Ten random stupid things said to candidates while studying for the CPA Exam:

I found out that I had failed FAR by 1 point and BEC by 2 (double ugh!). My boss offered to let me go back down to part time for the next two months while I study and retake the exams.

A coworker was asking snidely what I planned to do and ‘was I going to go back to part time?’ I replied that I didn?t know and was going to think about it over the weekend.

His response was ‘I don?t know why you?d go back to part time, it?s not like it helped this last time.’
-Okaygang

My family and I were invited to a neighbor’s pool party in August. I was studying intensely for FAR, so I sent an email that said my family would come, but I was going to study. (A choice I made at the beginning of the process-I would have to skip all family functions if I was going to get this test done the first time.)

She had heard me say I was studying for months, and I don’t know if she knew I was taking different sections at the time. She sent me an email that said, ‘If you don’t know this sh*t by now, you are never going to know it.’

My mouth fell open and I didn’t know how to respond. Only someone who never took the exam would say that.
-MomofFive-NY

…after explaining to my mother in law that the pass rate is like 40%, she says, ‘why don’t they just let everyone pass?’
-kmcauliffe

It amazes me that the people who have accomplished the least usually give the best “advice”.
-zooyuka

You mention the bar exam…people get excited…you mention the CPA exam…’what’s that…is it hard???…so you can do my taxes!!!’
-NJ Devilz

When I first began studying for the exam, my boyfriend dumped me because I didn’t have time to go out during the week. He said ‘all you ever want to do is study…’
-kroyal0216

I came to visit my parents-in-law from BEC exam, being overwhelmed by how I didn’t study enough for IT.

So here goes my smart a$$ father-in- law (a doctor):
‘Well, what do you think you got wrong? Tell me’.

I told him it had to do with IT and he is quickly showing off by telling me what I probably missed and says, ‘Hmm, maybe I should go take some exams, too.’
-Anna

I can’t stand when people say ‘oh you’ll be fine’ or when I say how I’m not sure if I passed, they say ‘oh, I’m sure you’re just exaggerating’ or ‘you are putting so much into it, of course you’ll pass.’

People seem to think the exam is just like another test in college where its easy to get an A if you study. This is different. I keep telling them that the majority of people who take this exam put just as much into it as me, but the pass rate is still generally under 50%.

Then they’re like ‘..yeah.’ I feel like they are either half listening. People just don’t get it.
-ktsullivan

I love the ‘you can be my tax guy!’ comments. Why does everyone thing that CPA is synonymous with just taxes? You just basically have to understate the whole ordeal when talking with those that obviously don’t get it.

I just tell people that it’s an infamously difficult exam and even if you study hard, there’s a very real possibility that you won’t pass all 4 parts on the first go around, because there is an element of luck involved as well.
-TD

This little old lady comes up to me, and she said ‘Your mom told me that you’re finishing the requirements to get your CPA…do you work with taxes?’ My answer, ‘yes.’ She says, ‘Oh, good. My mom passed away last April, and we have a mess in the probate court, and I’m going to need a good estate tax person, can you do that?’

I accidentally laughed at her.
-SwissBliss

If you have a funny/infuriating story or comment to share, post it at the [CPA Exam Forum].

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Different people have their own opinions on which section of the CPA Exam they should take first. Some say to take the ?easiest? section (i.e. whatever section best fits your background best) first so that you have a ?quick win? under your belt.

I have a friend who is a Certified Management Accountant and a Certified Internal Auditor and he took Business Environment and Concepts first because it fit his background better than the other sections. He sat for BEC, then Auditing, Regulation, and finished with Financial Accounting and Reporting.

My personal advice is to take the ?hardest? section first, which is generally regarded as Financial Accounting and Reporting. The reason behind this is the ?18 month rule?. You want your 18 month clock to start after you have passed the hardest exam.

If you put FAR off until the end, and struggle with a few sections along the way, you could potentially be putting yourself in a position where the 18 month clock is going to expire and you have one shot at passing FAR before you lose Auditing or whatever section it may be.

It?s best to get FAR out of the way first, in my opinion.

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Failing the CPA Exam is normal, but frustrating.

Your heart races with anxiety as the score page from NASBA loads.

