When you go to take the CPA exam at Prometric, they will give you several pencils, (I think they are HB #2 pencils), and some “course” paper on which you write your passcode/password. You are allowed to use the paper for calculations etc. If you run out of paper(!) you can request for me. [They tell you all that before you go into the examination room.]
Personally, I have never liked HB #2 pencils, I prefer mechanical pencils or pens. I do not have a preference on the paper, just on the pencils. I wish they gave you an option to get a pen or pencil. May be it is cheaper to offer pencils, and they are assured that the pencil will not run out!
CPA exam pencils - HB #2
Anyway, here is a tip. I think it is a good idea to practice or study, under conditions similar to those you will have in the exam. Thus, if you don’t like using HB #2 pencil, it is best to get one, practice using it, that way during the exam, you are not unhappy or uncomfortable using the HB#2 pencil. Actually, you could go as far as using a “blunt” pencil… because if you write as much as I do, believe me, the pencils will get blunt.
One may say that during the exam, you have no time to care about small or minor things like blunt pencils or what type of pencils you are using. Well, some people may, others may not. I happen to be the one who does. I suspect that there are a few more people. [As a side note, during the exam... there is time to think about... various things!]
If you don’t like pencil for note-taking, you can use a pen until a few days before the exam, and then use pencil for your last review just to practice a little.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you found that helpful.
[A little background: My undergrad degree is in Mathematics and Education. When you study education, you learn about Psychology, Sociology, Philosophy, and of course, Theories of Education and Learning. As you may expect, most of the Psychology, Sociology and Philosophy lean towards education. One of the few things I still remember liking from my time in college is the Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning.]
According to Bloom, all of learning is divided into three main domains or categories, namely, Cognitive, Affective, and Psycho-Motor. If I were to explain it to a kid, I would say, “all your learning is either mental, heart/emotion, or bodily” – which seems obvious, until you start getting into the details on how to formulate questions which can be used to assess an academic paper or a dissertation, or the technical competence of a CPA candidate! This article’s focus is the Cognitive Domain of learning and how its understanding can be a handy tool in preparing for the CPA exam.
The Cognitive Domain (or mental) aspect looks at levels of “thinking” from Knowledge (which is simple or (rote recall) to Evaluation and/or Creativity (which is complex and involves creation of something new). Like most skills in life, you build your way up, so there is a hierarchy of learning. The Taxonomy has since been revised; below are the two hierarchies (new and old) side by side.
Bloom's Taxonomy Cognitive Domain Hierarchy
Armed with knowledge of the details of Bloom Taxonomy’s Cognitive Domain, you can easily see through what a CPA examination question is asking. From my experience, most of the CPA exam questions focus on the high-level cognitive skills, (analysis, evaluation, and creativity) which partly explains why the exam is so difficult or demanding. You are expected to exercise those thinking skills from question to question, and the “keywords” for the particular thinking level are implied or hidden within the question. You may have noticed as you were going over practice questions that questions rarely directly ask you to evaluate or critique something. Usually, a scenario will be presented, and from the requirement/question, you will see that you need to evaluate a statement or position.
I think the most useful way to use the Bloom’s Taxonomy is to be aware of it as you are studying or learning or taking notes. For example, are your notes a regurgitation of what you found in the book (lower level), or did you create something that is “new” (higher level)? From your notes or newly acquired knowledge, can you answer questions that directly use the high level “keywords“? Can you debate an issue? Can you explain a concept to a person who is an accountant and have the person satisfactorily explain to another? (That is, can you teach what you know?) If you clicked the “keywords“ link, you may have observed that as you go up the hierarchy, “relationships” appear to be emphasized. This can be relationships between bodies of knowledge, parts of a body of knowledge, a body of knowledge and a particular scenario, etc.
You may get more information on Bloom’s Taxonomy and Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) from the following sources:
I was wondering what people want after they have passed the CPA exam. Is there something you want your family, friends, significant other, workmates, etc to do with you or for you? You can put you wish list in the comments. I have posed a similar question at these two forums:
After I pass, I would like to finish the bottle of wine that I bought months ago… there is about half a small glass remaining! (I hope I will continue resisting the temptation til the end of the year!). I would like my girlfriend to repeat what she said after I passed the first three exams… “You are much smarter than I thought you were!” Really? What a compliment! She then had to make sure I didn’t take that wrongly by saying, “don’t get me wrong. I knew you were smart, but this is something else!” Oh , well. Thanks, babe! Sometimes I wonder how she rated me before all that! Anyway, let’s stick to the celebrations… I would like to remember to fall down on my knees and thank God for everything! I would love to go to lunch with my workmates, and not discuss the CPA exam! I would also like to hear what people will say. You think they will say something, but until they say it, you never really know! I think one other celebration will come some day. I don’t know how or why, but I just know that sometimes you do something, and you look back and you see that that was a turning point. When I realize that the CPA exam was such a thing, I will celebrate in some way!
