J.W. is a weekly Club 75 Blogger as he documents his journey through the CPA Exam. He has been a member of Another71.com's Club 75 since August 2010.
For the past week or so I have been an unfocused mess. I started my FAR studying the day after I took Audit at the end of August. I was on a decent enough roll up until Monday, then my concentration started waning, thinking about how Id have to wait another 10 days for my Audit score.
A lack of concentration is not what one needs when trying to take FAR and REG in the same testing window. Thoughts of Did I pass?, What if I dont pass?”, Ill have to switch back to Audit mode and then itll be another 3 months before I never have to think about this beast of an exam again.
There are oh, only 3 or 4 different scenarios that would constitute my CPA Exam plan of attack based on whether or not I passed or failed audit. It certainly seemed like a million different variables, when it was really only two. Pass or fail.
Then Bam! Friday night, Audit is released. Clearly there was no studying getting done Friday as Id have to be refreshing my score. I decided to go to the gym, kill some time as I know deep down my score isnt posting 20 minutes after its released. I get home, hover over the computer some more. Still nothing.
Then clarity came. I got up and I went to a bar and hung out with some friends. I figured, well I can check my score from my phone, and if I pass or fail. I'm in the right place either way. Fast forward to 4am, I'm at my friends house and no scores yet, and I'm in the middle of watching some weird horror movie I've never even heard of. I didn't get my score until the next morning, but all in all, it was a fun night.
Practically as soon as I wake up the next morning I'm clutching my phone, my date of birth and NTS number still right there on the screen. I hit the “Score” button. Then for what seems like an hour, it's processing. At this point, I'm pretty groggy and I see tiny numbers… my score is in… what is it? I squint… 71. My heart sinks into my knees… I zoom in to be sure, only to realize the 1 is actually a 7… I've passed.
It took my about 3 hours to fully recover from the initial disappointment of thinking I failed to realizing I passed and I'm halfway done.
So here I am, halfway done. I've come away with one conclusion after taking Audit. I have no idea how to feel coming out of an exam. The first time I took audit, hard question after hard question = 73. This time, didn't get harder at all = 77.
I can't explain it and I'm going to stop trying to figure out if I got a difficult testlet after a medium testlet. I'm starting to think that these difficult testlets are just urban myths they come up with to get into our heads.
Either that, or the questions don't seem hard because you are passing the exam and know the answer to them already, thus they just seem easy because you know the concepts. Why is it most of us tend not to think this way?
I've come to grips with not knowing how to feel coming out of the exam, I just know I need to feel well prepared going in, and the rest will take care of itself. Next up is FAR in Mid-October. Then what I hope will be a final showdown on November 30 with REG. Good luck to everyone who hasn't gotten their scores yet.
You can follow me on twitter @jasonstepnoski
