[Art Van Delay]

I took AUD today… honestly, thought it was pretty easy. There were maybe 15 total MCQ’s I flagged across the 3 testlets. SIM’s were a little tricky — I only got 1 research question and no audit procedure or control process questions, which I find to be the easiest being an auditor — but still, I’m confident I knocked out at least 4 of the 7.

I was wondering how people know if they got a medium or difficult testlet? I know the first testlet is always medium. My second testlet was definitely harder than the first, no question. My third was not as hard as the second, but also still harder than the first. The second and third had much wordier questions and that’s where all my flagged MCQ’s fell. The first testlet was a breeze.

Overall, I really don’t think this exam is anywhere near as difficult as people make it out to be. But, that said, I’ve been both an external and internal auditor for ~5 years so I have a good understanding of the concepts to begin with.

I finished the entire exam in just under an hour. The Prometric lady said that’s usually a bad sign. Bad sign, or great sign, lady!

[Anonymous]

I had an identical experience and pulled off a 97. I'm sure you're fine.

[trish_1234]

ohhh man…. I hope I have the same experience on the 14th!!!!!

maybe you guys are just smart!!! OMG in one hour! good for you

AUD 69, 92 7/15 Gleim and Ninja test bank
FAR sometime in 10/15 Gleim
BEC not taken
REG not taken

[Anonymous]

I think it's a combination of the type of material and the trickiness of the questions and answers that determine the level of difficulty. The harder questions usually have 2 answers that look to be correct where 1 is more correct than the other. The trickiness of the questions also gets you as the harder questions will try to trick you like a mofo..especially in audit. That said, since you seem to know your stuff, you should be fine.

[law0915]

You can't really. Glad it was so easy for you. I took the full 4 hours up until the last second. Let us know how you did 🙂 Aud is only 6 Becker chapters. You're in for a treat with the amount of material in the others. The aud exam tests minute details so hopefully you were able to catch all those in the questions and answer choices in the hour you answered 90 questions and 7 SIMS.

REG 77 Feb14
BEC 13*, 79 Aug14
FAR 64**, 76 Nov14
AUD 89 Feb15

*Exited exam after first testlet
**Only studied F1-F6 out of 10 Becker chapters

Licensed Arizona CPA

[Anonymous]

I think usually you can tell between the testlet 1 and testlet 2.

[Meeekks]

Damn, I admire your confidence. I only ever finished practice exams in an hour. I would never have the balls to submit the actual test in an hour even if I could.

[Anonymous]

Don't try and think about testler difficulty. Especially during the exam. It's the quickest way to psych your self out.

My audit experience was similar except I thought my testlets went from medium to easy to super easy with sims being a joke. I finished in 2 hours which was my record (far took me 2.5, reg 2, bec 3). If you know the material there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to finish with time to spare but also it's not a competition. You don't get extra points for finishing early.

[okcpa2015]

@Art Van Delay don't stress. I got through the AUD MCQs in about an hour… scored a 98.

You passed, but the only hard part is waiting a month to get your score a celebrate.

FAR - 91
REG - 88
AUD - 98
BEC - 88

[Anonymous]

There is no way of knowing for sure. For AUD and REG, I knew they were getting harder, but for FAR, they all felt the same (and my scores were within a point of each other). I think the best way of knowing what a “hard” vs “medium” testlet looks like is to look at previously released questions. If you have Ninja, you can download them; if not, google AICPA previously released questions. There are a bunch out there from prior years (usually from Becker, even if you don't have Becker). You just will not find the 2015 released questions without paying someone for them. If you look closely, they will specify at the beginning of the set of questions whether they are hard or medium.

[Mika]

I can tell testlet 2 is harder than testlet 1 from REG but no way I can tell from FAR. FAR for me is a HARD HARD HARD experiences and I am planning for a retake once I leave the exam center.

REG - 80 (02/13/2015) Roger + Ninja Flash Card + Ninja MCQ + Becker's Note
FAR - 84 (05/29/2015) Roger + Ninja MCQ + Some Wiley book questions
BEC - 77 (08/27/2015) Roger + Ninja MCQ + Half Wiley book questions
AUD - 87 (08/28/2015) Roger + Ninja MCQ + Half Wiley book questions

[fuzyfro89]

you dont know.

[law0915]

How do you decide which questions are difficult and which are medium?

The difficulty levels of the test questions (and other statistics that are used to describe each test question) are determined through statistical analysis of candidate responses. At the question level, difficulty is not quantified as a category (for example, moderate or difficult), but as a numeric value along a scale. Testlets are classified as either medium or difficult based on the average difficulty of the questions within that testlet.

https://www.journalofaccountancy.com/issues/2011/may/20103616.html

REG 77 Feb14
BEC 13*, 79 Aug14
FAR 64**, 76 Nov14
AUD 89 Feb15

*Exited exam after first testlet
**Only studied F1-F6 out of 10 Becker chapters

Licensed Arizona CPA

[Anonymous]

FAR was the only one I wasn't absolutely sure on. Even so, at the time, I was pretty positive I went Medium to Hard to Hard (and based on my passing score I think that has to have been the case). The other 3 exams it was very obvious, to me, that the testlets went from Medium to Hard and stayed there.

Testlet 1 would take me about 15 to 20 minutes. Testlet 2 and 3 would take twice that. The questions became much more wordy. They asked for things in a really round about way. There were more “All of the following are correct except for…” type questions. And in general they were more complex.

While you're in the exam room, it might not feel like a good thing going from Medium to Hard. It really is. In a lot of cases the worse you feel you are doing actually means you're doing well. It means you moved to Hard and those questions are weighted much more heavily than Medium questions. My understanding is that getting a Medium question correct doesn't count for very much. Getting a medium question wrong, however, gives you a big penalty. And the opposite is true on hard. Getting a Hard correct counts for a lot. Missing a Hard doesn't count against you nearly as much.

Finally I'm a fast test taker too. I finished AUD in just over two hours. It's all conceptual so you either know it or you don't. I spent an hour on the MCQ and another hour on the Sims. Since I was doing so well on time I spent awhile going over answers but I could have walked out of there after the two hour mark easily. Similar story with FAR. I left at exactly the three hour mark. One hour on MCQ and two hours on Sims (one Sim took me a full hour to do which I, obviously, saved for last).

[Author]

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