taking exactly zero of them.

Here’s why:

The score doesn’t translate. The CPA Exam uses a scaled score. A 75 on exam day is not 75% correct, so a 75% on a mock tells you very little about whether you’ll pass.

The feedback comes too late. You find out you missed question 12 about three hours after you answered it. By then you’ve forgotten what you were thinking, and you spend more time reconstructing your mistake than learning from it.

The time cost is huge. One mock eats three to four hours. That same block of time covers six to eight 20-question sets focused on your weakest topics, with instant explanations after every question.

Put those hours into study mode instead. Better ROI.

Where Simulations Fit

Some courses have you work simulations alongside every set of MCQs. The NINJA approach is simpler.

MCQs cover the whole blueprint, so you know most topics will show up. Simulations are different. You’ll only see a handful, on a handful of topics, and you can’t predict which ones.

The knowledge behind a simulation is the same knowledge behind the MCQs. What’s different is the format: odd wording, exhibits to dig through, and moments where you know the topic cold but can’t tell what the question wants you to enter.

So the goal with sims is getting comfortable with the format:

Pick one day during your final week. Work about 10 NINJA Simulations. Call it good.

If you’d rather sprinkle a few in earlier, that’s fine too. This one is a preference, not a rule. 😀

Step 4. Just Rewrite Your Notes

Remember all those notes from Steps 1 through 3? This week you rewrite them. By hand.

Writing something out forces your brain to process it again. A well-known 2014 study in Psychological Science found that students who took notes by hand understood concepts better than students who typed, and plenty of licensed CPAs will tell you the same thing.

Condense as you go.

Your rewrite should be shorter than the original. If your first set of notes ran 60 pages, aim for something closer to 30. Deciding what to cut is its own form of review.

Skimming your notes is better than nothing. Highlighting them is marginally better than skimming. Rewriting them beats both.

If your own notes didn’t turn out well, rewrite the NINJA Notes instead. Same process, same benefit.

Step 5. All Comes Together

Final week. This is where you close gaps, and you do it starting with your weakest topic.

Open NINJA MCQ and build 20-question sets on a single topic. Start with the one you’d pay money not to see on exam day.

Work sets on that topic until you’re scoring in the mid-70s. Then move to your next weakest topic and repeat.

Don’t chase 90s here. You have one week and a lot of ground to cover. Getting every weak topic to passable beats perfecting three topics and running out of time on the rest.

Here’s how that might look for AUD. Audit sampling is your worst topic, so you work sets on it until you hit mid-70s, which might take three or four rounds. Next up is internal control, then audit reports, and so on down the list.

If a topic won’t budge after several sets, bring in NINJA CRAM for another angle.

Outside your MCQ sessions, put every spare minute into NINJA Notes and NINJA Audio. In the car, at the gym, while dinner’s in the oven. You can go back to your podcasts and playlists after the exam.

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(Results not typical. Only 1 in 1,000 CPA Candidates win the Elijah Watt Sells Award.)

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Exam Week and Exam Day

Schedule your exam for Monday at 1:00 p.m.

A Monday afternoon slot gives you a full weekend with no work and no distractions, plus Monday morning for one last push. Plan your simulations day for the weekend before so it doesn’t crowd out your final review.

On exam morning, study. Some people say to spend the morning relaxing. We disagree. Read your rewritten notes, work a few sets on your shakiest topic, and play NINJA Audio on the drive over, right up until you park.

Three extra minutes on some small exception in partnership taxation could be the difference between a 74 and a 75. Relaxing can wait a few hours.

Then walk into Prometric, put everything you know on the screen, and go home and sleep (for a very long time).

After that, all that’s left is checking the CPA Exam score release dates more often than you’d like to admit. 😀

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Already Have Another Course?

The NINJA Study Framework works with any CPA review course.

Use your course lectures in Steps 1 and 2, then add NINJA Notes, NINJA Audio, and NINJA MCQ on top.

Find the study plan for your course:

• Becker CPA Review + NINJA
• UWorld CPA Review + NINJA (including former Roger CPA Review students)
• NINJA Only (no other course)

Don’t see your course? The Supplement Path works the same way with any of them.

Compare the two NINJA subscriptions and choose the one that’s best for you.

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To Your Success,

Jeff Elliott, CPA (KS)

Founder, NINJA CPA Review

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