If somebody came to you and said, “the food that you have eaten is bigger than that mountain”, “you have walked from the Dallas, (TX, USA) to London (UK)”, “you have spoken more words than those all the USA Presidential speeches”, and finally, “your thoughts would require the memory of x computers to keep ‘em”. You may feel good about some of those things, and loathe the others, but it may take you a second to process that information and believe that you are capable of such feats.
The following questions may help the thinking process: How much food do you eat in a day, a week, a month, or a year? Probably a mountain of it! How many miles do you walk or drive in a day, week, month, or year? Probably a thousands! How many words to you speak in a day, week, month, or year? A lot! How many thoughts do you have in a day, week, month, or year? How many words to write or type in a day, week, or year? You get the idea? When you look at the volume of output that YOU already have in different aspects of your life, you will see that at the beginning, it does not look like much. A bite, a step, a yard or mile, a word, a thought… but when you repeat it over time (say, one year), you have a meal x3 x 365 (assuming you eat 3 meals a day), a yard x 50 x2 x 5 x 52 (assuming you walk to work only 50 yards to and from work, etc. Small deeds, done repeatedly over time produce results that seem to be impossible at first.
The CPA exam requires one to know a lot of material on Accounting and things that affect Accounting (business law, IT, Taxation, etc). If you went to a good school or schools, then you probably came across pretty much everything that gets tested on the CPA exam in one form or another. If you think back, you will remember that it took a while to cover that material when you were in school. (It was not done overnight.) When the CPA review material arrives, it is easy to be overwhelmed by the size of material that you need to “master. However, when you consider how you often do things (eating, talking, walking, thinking, etc), you will notice that if you approach the CPA exam the way you approach life, you will do just fine.
An example: You decide to study for 5 minutes before each meal, and you eat 3 times a day, [you will read 3 times a day at 5 minutes per session]. Assuming that you read an average 250 words per minute, you may end up reading at least 2 pages during a 5 minute-session, and 6 pages for the day. If your CPA review book has 800 pages, of which 600 is reading material, then in 100 days or a little over 3 months, you will have read every page in the book! If you decide to double your reading time, and read the book for 10 minutes before your meal, you can finish the book in 1 1/2 months [6 weeks]! This is not addressing comprehension, note-taking, or anything else. It is just showing you that small actions, repeated over time, will yield seemingly impossible yet attainable and impressive results. This can be applied to anything, 10 multiple choice questions before each meal, 1 simulation before going to bed, etc.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you found that helpful.
A few days ago, I wrote about how to handle failure on a CPA exam section. The gist of the article was that one should not beat oneself up, and I provided some tips on how to look at the situation in a positive light. The post became timely and handy when I learnt that I failed the REG section by one point, (yesterday). I didn’t actually read it, because … I had written it and I knew what its contents were. I also needed some time to just let it sink in. I think one of the things that I left out in that post, is that “grieving” for the lost time, dashed hopes, delayed plans, etc – is okay up to a point. So, I did that yesterday. I had bought some wine months ago to celebrate my finishing, I went ahead and drank a bit of it! I let the people who matter to me that I was a little bit down, and they were supportive, and then I did something that I have been wanting to do, and having been doing in bits and pieces, teaching myself HTML and CSS. I visited a few accounting blogs to encourage people to keep studying, and I congratulated a bunch of people who have passed a section or all four sections. For the most part, I did a lot better than I expected. I think it will be a little hard to tell people at work tomorrow that I am not done taking the exams. Everybody thought it was a done deal. Not yet!
Okay, now a day has passed (or a week, depending on how long you find necessary to feel sorry for yourself and the situation), and you have been down, and you have picked yourself up… you have fought the worry demons by proving to yourself that you are not alone, you have looked on the positive side of life, you have focused on things that cheer you up, you have forgotten yourself and focused on other things or other people. Point number 5 in the post is moving on. How do you move on? Why should you move on?
Why move on after failing a CPA exam section?
Two basic reasons. First, the goal of passing the section and progress towards becoming a CPA has not been met yet. Thus, one has to move on, towards that goal. Second, it is hard to move on when you let your past hold you back. So, the idea/goal/reason is to let go of the past [you cannot change it], embrace the present [it is what it is, and you have some control over it], and look to the future with hope [you can control what happens in the future by the steps you take now.]
How to move on after failing a CPA exam section
Now that you have your reasons for moving on. How do you move on? What is the point of moving on if you will do what you did before and you will experience the same result and be in the same situation? So, the logic behind moving on with hope is that we can do something now, that will result in a different situation or result in the future. For that to happen, somebody has to change, and/or something has to change.