My reward for passing… if one other person will be inspired to go ahead and accomplish whatever goal he or she has set because of me, that will be reward enough!
Thanks for reading, and I hope you found that helpful.
By passing the CPA exam, you could become the Inspiration Point
While I was driving to St. Louis, MO, on Thursday, I took a break from listening to the Gleim CDs for CPA Review (REG) and listened to Oasis Radio (I think). It is a Christian Radio network of stations. There was an interview with (I have to look up the name) and she (the interviewee) had written a book about ending a running curse in a family and in its place blessing it. Part of the curse may run like this, father is a thief, he teaches to son, who teaches his own son etc. They will all get in trouble or become misfits. Similarly, if father is a pastor, he teaches son, who teaches his own son etc. They will all stay on the right path and become blessed and share their blessings.
While I was listening to that, I remembered the many times that I wished I had close family members who were chartered accountants or medical doctors or lawyers or … you know, whatever people hold in “high esteem”. Sometimes, without really wanting to, I would find out that one of the brainiacs in my class was a daughter of a professor or a son of two PhDs or something like that. I had a ton of explanations. At one point, I thought it had to do with genes. At another, I thought it had to do with the structure in the family. [What would two PhDs in the family do for fun with their kids?! I know, I was wrong, too!] At yet another point, I thought it had to do with the kids looking up to their parents/relative and thinking, “I can be whatever I want, because, my dad, mom, uncle, or close relative is an Engineer, Chess Grandmaster, Music Virtuoso, Corporate CEO, Business-Owner, or … just rich – somehow”. It is this last point that I am trying to share with you.
By passing the CPA exams, who knows how many people you will inspire? Nephews, nieces, sons, daughters,… Just because they are related to you, and you did it, they may think… “I can be whatever I want” – and they will put in their best effort to realize that dream. All because you did it. You may never know it.
So, when times get tough, and you don’t feel like studying another minute or tackling an extra set of multiple choice questions, or watching another DVD or… Just remember that a whole generation’s success or inspiration may be depending on you.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you found that helpful.
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.
The best study area is an area where you will focus and get the most out of your studying. Focus may be enhanced by reducing or elimination distractions. Getting the most out of your studying may be enhanced by the intensity as well as length of time you spend on studying. Distractions may include external and internal noise. External noise is the noise you hear, coming from outside, somebody asking for help, phone calls, or it could be visual, for example, if you are sitting by the window and you are checking out everything that passes. Internal noise may be things that you are thinking about that have nothing to do with study. For example, if you study at a park where you (used to) go for romantic walks, it may take your mind off your studying if you reminisce about that. May be not.
It is important to notice that areas that may be best for other things may not necessarily be best for studying for the CPA exam. For example, I do quite a bit from my bed/bedroom. I am very productive there. Over the weekend, I finished an 85 page book on HTML and CSS (while I was upset for failing REG!), I almost always blog from there, I watch soccer on ESPN360 from there (not productive), I designed the spreadsheets to track my studying and blogging activities from there, and I did some of my critical studying for FAR, BEC, AUD, and REG from there. However, it is not always easy to operate from the most comfortable and central place of my apartment. There have been times when I have fallen asleep when I really wanted to study, like last night. Or I have chosen to do other, more fun things, like reading a book on Investments or Productivity, than study – and I blame it on the bed/bedroom. I think that, as much as I get a lot done from my bed/bedroom, most of the things are not “forced”. The CPA study is kind of forced and there is an element of rebellion in me, not wanting to do it. Thus, I need extra motivation to choose to Study “Estates & Trusts” in the review book over other things. Once I choose comfort (that is the bed), it may be easier to go another level and choose another comfortable thing, (that is non-study stuff). After all, why should I spend my comfortable time doing uncomfortable things?!
When I notice things like that, I live for the living room, or the library, or the office. I get more effective studying done there. This works because, I think to myself, I am here, not my most favorable of place, I might as well accomplish what I came here for!
Knowing the best place to study (and using it) is a critical success factor, in my opinion.
Do you have a special study place? How do you make sure your studying is effective and efficient?
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 would like to remember to fall down on my knees and thank God for everything! I would love to go to lunch with my workmates, and not discuss the CPA exam! I would also like to hear what people will say. You think they will say something, but until they say it, you never really know! I think one other celebration will come some day. I don’t know how or why, but I just know that sometimes you do something, and you look back and you see that that was a turning point. When I realize that the CPA exam was such a thing, I will celebrate in some way!