Nothing.

Well, nothing except Error: Score not found. Please verify Section ID Number and Date of Birth format and re-submit, which is the same thing it has said the past five times you?ve checked in the last hour.

A few minutes of casual internet browsing pass and you come back to the score page to check ?just one last time?.

Elliott, Jeffrey

71

Hours of preparation and sacrifice down the drain. Thoughts of vacation days wasted, and weekends absent from friends and family add insult to injury.

Here are some tips for dealing with failure on the CPA Exam:

1. Honest evaluation of yourself

It?s time to come clean ? at least to yourself. Did you give 110% or was it more like a 65% effort? While you were ?studying at the coffee shop? were you watching CPA review lectures or was it YouTube? The frantic typing on your laptop that could be heard from 2 tables away ? were those CPA Exam notes or where you commenting on pictures of your friend?s weekend indiscretions that were posted on Facebook? While your spouse was watching the kids ? did you turn up the heat and knock out a section of FAR or did you take a ?much deserved mental break? and watch tv episodes on Hulu? Just asking.

If you started to feel a little guilty reading this?you already know what needs to be done.

2. Honest evaluation of your review materials

Are you trying to study Auditing with 2007 books that you purchased off of eBay? Are you crazy? ? those were written in 2006 and you?re taking a 2009 exam. Did you go cheap when you bought your flatscreen tv? No ? you just had to have a 52 inch 1080 instead of a 46 inch 720. Yet, for some reason you?re sitting there studying for this beast of an exam using 3 year old study material?ironically with your expensive flatscreen blaring in the background.

Throw that garbage away and get NEW CPA Exam review materials. You?re studying outdated information that could very well be the difference between passing and a 74. Go cheap on that engagement ring ? NOT your CPA review materials. She?ll never know it?s a CZ anyway. Her friends won?t be able to get over how shiny and perfect it looks and you?ll be a hero?AND a genius because you passed the CPA Exam?which means you must be ?really good at math?.

3. Honest evaluation of your schedule

So, you work 45 (or 65+ during busy season) hours a week and try to get in a little study time between going to the gym, the TV shows you recorded on your DVR, and seeing family and friends.

Great ? at this pace you?ll be ready for FAR in 6 months. It?s time to get medieval on your study schedule.

If you?re not studying 20 hours a week?you?re not studying.

Wake up an hour and forty-five minutes earlier than normal?the first 30 minutes will be spent stumbling around, hating life, cursing the exam, and making coffee. The next 15 minutes will be spent checking e-mail and Twitter. You know you?re going to do it, so plan for it. This clears the way for a solid hour of studying.

1 extra hour a day Mon-Fri = 5 hours of studying a week

Bring your lunch to work?eat for 15 minutes?and study the next 45 minutes.

45 minutes at lunch Mon-Thurs (eat out with friends on Friday) = 3 hours of studying per week

Studying at Home:

If you?re single, your schedule is much more flexible and you could feasibly study 4 hours a night if you wanted to at home. If you have a significant other or a family ? the following applies to you:

If you have kids ? get them in bed by 8:30 (many times a laughable proposition with the repeated requests for drinks of water, needing one more hug, too hot/cold, and the sudden urge for them to declare their birthday wish list even though it’s still 10 months away – but still try for 8:30)?watch an hour of TV or whatever with your spouse?study from 9:30 to 11:00. This still puts you in a prime spot to get to sleep early enough that you can get up early as mentioned above.

1.5 hours studying Mon-Thurs (Friday is a night off of studying) = 6 hours of studying per week

Grand total for weekday studying: 14 hours

Saturday/Sunday:

You don?t have to kill your weekends in order to be a good CPA candidate. You also don?t have to be AWOL from your family and friends. Three hours a day each day on Saturday/Sunday is all you need to get 20 hours of CPA Exam study time per week.

If you have kids ? spend time with them in the morning?study during nap time (if applicable) and you have the rest of the evening with them as well.

That?s 20 hours a week of studying for the CPA Exam and you barely had to alter your schedule or lose out on time with family and friends.

