Going too FAR?

I was getting ready to leave work last Friday and had to check Twitter to see if @NASBA had announced the release of AUD scores.  It being a Friday afternoon, I assumed there would be no such notifications.  Of course, I was dead wrong.  There it was, in color, 18,839 AUD scores were released by the AICPA to NASBA.  I felt my stomach sink.  The moment of truth had arrived, or so I thought.  With this being my first CPA exam, testing section, score release, I didn't know how long I would have to wait to find out my results.  I hurried to the NASBA website to see if by some miracle my score was already there.  It wasn't.  So I went home, anxious as ever, to await my fate.  Did the score release happening at the end of the day on Friday mean that I would have to wait til Monday to find out?  I got home and checked again. Nothing. I checked many times throughout the evening to find out and my score never showed up. 

I went to bed thinking that it would be Monday before I found out.  But even with settling on this thought to be eventuality, I still was anxious.  It was difficult to sleep.  I woke up many times throughout the night.  I had my Ipod right next to my bed and even checked at around 2 in the morning to see if my score had posted.  Still nothing.  The worst part was my dream (or was it a nightmare) that I had.  In my dream, I got on to check my score and to my horror, I received a 48.  Not just a bad score, but a horrible score.  I woke up a few more times throughout the night/morning and felt defeated thinking that my score was actually a 48.  Because of my dream, I had resigned myself to the fact that I had not passed my test.  I'm wasting my money, I'm wasting my time.  Sometimes, I can be a very pessimistic person.

The kids started waking up sometime after 7 in the morning.  I realized that my night of on again/off again sleep was over.  I went straight to the computer to look again, knowing that the scores would not be there.  I typed in my section ID and birth date.  Clicked on the little yellow "Score" button.  And there it was.  My score.  96.  Unbelievable.  I passed.  Of course, I figured that they must have got my test switched with someone else.  I had not been too confident when leaving the testing center, but I still held out hope that I had passed.  Must have been the pessimistic side of me coming out.  I had passed.  What a wonderful feeling it was to see that score.  What a relief. 

The amount of time I had put into studying for FAR between the time I took AUD and the time I received my score (I tested on 8/15 and received my score on 9/16) was very small.  I think I took a week off before I even cracked open the FAR book.  And I never studied two days in a row.  Preparing for that test had been exhausting.  But receiving notification that I had passed has given me a second wind to get studying for FAR.

So, here we go.  Onto the next one.  Any tips or suggestions for passing FAR?  I have heard this is the mother of all CPA exam sections.  Leave some feedback and let me know how to go 2 for 2!