[Anonymous]

I’ve posted questions about this issue a few times and haven

[Anonymous]

….Sorry, pressed enter by mistake

Here's What I meant:

I've posted questions about this issue a few times and haven't gotten an answer to my question, Which is how to tell if a testlet can be harder even though it is NOT wordier which is the usual sign of a more difficult testlet. The answer is YOU CANT, but DONT ASSUME you did poorly when you see a testlet filled with short questions:

I took Audit 5/26, My first testlet had a decent mix of long and short questions, But testlets 2 and 3 where both filled with shorter questions. Almost 80% of both 2 and 3 where also SINGLE LINE QUESTIONS.

I had assumed I failed, but actually passed with an 81.

My message to anyone doubting or analyzing their performance in terms of Testlet Difficulty is DONT DO IT, but if you must. DONT ASSUME: SHORTER = BAD.

[rahulcpa]

@audittaxxman

I hope ur post has some credibility. When I took my FAR may5, the first testlet was medium level difficult. The second was way too easy and after looking at bunch of very easy questions I panicked and lost my motivation because I messed up on the first testlet. I had no more motivation to do the rest of the test; however, i did with a very bad mood. The third testlet was again medium level difficult BUT, where is the HARD testlet. I came out of the test heart broken and I am pretty sure I will fail because I never heard anyone getting 2 nd testlet way too easy. In my experience, I took other three parts, my 2 and 3rd testlet was always hard and thank god I passed. With FAR, who knows 🙁

BEC - 82 Reg-87 Aud - 86 Far - 81 (THANX THE LORD)
(Dr CPA (Asset)
Cr Life) 😉 (revenue)

[financeguy]

I agree w/ audittaxman

My first testlet for aud was the hardest out of all 3 of them and I passed w/ an 81. Maybe it is just a coincidence that I had more questions in the first testlet regarding material that I was less familiar with.

AUD - 81, BEC - 74, 80, FAR - 82, REG - 81
Done!

[Anonymous]

Sometimes you get lucky and they test what you know! When I took the audit exam I did not think the questions got harder. I thought between the Becker review and Gleim test bank questions that the material was covered very well. Passed.

When I took BEC I knew I was in trouble and then I forgot a couple of formulas. I was close but did not pass. Plan on taking the exam again in July. Funny thing though – I thought the test questions were getting harder. The BEC exam is not an adaptive test.

[Anonymous]

RE: Rahul

I'm not claiming to have passed AUDIT with 3 Medium difficulty testlets,

I am only advising NOT to assess a testlets difficulty (or prior testlet performance) based on WORDINESS, because even though it might be a generally accurate indicator, it can also be MISLEADING as in my stated experience.

– My first testlet was wordier than the others. – 2 and 3's questions looked shorter and I also assumed the worst – but I passed. My reccomendation therefore is: DONT PANICK OR GUESS DIFFICULTY JUST B/C IT LOOKS SHORTER – YOU COULD BE WRONG

As for credibility: my original post only made a reference to my AUDIT experience, So I thought anyone reading would know it only directly applies to audit, and while I'm not saying it doesn't apply to other exams – I'm not saying it does either.

This was the first time I experienced this and I've taked all 4 sections, and Passed BEC, REG and now AUD.

[Anonymous]

I absolutely could not tell the difference between my three testlets. Actually, I usually gauge it by how many questions I mark. I was so frustrated that I could not tell the difference that I was losing motivation as I was moving on. I have already pass the first 3 exams on the first try but I felt AUD was the hardest one. I think I marked about 12 questions EACH testlet, which is ALOT. I probably marked more question on AUD than both REG and BEC combined. I seriously felt the MCs were harder than Becker or Wiley, which usually isn't the case. On my Becker final exams I have scored 86-86-80-80-80-66, which averages out to around 80. Do you guys think because AUD is a little more subjective than the other three exams that you would mark more questions? Did any of you guys marked a ton of questions and still passed? I need a lift of confidence…this is my last test, standing in my way of a CPA!

[Anonymous]

CANTPASSITAGAIN, I don't know my score, but I had the same situation that you had. I marked a ton of questions that I thought there were 2 right answers. I marked about 30 questions combined. I noticed that testlet 2 was definitely the hardest one. I finished the mcs resting 2 hours left on the clock. The sims were hard as hell. I didn't practice the final exam prior the real exam. Yesterday, I took the final exams and I scored a 68%, 4 weeks after I took it. I think that is a good score, because the majority of the material is out of my mind.

[suzzette1]

christian2823 how many MCQ's did you answered prior to taking your Auditing exam?

BEC 2/8/10 - 75 (studied hard & prayed less)
REG 5/15/10 - 88 (studied less but prayed hard)
AUDITING 8/9/10 - 79 (studied hard and prayed hard)
FAR 11/30/10 - 79 (studied hard and prayed hard) Thanks GOD! I'm DONE

[rash]

Per an AICPA's 2006 publication on how the exam is scored.

“4. How do you decide which questions are hard and which are moderate? The difficulty of the test questions (and other statistics that are used to describe each test question) are determined through statistical analysis of candidate responses. Question difficulty is not a category (e.g. moderate or hard), but is a numeric value along a scale (e.g. 1.5). Testlets are classified as medium or difficult based on the average difficulty of the questions in them.

5. Does that mean hard testlets can have easy questions and less difficult testlets can have hard ones? Yes. All testlets have questions that range in difficulty. Hard testlets just have a greater proportion of difficult questions than moderate ones.”

Hope this helps.

Aud- Pass, BEC- Pass, FAR- Pass, REG- Pass.... Done!

[rash]

Also from the foregoing publication, “11. Can I compute my score from the number of questions I answered correctly? No. A computer is required to score the CPA Examination accurately because the scoring takes into account the statistical characteristics of each question administered.

12. What do you mean when you say “statistical characteristics”? There are three statistics used to describe the questions: Difficulty – whether the question is easier or harder for candidates, Discrimination – how well the question differentiates between more able and less able candidates, and Guessing – the likelihood of candidates answering the question correctly just by guessing. The statistics for the multiple-choice questions are generated when the questions are administered as pretest questions and used in the scoring when the questions are operational. The statistics for simulations are calculated the first time they are used. The formulas for generating the statistics and scoring the exam come from modern test theory, sometimes called “Item Response Theory.” Item response theory is being used or has been adopted by nearly all of the large licensing examination programs in this country and by many of the moderate-sized and smaller examination programs too.”

So basically, there's no way for us to figure out what they're doing. All we can really do is wait.

Aud- Pass, BEC- Pass, FAR- Pass, REG- Pass.... Done!

[Anonymous]

How can they measure the likelihood of guessing?

[rash]

Dunno. I just hope that this Item Response Theory works in my favor since i'm still waiting on my reg score.

Aud- Pass, BEC- Pass, FAR- Pass, REG- Pass.... Done!

[mike01]

They might be able to measure the likelyhood of guessing by the marked questions on the exam or the number of times you change a answer.

[Anonymous]

I've heard that. I didn't mark any for review the last two times I took FAR. I never have time to review them anyway.

[financeguy]

In my experience w/ the exam, a lot of times the same thing is asked, just in different ways. Gary talks about this in Yaeger. Or some question may test you on a subject numerically, but then they can test it w/ words/concepts.

Say you have 5 questions all testing the same exact concept. You get 4 of them wrong and 1 right. This may suggest that you guessed correctly on the 1 that you got right.

AUD - 81, BEC - 74, 80, FAR - 82, REG - 81
Done!

[Author]

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