Following this study plan, you could conceivably be ready for:

FAR in 6-7 weeks

REG in 5-6 weeks

AUD in 3-4 weeks

BEC in 3-4 weeks

It sounds simple ? and it is. It?s the schedule that I used to finally pass the CPA Exam and if you have failed a section and are looking for a new approach, I recommend that you give it a try.

Thanks for reading.

-Jeff

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In my request for questions for the NASBA interview, I received a lot of good questions that were better suited for the AICPA. So, I submitted these questions to the AICPA via Rick Telberg at CPA Trendlines on April 10, 2009.

The AICPA has answered them and I hope that you find their answers helpful in answering some of your questions.

The Maryland Association of CPAs is featuring the article, as is their sister site CPA Success.

Thank you for your question submissions. Thank you also to the AICPA for the interview.

-Jeff

***

1. A Curve on the CPA Exam?

another71.com: A common myth that circulates among CPA exam candidates is that CPA exam scores are curved according to the performance of other candidates taking the same section. Is a candidate’s score entirely independent of the performance of other candidates? Does the AICPA employ any curving mechanism to keep pass rates at their historical levels of 45 to 50 percent on average per section?

AICPA: The CPA exam is not curved. And yes, every candidate’s score is entirely independent of other candidates’ examination results.

The CPA exam is a criterion-referenced examination, which means that it rests upon predetermined standards. Every candidate’s performance is measured against established standards to determine whether the candidate has demonstrated the level of knowledge and skills that is represented by the passing score. Every candidate is judged against the same standards, and every score is an independent result.

2. BEC – Why the wait?

another71.com: A widely held frustration among people who sit for BEC is that they don’t get their score right away. Since there are no subjective elements to BEC since it is 100 percent multiple choice (currently), why is a candidate not given at least a “preliminary” score with the caveat that it is subject to review?

AICPA: Scores — even preliminary ones — cannot be released without state board review and the application of standard quality control procedures. For these reasons, issuing scores at test centers is impractical and the possibility is not being considered.

3. Re-score: Worth the hassle (and time and money)?

another71.com: When candidates score a 74 on an exam, the inevitable question that they ask is, “Should I apply to get it rescored?” In 2008, approximately how many candidates submitted applications to have their exams regraded? What percentage of those applications had a score that changed due to the regrading process? How many candidates went from fail to pass due to submitting an application for a regrade?

AICPA: There is no such thing as a rescore or a regrade. The service available is “score review,” an automated score verification process. It involves making certain that the approved answer key was used in scoring and that it was correctly applied. In 2008, score review requests did not result in any score changes.

4. Grading Transparency

another71.com: A common complaint about both the grading process and score reporting process for the CPA exam is that they are not very transparent. Candidates feel very much left in the dark. What steps is the AICPA taking to improve the transparency of these processes and to keep candidates better informed?

AICPA: When it comes to scoring, “How is the CPA exam scored?” is a very successful AICPA effort to bring transparency to the process. It is a non-technical overview providing insight into scoring without the use of psychometric jargon. The technical aspects of scoring are, of course, much less accessible to the layman. However, for those who wish to tackle the technical, a wealth of information is readily available on the Internet about Item Response Theory (IRT), the psychometric model that is the basis of CPA exam scoring.

The current score reporting in two waves seems to be well understood by candidates but much more needs to be done to erase candidate misconceptions about why some scores are released earlier than others. For example, candidates need to know that those who are presented with simulations that have not been tested previously will receive their scores in the second wave, even if they test at the beginning of a testing window. A sufficient number of responses to new simulations must be available for psychometric analysis before scoring can begin. and it is impossible to predict who will receive new simulations as simulations are assigned at random.

5. Real-time scoring in the works?

another71.com: Currently, scores are released in two waves per testing window — commonly referred to as Wave 1 and Wave 2. A candidate who sits for an exam early in the testing window and does not get their score in Wave 1 has to wait for yet another month to get their score and oftentimes their study progress and motivation wanes because of it. Are there plans in the future for the AICPA to move to real-time score reporting to better serve the candidates?

AICPA: Faster and more frequent score release will be introduced after the implementation of CBT-e — a program of major CPA exam improvements. However, “real-time” score reporting is not a realistic option and is not being considered. (Refer to the response in question 2.)