Somebody has to change. I have to search within myself and see if there are things that I did that I should not have done, or things that I did not do that I should have done. How was my preparation in totality and in specific places. For example, was studying for about 2-3 weeks (that is, cramming) good enough? Apparently it was not. Was studying intensely while not exercising (that is, working out) good for my body/brain? Was doing simulations only the night/morning of the exam a good idea? Was going into the exam with just a familiarity, (not knowledge), of the core concepts in tax a good idea? Was I overconfident after passing the first three sections? How were my notes? Did I take a shortcut by not using the Gleim Testprep CD because it had too many multiple choice questions compared to Wiley? Why did I watch just one DVD of the Yaeger lectures? What did I do on the sections that I passed that I did not do in the section I have failed? What was my target score? Did I do enough to attain that score? From these questions and answers to them, I can learn about myself, and what I need to change so that I can be successful next time around. Similarly, I think others who have failed, may gain some insight from asking questions that are applicable to them. Some people may have done everything right, but other things outside themselves affected their performance. Thus, the next section may be relevant.
Something has to change. How did you like the material you were using? [I believe that all the main CPA Review vendors have quality material, you just have to put in the effort. However, if you were using old material, then you may have done something right, but still failed.] How was your “support group”? What time did you study, eat, relax, etc? Were those things, or times, optimal? You will notice that when addressing this question, the person is in control of most of these items. For example, one may not be able to change how long one works, but s/he can change how long s/he relaxes after getting home, or how long s/he goes without relaxing. Again, situations are different for individuals, so everyone will come up with unique or different sets of questions applicable to his or her situation. Honest answers to those questions and the correcting action taken may be the difference between passing the section next time around, and failing again.
Plans going forward. I like to have things in writing. It is like signing a contract with myself. [My current self with my future self]. So, here are my goals, and my dreams going forward.
- Apply to retake the CPA exam section (REG) as soon as possible. I already did this yesterday about an hour after I found out that I had not passed. I am just waiting to hear back from the Board, and then pay the NASBA to get the NTS, and thereafter schedule with Prometric.
- Set a score-goal for the CPA exam section. I set this at 100 (I hope the highest you can get is not 99! Whatever it is, I will go for the highest possible score.). I think it can be done. The times that I have studied well, paced myself, took time to understand things, I have done well in school. I don’t think the CPA exam is any different. In addition, aiming for a perfect score means that if you fall short, you will probably not be a point short of the passing grade!
- Set a time table to study and stick to it.
- Pray daily for courage, faith, and determination to pursue excellence in all that I do, especially the CPA exam.
- Blog about (or keep track of) my preparation and study progress.
- Use a reward system for accomplishing my daily and weekly goals. (I will decide what this should be. For now, I think it will be blogging and getting on the Internet. If I don’t study enough, I will not blog or get on the Internet.)
Thank you for reading, and I hope you found that helpful.
I just found out I have failed Regulation. I got 74. How does it feel to miss passing by 1 point on your very last exam? Well, now I know.
My goal is to get 100% when I retake it. I will register to retake, and then head out to the library.
Regulation - Fail 74 - Only 1 point short from being a CPA!
Update: I retook REG on 11/29/09 and passed with a score of 89. I took the Ethics exam on 12/20/09 and passed with a score of 95. So, I am done with the CPA exams
We are trained to be accountants. One of the jobs of accountants is to measure and report performance of a business. If you don’t track it, you cannot measure it, and if you cannot measure it you cannot evaluate and report it. I believe that as one prepares for the CPA exam, she or he has to have a way to measure progress. One of the ways is to look at how you performing on the review tests – for example, are you getting 90% or more on each topic? [Different CPA review course vendors have different recommendations.] You cannot argue with the need to master the content tested on the exam. As you prepare for the exam, there are other things that you also need to keep track of to make sure that you are living a balanced life, and you are not neglecting any activities that may be critical to your success.
For example, you may practice multiple choice questions to the exclusion of everything else. You may get to a point where you are getting 99% on each topic’s MCQs. You go to the exam, and you find out that you cannot write a comprehensible essay to answer the writing part of the simulation, or you cannot effectively and efficiently search for what you need to answer the question. Or you don’t know how or whether to horizontally or vertically split the screen to answer a certain question.
Another example, if all you are doing is answering MCQs and simulations, and not reading the book or watching DVDs or listening to CDs or interacting with your peers (if applicable), then you may miss out on some tips that could be handy during the exam.
Along the way, as I was taking the exam, I tried various things to track my activity. Part of it was blogging, the other part was spreadsheets, the other part was note-taking and writing down when I did what, and yet another part was filling out a calendar as I did some things. Sort of trial and error. I would say it helped me for the most, especially when I was doing FAR, my very first exam. I was a little “bad” and disorganized for REG, but I still tracked my activities towards the end.
So, while doing all that, and thinking about it after the exam (note: I am still waiting for REG, my last exam) I played around with a spreadsheet as I was trying to figure out a way to track my blogging activities. I decided to modify it to see if I could use it to track CPA exam review activities. Below is a link to a spreadsheet I came up. Please feel free to play around with it and change it to suit your needs. Keep in mind that this will track your activities, not performance. To pass the CPA exam, you need to perform well. It is hoped that tracking your study activities will help you be more organized, and hopefully improve your review performance and hopefully(!) your performance in the exam.
