[mvonstei]

I hear a lot of talk about curves on the CPA. Does that exactly exist, somebody settle this.

[mla1169]

The official word from the AICPA is no.

“The CPA Examination is NOT curved. Every candidate’s score is entirely

independent of other candidates’ Examination results.

The CPA Examination is a criterion-referenced examination which means that it rests upon pre-determined standards. Every candidate’s performance is measured against established standards to determine whether the candidate has demonstrated the level of knowledge and skills that is represented by the passing score. Every candidate is judged against the same standards, and every score is an independent result.”

https://www.aicpa.org/becomeacpa/cpaexam/forcandidates/faq/pages/computer_faqs_3.aspx

FAR- 77
AUD -49, 71, 84
REG -56,75!
BEC -75

Massachusetts CPA (non reporting) since 3/12.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for reposting your thread. This site is glitchy. I posted a reply on your first thread, but it's invisible and won't show up so everyone can see it.

Anyways, let me cut and paste my reply from your other thread….

Technically, there really is no curve on the CPA exam. Each question is worth a certain # of points. You need to accumulate a certain # of points to pass. The difficult questions are worth more points, so you can get fewer difficult questions right to pass. This is why getting difficult testlets is a good thing. And this is why many people always say, “Ugh! I bombed the exam!” and they end up with a 90. That's probably because percentage-wise, they probably did do bad. But they probably got a good number of difficult questions correct and thus, they accumulated more than enough points to pass.

[mvonstei]

Thanks Guys. I appreciate the response. I know I did well on MCQ's for REG, but the simulations just killed me. They were insane. I answered probably 2.5 of the 6 simulations with confidence. I wonder if the difficulty scale also applies to simulations (i.e. if one simulation is harder than another will it be worth more). We'll see, i'll guess we're only a few days away.

[Anonymous]

I'm surprised many people feel confident about their REG MCQs. Mine were all over the place. Some were on stuff I studied and some were out of left field. My REG exam was a mess.

[valueofnothing]

based on my BEC score, yes, in the sense that a score is more than just the percent of overall material you got right. i doubt i got 88% of the questions right.

REG - 81
BEC - 88
AUD - 85
FAR - 81

[Anonymous]

@valueofnothing- I can top that. I know for a fact that I did not get 89% of my FAR exam right. In fact, Testlet #2 was so hard that I guessed through most of it. I got a little worried when Testlet# 3 was a bit easier.

[mvonstei]

@CPAMAN I understand you're also waiting for REG. I know i said I felt confident on the MCQ's, but certainly that's relative to the CPA exam experience. I usually mark questions I get stumped on, and count them up at the end of each testlet. I marked around 4 questions per testlet. I walk away from that thinking, “Not too shabby”. But yes, I agree with you, the questions were out of left field at times on information that was rather simple, but completely unstudied.

But my word, the simluations just destroyed me. I've passed 3 of the 4 exams so far, and REG simulations were by far the hardest questions. Of course, had my study materials directed me towards a detailed explanation of the material i would have been fine. But my simulations were buried in the “ancillary material”. I've run the numbers on a percentage basis, and there's a small chance i passed if one of the difficult simulations was pretest. But, all of this is rather……pointless to discuss considering next week will tell. But hey, thats what the forums are for i guess. 🙂

[Anonymous]

@mvonstei- I see. I never used the mark feature, so I don't know how many exactly stumped me. But it did seem like every other question was out of left field and it was like that since Testlet 1, so I felt like I bombed the first testlet and I couldn't tell if the testlets were getting harder as they all had their mix of odd questions. Ugh!

As for the Sims, I knew 4 of the 6. So only 2 confused me. I'm crossing my fingers that 1 of the 2 was pretest.

[mvonstei]

@CPAMAN Heh, well, you and I are in the same boat for two very different reasons. I can rely very little on what I did on the simulations, and I need to rely on MCQ's. From my experience, your gut feeling about 4 of the 6 simulations is a good one.

I've ALWAYS done better on the exam that what I felt, always……here's been my experience

FAR – I felt like I failed, this was old test format…I left an entire testlet blank………82% (MCQ's carried me)

BEC – I felt better about this one, but i thought i'd be in the 70's……..80%

AUD – Walked out confident of my pass….I estimated a score in the low 80's……92%

REG – Worst feeling, MCQ's went well, but simulations….I knew 2.5 of the 6……..waiting……

Based on that, I feel as though I got in the low 70's on REG. Let's say I got 75% of the MCQ's right, I would need to get 75% of the testlets correct (based on the 60:40 ratio)……*Brain explodes*

[Author]

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