6. Borderline Candidates?

another71.com: Another widely held sentiment about score releases is that if a candidate doesn’t receive their score in Wave 2 of a testing window, then they are “borderline” — i.e., 72-77. Would you say that in general, the most candidates who don’t receive their score by Wave 2 are “borderline?”

AICPA: There are several possible reasons why some scores are released faster than others. If psychometric analysis is required, for example, the scores of all candidates who took a articular examination version — whether passing, failing or on the brink — are held until the analysis is completed. For those who took AUD, FAR or REG, the “second reads”of written communication responses may also be a factor. “Second reads” are additional reviews of essays for candidates whose scores are close to passing.

7. Is a raw score possible?

another71.com: Another question that candidates have in regard to score reporting is the fact that they leave a testing center with little more than a ventured guess as to how they performed. Has the AICPA looked into a reporting format that gives a candidate their raw score on the exam prior to leaving the testing center or soon thereafter?

AICPA: As indicated previously, plans are in place to introduce faster and more frequent score reporting after CBT-e, the new CPA exam, is implemented. There are no plans, however, to provide candidates with raw scores — or any other kinds of scores — at the test center. (See response to question 2.)

8. 18 Month Rule

another71.com: In regard to the “18-month rule,” candidates often feel they are at a disadvantage due to a relatively slow score reporting process. For instance, if a candidate sits for FAR on Day 1 of the testing window and misses the cut for the Wave 1 score release in the second month, by the time they get their score in Wave 2 of the third month, nearly three months of their 18-month window has expired. If you count the fact that four of those 18 months are not testable months, they have even less time left. Has there been any discussion of expanding the arbitrary 18-month timeframe to 24 months?

AICPA: Perhaps the real issue here is the test-taking strategy. A better approach might be to take two sections in the first window, two in the next, and use the remaining four windows to retake any sections failed on the first attempt.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user moonjuice under this Creative Commons license.

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William Parrott, Ph.D., an associate professor of accounting at the University of South Florida wrote a great article recently on the old “paper and pencil” version of the CPA Exam vs the new computer-based exam.

The article is titled “Passing the CPA Exam – Is It Easier or Harder Now?“
It compares the two exam formats in the follow areas:

• Length of the CPA Exam
• Knowledge Tested
• Fixed vs. Flexible Scheduling
• Applying to Sit for the CPA Exam
• Studying for the Exam
• Taking the CPA Exam
• Exam Day Differences
• Exam Format Differences
• Exam Grading
• CPA Exam Pass Rates and Release of Exam Results
• Cost, ?Conditioning? the Exam, Exam Location
• CPA Review Options

If you have a boss who likes to tell “war stories” about the old exam format and remark that new candidates have it so “easy”, slip a copy of this under his/her door. Maybe at the end of the day we can all just agree that old school or new, the Uniform CPA Examination is one of the toughest professional examinations around.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Esthr under this Creative Commons license.

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The AICPA recently released their list of 2009 CPA Exam questions, which is something that they do on an annual basis. They release fifty questions or so per section, which is in addition to the questions that they license to the various CPA Review courses to use in their books.

Should candidates spend valuable study time going over them?

To answer this, I asked Phil Yaeger of Yaeger CPA Review.

His response is as follows:

“While I realize that there is some buzz about the 2009 AICPA Released Questions, I do not recommend that my students (or any other CPA candidates) spend time studying them. The reason for this is two-fold:

1. The questions that they released are old, retired questions that they have decided not to use on future exams. Candidates who spend time tryng to answer these questions are not only wasting their time on them, but also risk becoming frustrated because their review material hasn’t covered these topics. At a recent meeting with the AICPA they told us that these questions have been purged from their exam test bank and won’t be used in the future.

2. In our course we use the Wiley CPA Review textbooks and Practice software. There are several thousand good multiple choice questions and simulations to work on and study from. Within our DVD lectures, we go over close to a thousand questions and simulations. WHY go over Released Questions that you’ll never see again? There are more than enough good, worthwhile, questions to study from. We carefully choose questions that we believe best represent how to apply important concepts. We teach concepts and use questions to reinforce solid understanding.

