In the beginning of 2016 I decided to use Roger CPA review. Which leads me to emphasizing the importance of my first point of finding the right review course! Any knowledge you feel that you lack will be covered in a top notch review course. Please don’t do this as this is a waste of time and energy.
To answer your last question: “Would you suggest first going through financial and managerial accounting textbooks and do all problems there to understand basic concepts?” No. Ultimately, I ended up spending thousands on Becker and was not prepared enough to even sit for one exam. The customer service specialist at Becker even admitted that a strong prior knowledge of accounting was required to pass the exam, which discouraged me further. The lectures were basically visual audio tapes of the textbook. I initially started with Becker in 2014, but quickly realized that the teaching method was not for me. I think the most important thing is to find the right review course. However, let me tell you now that with the right review course, you can pass the exam with little to no knowledge of accounting. Because of this, I always felt that I did not have a solid foundation to pass the CPA exam. I was in a similar situation as you- I did not particularly apply myself in undergrad very well, and did poorly in my intro and intermediate accounting classes. Would you suggest first going through financial and managerial accounting textbooks and do all problems there to understand basic concepts? Would you suggest again taking notes while I read? I read that a person who failed FAR had struggled in Fin accounting, and the person who passed without any prep had a strong accounting knowledge. Now I graduated with 3.2 gpa, looking for jobs, about to study for CPA. I was also full-time working full-time the first two years. So, while I enjoyed my other courses, I always struggled with accounting courses. You couldn't concentrate on the lectures, couldn't take notes because you had to look at the at the white board and try to solve your new problems. You are required to solve them while he goes through the lectures and return in the end. The first one would give a sheet of paper at the beginning of the class, with 3-4 problems on the new topic. The intermediate was no better because both of our professors were from Hong-Kong with a heavy accent. I ended up getting B+ on Fin and B- on Managerial from the same professor. All 3 exams consisted of 20 mcq and that's it. He wouldn't even provide us slides, but open his laptop during lectures and read. He would just read from slides, textbook company's slides, and pause for us to copy down from slides. While I enjoyed federal taxation, business law, and macroeconomics, I struggled in financial and managerial accounting courses in my freshman year due to an unprofessional professor. I just graduated from a public university with an accounting degree.