After sleeping on it (and thinking about it all evening), I'm thinking/hoping that I was getting tripped up on test questions (i.e. fake questions that don't count – the AICPA just uses them to gauge whether or not they'll use them in the future as “real” questions).
I felt like I knew the material pretty well. I studied a lot harder for this exam than the one that I scored a 74 on, but it felt like I was getting question after question on my weak areas. Plus, the dude next to me was doing that phlegm-clearing throat hack that you hear people do in public and you think to yourself “wow – he just really doesn't care, does he.” It was loud and I despite the fact that I had those ear-blockers on, every time he did it, it sounded like we were being carpet-bombed and I had to re-read the question I was on. Also, he was getting frustrated with himself apparently and would mutter words and throw his hands up in the air like you do when a ref blows a call at a football game, which was slightly amusing to me. Maybe he had the same question bank?
After having a few hours to think about it, I knew more questions than I was giving myself credit for and I think I might have done ok after all. When you're plugging along in the exam and you hit a few roadblocks, you start thinking “here we go again” and it's easy to get down. I tend to think to myself that if I miss one question, I'll fail, so a problem here or there that I have never seen or don't know tends to overshadow my successful answers.
I won't be surprised if I got a 70…and I will be equally unsurprised if I score an 80. Like I've stated already, it was a very difficult exam and I chose to take it late in the day, which may have compounded my frustration because I was tired. I had been studying for 3 days straight and then took BEC…studied for 3 hours more and took REG and I was having trouble focusing.
Pass or fail, I used the right study program and if I have to take it again, I'm going to focus on REG and nothing but REG for a good month and a half.
Then, I'll start on FARE.
Until then, I'll just assume that I passed…nothing else you can do.
Thanks for reading.
Those ear-blockers don't work on me. They make my ears so painful within 15 minutes of wearing them. I would have walked up to the Prometric staff to report that noisy throat-clearing neighbor sitting in the next cubicle. The main problem I have with the Prometric center that I normally go to is the noisy air conditioner. It either blows on my head or in my face, or simply makes a loud emission noise.
When I took AUD, this guy behind me kept...whimpering is the best way to describe it. Imagine a dog that is scared and that's what he sounded like. He did it for the entire exam. It drove me nuts. I feel for you with the throat clearing dude. Just awful when you are trying to pass and you have to deal with that.
I guess I have a smaller sized head because those ear-blockers weren't very tight. I had to put both hands on them to push them in far enough to work. During my BEC exam the person next to me kept standing up and walking back behind me. I think it was one of the people that worked there, but it was really distracting. I didn't want to turn and look in case someone thought I was trying to help the person. There was a lot of noise that day. Luckily when I took FARE at 8am there weren't as many people and I got placed on the end of the isle in the back. That was great. i'm one of those people that get annoyed with any little noises, so I'm pretty sure I would have gone mad if I was in your situation. I think the only other weird thing I had was something that was typing extremely loud on their keyboard. I think I'm going to continue the morning exams.
I wish the guy next to me had eaten breakfast before he came in!
The ear blockers don't work for me either. I have to sleep with an eye patch, and one of those soothing noise maker things and I can still hear things going on in the house when I sleep.
When anyone in my house is sick, I just don't sleep.