I do not recommend that my students spend their time and energy on the 2009 AICPA Released Questions. Their time would be much better spent reviewing their notes or working the Yaeger-assigned questions in the Wiley books. The questions that we assign and review in our DVD lectures will appear on the CPA Exam, wheras the AICPA Released Questions will not be on the Exam.”

I’m always here to help,

Phil Yaeger, CPA, CFP, PhD

Yaeger CPA Review 1-800-824-2811

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Daniell Blue under this Creative Commons license.

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There are many people who read this site who have already sat for at least one section of the CPA Exam. However, there are many people who are getting ready to sit for the first time and don’t know what to expect. This is a list of things that I learned over the course of my (long) journey to being a Certified Public Accountant. Hopefully you can gleam at least one useful bit of information from my experience.

-Jeff

CPA Exam Tips for Success – What to Expect on Exam Day:

1. You will find that the exam questions for the most part are not as “wordy” as the questions you have practiced and seem a little more straightforward. Chances are, the practice MCQs in your materials are a collection of the more-difficult questions that you can encounter on the CPA Exam. I’ve always left the testing center feeling like the actual exam is easier than the practice questions.

2. It will be the fastest 2.5 to 4.5 hours of your life.

3. You cannot be a perfectionist on your exam. If you get stumped and sit there stubbornly for 10 minutes trying to figure something out, that’s 8 minutes that you just cheated yourself on your second simulation.

4. If you’re stumped and can’t get any number to work out, choose B or C – you have a 30% chance of getting it right. A and D are correct 20% of the time.

5. Don’t take breaks. Exception: If you are extremely sleepy – take a break. Go into the bathroom and literally do jumping jacks. Grab a Starbucks “Frappachino” thing (store it in your locker or better yet – your coat pocket and grab it as you walk down the hall) that you get at a convenience store (cold, glass bottle) and slam it and get back in there.

6. Don’t forget your NTS and two IDs that are SIGNED. One needs to be a picture ID like a driver’s license and the other can simply be a signed credit card. Don’t make the mistake of having all of your credit cards say “see photo ID” like I did. It might be a good idea to make a copy of your NTS and stick it in your glove box. The worst than that can happen is if you arrive for check-in at the testing center and don’t have your NTS or IDs.

7. Once the facilitator at Prometric gets your computer up and running and you sit down – don’t assume that you have all day to start writing mnemonics on your scratch paper. One candidate who reads this site sent me an e-mail saying that he sat for BEC and decided to write out all of his formulas before beginning the exam. He found himself locked out due to time expiration (you get something like 10 minutes – READ THE SCREEN) and not only did he not get to sit for his exam that day – he forfeited his exam fee and he had to wait until the next testing window to take the exam. Talk about a nightmare exam experience.

8. When you get to the simulations – do the memo first ~ this is especially important on the 2nd simulation when time is scarce. The simulations combined are worth 30 points and the memos are 10 of those points. To put it another way – the memos are worth ten percent of your grade. Make them your number one priority on the simulations. If you have to skip something on the 2nd simulation because time is running out – skip the research tab. LEAVE NOTHING BLANK. If one minute is left on the exam and you have a tab with a bunch of blanks, fill in something – anything. A wrong answer and a blank answer give you the same number of points – zero. You may get lucky if there’s a drop-down menu for the answers and you’re guessing.

9. If you haven’t practiced the research function online at cpa-exam.org…DO IT. You will spend 10 minutes trying to figure it out on the exam if you don’t.

10. Get at least 6 hours of sleep the night before and if you’re a coffee drinker, drink your normal amount of coffee – but don’t pound a gallon 15 minutes prior to the exam. You will have to pee and you may be on question 15 of the 30 question testlet and you can’t leave until the testlet is complete.

11. Relax. People take this exam every day (or at least they do eight months out of the year…you know what I mean). Give it your best shot and to use a sports analogy … “leave it all out there on the field”. You may be tempted to get lazy and rush through your 3rd testlet because you’re bored to death or because you think you’re doing miserably. Don’t. There will be plenty of time to go drink a beer (or whatever) after the exam. Focus focus focus while you’re in there. Stay alert and work your tail off. The extra focus and extra attention to detail on the final 5-10 questions of testlet three could be the difference between you passing and having to re-take (and re-study) your exam section.

