[mla1169]

I have a MAJOR issue with misreading the questions especially missing the part of the question that asks if something is most likely or least likely.

I’m not a total dolt (lol, only 70% dolt) but man, has anyone overcome misreading the MCQs? I know, slow down, read it twice……..just not there yet

FAR- 77
AUD -49, 71, 84
REG -56,75!
BEC -75

Massachusetts CPA (non reporting) since 3/12.

[Anonymous]

Nope. I have some sort of disorder when it comes to reading these MCQs. Sometimes, I feel like such an idiot. I keep telling myself, “Read the freaking question carefully!!!!” But nope. I still get questions wrong because I don't read carefully. I definitely have a big problem. Maybe I'm dyslexic, who knows?! How I ended up passing FAR and AUD, I'll never know.

[Anonymous]

I've had the same problem. Made silly careless mistakes. It's not only with mcqs, recently I really almost blundered something when I was filling out a form because the second half of a sentence was screaming out at me and I don't know why but I didn't give attention to the first half. Thankfully I was able to tell the person that I made a mistake and I had put down a wrong answer because I misread the question, and the person accepted the change. But that doesn't always happen, and especially not on an exam!!

I don't know if I've overcome it, but I think it's definitely possible to! Just got to take one question at a time…(but can't go nuts over it)

I guess that's why “haste makes waste”…

[sacredtheory]

I don't think I'll ever overcome misreading the MCQs. The ones that I absolutely loathe are the ones with a bunch of negatives, such as: “what shouldn't you do when you're not reporting on something that isn't pertaining to a control that doesn't provide….” AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BEC: Passed
AUD: Passed
REG: Passed
FAR: Passed

Jared

[yankeeaccountant]

I better get in line. I purposely took my time last window with Audit because that was such a problem with me. I didn't pass, so I am still trying to figure it out. For me the negatives in the question make it really tough, too. I am doing the b-law portion of REG now, so this is definitely my problem right now. The tax portion was alot easier…..

Serenity now.

[mopena14]

I have had the same problem over and over feel dumb, finally on my last couple tests, I made sure on the piece of paper I had I would just write down a word or two from the issue or numbers to make myself focus on the problem.

BEC 73, 71, 79 (1/3/12)
AUD 48, 70 (1/31/12), 85 (4/9/12)
REG 70, 61, 77 (2/29/12)
FAR 42, 74 (5/29/12), 80 (7/16/12)
Ethics - 98 (4/20/12)
Officially a CPA (8/9/12)

[Anonymous]

YES! This is a big issue. The review questions really put those out there for us to learn to interpret what they are asking. Sometimes when I didn't understand the question, I'd just look at the answers and play Sesame Street's “One of these things is not like the others”.

The questions are so poorly worded. Kinda like my clients in the real world.

[Anonymous]

The thing that helped me with this was making sure I read all the possible answers in a question. Sometimes I would miss a ‘not' or a ‘least' and think that the first answer in the list was correct when it was really looking for the answer that wasn't correct. Simply reading all the answer choices could help to clue you in on what the question is asking (i.e. if it's looking for the answer that's wrong, and you notice that 2-3 of the choices appear to be correct then it could encourage you to re-read the question). I found myself struggling with this in my review mostly due to lack of concentration. I think you'll probably struggle less come the actual exam because you'll be seriously honed in.

[Anonymous]

Some tips I've used are:

If the question asks for a “may” have situation – the “may” indicates more leeway than normal. So more is allowed, and therefore something that would normally be rejected now is accepted.

“must” indicates something very restricted, so be a strict person on the answer.

Sometimes you'll have a question saying “not”, 3 out of 4 answers have something in common and therefore it must be the oddball out answer that is the correct one. (like which one of these does not require independence…)

You may get a question that has “which two accounts….” or “which two assertions….” and if one has the same account or assertion in common on two answers, most likely it is not that one. So you can eliminate half the choices right off the bat.

[Author]

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