[gibars]

Hey guys,

Took my audit exam last night, my very first question was hard it startled me. I really don’t know what to expect from the exam. Very wordy tricky questions. Flagged a lot in all three testlets. I guess what really makes me nervous is that my SIMS were pretty easy. I was wondering, do they adjust the Sims to how good you did on the other parts of the exam? I know they do that in mpc sections? I’m halfway done with my exams kind of getting used to this waiting game, just not trying to think about it is best bet.

FAR - 83
REG - 88
AUD - TBD
BEC - TBD

[CPA soon]

I don't think sims are approached that way. You just get what you get I believe, if you really want to confirm that you can find out in the AICPA grading guide which goes over the details. My sims failed 🙁 they were so hard. You probably just did well. Good luck.

FAR - 71, 68, 74, (8/31/14) 78 ✔
REG - 67, 71, 71, (10/18/14) 78 ✔
BEC - (11/29/14) 86 ✔
AUD - 73, (4/4/15) 86 ✔

I can't believe this is over! 2 years and 3 months..

[JerseyJay14]

I had two research questions as part of my SIMS on Saturday….I know I nailed both of them, so what are the real chances that both will actually count? Probably wishful thinking, but I feel good about four of the remaining five SIMS after that too, so we'll see how it goes!

[Anonymous]

I think the difficulty of the Sims is relative to your preparation. If it's a topic you're very familiar with, you aren't likely to think any kind of Sim on the topic is difficult. By contrast, if you don't know the subject matter very well, there isn't much that would make it easier.

For me, two things make a Sim difficult: a lot of moving parts and vague instructions. If there are multiple tabs to dissect and analyze in order to produce an answer, there's more room for error, and it takes up more of your time. If the requirements of the Sim are not clearly explained, you waste a lot of time trying to figure out exactly what they are asking you to do. Then you guess and second-guess your work. That, to me, is especially frustrating after facing 90 MCQs and then staring down 7 Sims. The least the exam writers could do is be clear about what they want from you. This was a big problem for me on REG, although not so much on FAR or AUD.

[Zuly]

@CaseyTX you nailed the issues with SIMS, at least for me anyway! In FAR I had a couple of SIMS that didn't have clear instructions and that left me demoralized. Thankfully I passed but I am glad that it wasn't just me that feels that the exam writers should do a better job of writing out better instructions.

FAR - (11/01/14) 71 (02/07/15) 79
AUD - (04/30/15) 86
BEC - (07/21/15) 73 (10/01/15) 75
REG - (11/30/15) 55 (05/19/16) 74

[islandsoulchild]

I agree, the SIMs instructions were very vague. I was confused about what they were asking for in two of the seven sims…I am very nervous. The MCQs were relatively easy for me so I knew the SIMs would be a kicker.

FAR - 87 (11/3/2013)
BEC - 81 (12/6/2013)
REG - 87 (8/11/2014) Impact of work on my goals...still passed on first try... HAPPY! HAPPY!
AUD - 86 (2/28/2015) (More impact of work arg)

Done! Done! Done! and Done!

"The best way to predict the future is to create it." ~Peter Drucker

[Author]

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