12. If you fail – congrats…you’re a normal candidate. It take an abnormally strong effort to pass the CPA Exam. The average candidate fails their exam (historical pass rate of around 45-50%). Your study prep and exam performance needs to be above average. You need to adjust something – and only you know what that is. Don’t make excuses…just identify it…change it (i.e. – starting LOST Season 1 on Netflix is not the right thing to do while you’re preparing for FAR)…and execute.

13. Good luck.

Clock photo courtesy of Flickr user Matt Callow under this Creative Commons license.

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Many candidates like myself who have spent hundreds of hours studying over the course of several months (or years) and finally passing don’t really know what to do with themselves or their newly found free time. Here are five suggestions to help pass the time:

5. Peruse the internet and treat yourself to an item costing around $350…which is the cost of the new NTS you’re used to paying for plus two rescheduling fees. Your bank account is used to not having it anyway.

4. Now that you have time do to such things, pour a cup of coffee and reflect upon the irony of the AICPA testing the concepts of timeliness and real time data processing.

3. While you don’t really want to do so, grab your Regulation book and spend a few hours reviewing it so that you can answer your relatives’ tax questions over Christmas. The prospect of free CPA advice will be enticing to them and this will be the last Christmas you remember anything about taxes.

2. Put off applying for your license until after you file your tax return. This is the last tax year that you can be liberal with your tax deductions without the professional consequences of doing so.

note – criminal charges may still apply. Consult your local CPA.

(…this is tongue-in-cheek for everyone out there with the IRS Tipline on speed dial…)

1. You’re going to need a new excuse for skipping family reunions and other gatherings you would rather miss. “Sorry, I have my exam in two weeks and I need to study” will not cut it anymore. It’s time to think of a new one.

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There were two people who asked about this in the REG discussion for this month, and I found it worthy of a post. Time management on the CPA Exam is critical for REG and FAR. AUD and BEC? – not as much.

REG is probably the worst exam in terms of time management. They only give you 3 hours to cover 72 MCQs and two sims.

Ideally, you would have 50 minutes per sim, which only leaves you a little over a minute per MCQ. This is not reality.

In all likelihood, you’ll spend about 35 minutes per MCQ testlet, 50 on your first sim and about 25 on your second sim. It took me 4x to get through REG and I was consistently left with 15-25 minutes to finish the last sim and I never fully finished it. I got close this last time…I left one tab unanswered.

You can plan all you want, but you will encounter frustrating questions that leave you seeing red because you can’t get any of the answers to work out and before you know it – you’ve spent 5 minutes on ONE question. After you hit the 3 minute mark – you have to move on. Guess B or C and keep going. If you nit-pick every question, you’ll fail for sure.

Realistically for REG…

Testlet 1: 35 minutes
Testlet 2: 38 minutes
Testlet 3: 40 minutes
Simulation 1: 50 minutes
Simulation 2: 18 minutes

…is what you will encounter, give or take. You will probably fly through the 1st testlet…the 2nd will be harder because you’re doing well and the 3rd will take longer due to difficulty (if you’re doing well still) and fatigue. You will hit a wall somewhere in the early 3rd testlet and you have to “push” on through it so to speak.

They key is to move on physically and emotionally after encountering difficult questions. If you keep thinking “I didn’t know that last one…I’m going to fail” – you will have a self-fulfilling prophesy.

If you get into your 2nd simulation and discover that don’t have near enough time to finish it, you need to score your easy points. First, write the memo. It’s worth 5% of your overall grade (10% total between the two sims). Second, do the research tab. This should only take a few minutes and it’s a few easy points. Take it from someone who scored 74 twice on REG – those easy points could make a difference when it’s graded.

Finally, answer all of the tabs that you can. If there is a tab with some simple answers based on fact patterns that you know without reading the whole drawn out simulation case facts, answer them. If you’re down to 1 minute left on the exam – don’t leave anything blank. You get points for what you answer correctly – not what you got wrong.

The key is to be cool under pressure and remember: if you find your exam to be brutal – it’s probably because you’re doing well. Take a deep breath and work your way through it.

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I knew coming out of the exam that I had passed, but I didn’t expect this. I’m paranoid so I’m whiting out my info until I have my certificate in hand.

