Clint is a NINJA CPA Blogger.
We all know that something is bound to prevent our meticulous plans when taking the CPA exam.
Over two months ago I scheduled Financial Accounting and Reporting for January 1st as I would be off from work that day. Little did I know that Prometric was also planning on taking off on New Years Day.
Almost exactly 24 hours before the exam, I received a call from our Prometric friends and had to reschedule the exam for January 2nd. It would just be another day in anticipation of taking the exam.
Funny story of the exam: I walked into Prometric and went through all the things we have to do to start the exam and was promptly handed scratch paper and pencils.
I mentioned something to the administrator that I was surprised to get scratch paper because of the recent changes to noteboards and he mentioned that it would take time for any changes. Lo and behold, noteboards were at my computer and scratch paper was nowhere to be found within 5 minutes.
Not funny part of the exam: The rest of the exam.
After all these hours of studying, it would be reassuring to see the same exact questions and answers on the exam as were studied. Not so with the CPA exam.
My first impression was that this was going to be a nail-biter after reading through a few questions. Overall, the first testlet seemed to be moderately difficult with a few easy ones and a few difficult ones.
However, the questions seemed to get harder in the second testlet. I think I had more calculations in the second testlet but I think I handled those better than a few conceptual questions in the first testlet.
Lastly, the third testlet seemed to be easier than the first two. I think I originally flagged 20-25 questions and came back to them later so I could read over them completely and perhaps reconsider the answer I had already chosen, if any.
There was perhaps one question in which I had no clue and simply guessed. The rest were either known or educated guessed through the process of elimination.
As expected, the simulations didnt begin well after seeing the length of the first question, so I came back to that one later. I was confident that I got most right if not all of 3 of the simulations.
However, the other four were a little tricky. Two of them had me change my answers after re-reading the questions/problems and I still was unsure based on the wording within the simulation.
However, I used the authoritative literature to help find some clarification and think that Ill get some credit, but not all, for these two simulations. The other two were not particularly strong subjects on my part and Im not real sure how I did on those questions.
In the end, I think Im right in the ballpark of a passing score but you never know with these things. I did have quite a few questions where I had a hard time choosing between two answers so hopefully I was on the right track with my final answers.
Now I just have to start studying for Regulation until the scores are released in a few weeks. CPA exam round two coming up!
