Sarah is a NINJA CPA Blogger.

Hello Fellow Ninja’s,

Good news…I survived my first CPA section exam. I took AUD last Wednesday and I’m still alive.

I’m not sure how I did. I didn’t feel great leaving the testing center but I’ll have to wait another 4 weeks to see the true outcome. Until then, I’m putting AUD behind me and moving ahead.

The testing was somewhat an adventure, being my first. My test was scheduled for 12:30pm and the testing center called me around 9:30am and said they had openings and I could come early if I wanted to.

I was actually relieved to receive this call because I wasn’t sure what I was going to do for the next 3 hours. I was going through my note cards trying to stay relaxed but I was a bundle of nerves and was ready to get there and get the test over with. I ended up at the testing center around 11am and started my test about 30mins later.

Upon arriving at the testing center, I was greeted by several nice ladies who walked me through the process of taking my picture, fingerprints, body search, and metal detector search. I was somewhat surprised by all the measures required to test but I guess that’s just a sign of the day.

I was instructed to remove my watch, which I wasn’t counting on. I’m a person who always likes to know what time it is and found myself several times during the test trying to gauge what time it was.

The lady informed me that since some watches can now connect to the internet, I could not take mine with me into the testing area. I thought about arguing how I had specifically read in the material how I could wear a watch but decided it wasn’t worth it to get myself riled up over that.

The test went as expected per all the pretest I took and I finished with 1hr and 30 mins left. The MCQs took me about and 1hr 30 mins and I spent about 1hr on the SIMs.

I felt pretty good about the SIMs. I was able to use the authoritative literature to help refresh my memory on some of the items which boosted my confidence on those. I used my review course, Wiley test bank and NINJA materials during my studying.

I felt that the test bank with my review course was an almost exact replica of the actual testing scenarios. It broke the test up into the 3 testlets, gave the same break in between each, and gave the same verbage on the screen. I was glad to have seen that much ahead of time.

I feel as though I’ll be on the borderline of passing when scores are released. I hope to pass this one more because if I didn’t, the next time I take it, the Clarity project will be included and I’m not sure what effect that will have on my retake experience.

I’m taking this week off from hard core studying and only coming in early to study. I’m doing this more so because I’m already in a routine of getting up early and I’m afraid if I stopped it for a week, it might be even harder to get back into it. During the evenings, I will do my usual routine minus the studying just to give myself a break.

I’ve got BEC scheduled toward the end of May so there won’t be much time to relax but I feel like a few nights off will be good for me.

Best of luck to everyone testing right now.

Until next time,

Sarah