Thank you GOD.

Thank you Dr. Yaeger and everyone at Yaeger CPA Review!

Update: I got my paper confirmation on September 22 – a timely six days after my score appeared online.

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Update 2010: I consider this one of the best posts I’ve ever written. It captures what I was feeling when I was neck-deep in the CPA Exam and wondering if I would pass. I was trying to balance family, work, the CPA Exam, and trying to maintain some semblance of a “life”. “Failure is an event, it’s not a person” as Zig Ziglar says. So true.

I spent the last week on vacation with my family in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. We only had one DVD with us (“Cars”) and my boys were sick of watching it at night, so we bought “Meet the Robinsons”. It’s a great movie as far as animated flicks go, but as I tuned in here and there, I came across a scene about failure and the theme of “Keep Moving Forward” that was derived out of a quote by Walt Disney long ago.

I immediately thought of the CPA exam, as I often do since it’s plagued my memory for the past 3 years and I found it very applicable to the process of studying for and taking the Exam. Then, I read about a CPA Exam candidate who had scored in the low 60’s and they were wondering if they should throw in the towel or if maybe there was still some hope for them.

My initial motivation for creating this site was because I was extremely frustrated with myself that I had failed BEC yet again and felt like venting. At the time, I felt like the dumbest person in the world. I was 30 and still hadn’t passed the stupid CPA Exam and I was wondering if I in fact was cut out for accounting.

I considered quitting the CPA Exam altogether. I was sick of the time. I was sick of sending NASBA money. I was sick of exam day anxiety. I was sick of the ridiculous 4 week minimum to get your results back. I was ready to move on. Surely I could get a job in…marketing?

Then, I thought about the future. I have 3 boys ages 5 and under. When times got tough for them…when life didn’t quite go their way, how could I look them in the eye and tell them not to quit and to get up and try again if I myself packed it up and quit the biggest challenge of my life? I don’t work in public accounting anymore and passing the CPA Exam is more of an aside on my resume because I don’t plan on using it in an official setting ever, so continuing with this exam is for 1. my pride 2. my boys and 3. my wife won’t think that all of those weekends where she kept the boys out of my hair so that Dad could study would be all for naught.

The purpose of this site quickly found an identity in that it exists to tell other candidates that hey – if you’re struggling with this exam, you’re not alone. The only stories you really ever hear are about your smart classmate or co-worker who aced the exam on their first try. You don’t really hear too many people admit that they didn’t pass the Exam the first…or second…or third try. I’ve been open about my failures on this exam so that maybe other people would be spurred on to keep fighting and would hopefully realize that they are not alone.

Which brings me back to struggling CPA Exam candidate…

If you have the intellectual wherewithal to qualify and meet the prerequisites to take the CPA Exam, then you can pass the CPA Exam. I believe that the Thomas Edison quote ?Success is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration” is very relevant to the CPA Exam taking process. I have never found myself being too-dumb to pass the Exam. I’ve always left the testing center kicking myself for not working harder.

If you’re a bad test-taker…work on being a better test taker.

If you have 3 kids and work full time and don’t have the time or energy to study…change your schedule…stay up later and get up earlier…that’s no excuse (I’m preaching to myself here).

If you’re working your tail off, but are getting bad results on practice tests…either get new material or figure out where you’re going wrong.

The bottom line is: everyone who is studying for this exam can pass it.

There is no score that can’t be overcome and there are no character weaknesses that can’t be beaten. The point is – STICK WITH IT.

Forget your co-worker who looks down his nose at you for not passing (no one likes him and he never gets invited for beers after work anyway). Forget your uncle who passed the exam back when they had to walk uphill both ways through the snow to take the old paper and pencil edition (this version of the exam is much broader and you have to know more information…thank you SOX and BEC).

Finally, forget the fact that you didn’t pass REG or FAR or whatever the last time you took it. Your performance last time has zero bearing on your success this time around.

Whether you scored a 60, 71, or a 74 – KEEP MOVING FORWARD. Keep fighting. Keep making progress.

Sometime in the future, you will have 3 letters by your name and these temporary setbacks will all be a distant memory.

(If not…there’s always marketing).

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