[Choco415]

Took FAR. 5/8 SIMs had supporting documentation. Each SIM also had extensive prompts with 10 – 25 ‘fill-in-the-blanks.’

In the real world, you would have a few hours, if not days, to complete the tasks in the SIMs. You would also have a printer, paper, pencils, pens, highlighters, Excel and Word, a real calculator, etc. You would need to document your work and ‘tick and tie’ from the supporting documents to your work product, so that your supervisor could check your work. You would ask for clarification on items that seem vague (such as odd phrased emails).

I’ve been working in accounting for over 14 years, and one of the biggest problems I’ve seen from subordinates reporting to me is that they rush through a task and turn it in full of mistakes. It seems like the new SIMs are asking candidates to do this on the exam.

The new SIMs are not only impossible to complete within the time allotted and materials provided, but they seem to be promoting the idea that turning in a haphazard work product is acceptable (or required).

Thoughts?

[Anonymous]

I see people complaining about how the sims on FAR are impossible and how it's all not fair. If they are impossible then why do 45% of the people who take the test end up passing it? It sounds like people are making excuses as to why they didn't pass and that will do you no good. Change your mindset and maybe you will have better results.

[shawn in VA]

CPA Max-

It 45% something that is to be proud of? That is really low. We are talking about intelligent people most with accounting degrees working good jobs. If these types of people are complaining then it is legit. It is just not some person off the street with no education complaining.

The rates are far too low. AICPA should either boost it to at least 60% or lower the standard to 70 instead of 75.

[Hmmmmm]

Malpractice is a bit of a stretch. I took FAR on 9/10 and I found the SIMs fair and to be pretty representative of my time at a small public firm that provided controller services along with financial statement review & taxation. Has anyone here worked in billable work environments? No way that a partner who is concerned about his realization rates and budgets be okay with a staff/senior taking a whole day to answer similar questions like this. We need to be able to move through sources quickly including understanding which docs don't apply and can be disregarded. 45% is something to be proud of and this is coming from someone who is still in process of completing their exams. To lower the standard because a few folks feel its unfair would be a disservice to folks who have passed under the set standards. There is no argument that it can't be done because people do it everyday. There's already more than enough CPAs out there who can't even apply the basics in real work situations.

[Superdude3000]

I agree with max, far too many people on this website complain about how impossible the exams are when they could instead be studying more! These exams are of course difficult, yes but that's a good thing! It means that some individuals cannot obtain the license which adds value to the certification! The hipocrasy is clear with the CPA license, you want it to be easy to pass but once you have your license you want it to be difficult so others can't obtain it. The AICPA sides with difficulty here and we just have to live with it. But I think a 45-50% pass rate is more than fair. The CPA exam pass rates in india is like less than 10% I think? I find the Sims to be very challenging but all I can do is my best and thats what everyone else should do instead of hoping the AICPA hears their constant gripes and grants them with a handicapped passing grade.

[shawn in VA]

This thread was started by an Attorney. Therefore if I am not mistaken he/she has a JD AND passed the BAR exam. If educated people (including myself) are stating that the exam(s) are NOT fair it is legit.

Putting FAR SIMS on an AUD exam is just plain wrong. Putting NON BEC topics on the WC is plain wrong. I encountered AUD and REG topics on BEC WC portion. I have encountered this unfairness first hand.

BTW not sure where you live to say “there are plenty of CPAs” My firm and many in the area are having troubling finding and retaining CPAs with 5 plus years experience.

[shawn in VA]

BTW we are not “asking for a handicapped passing grade”. We are simply asking for FAIRNESS on the exam. Maybe the CPA gods are listening finally b/c I got a a VERY fair AUD and BEC exam on Aug 22 and Sept 10, respectively. Any exams I took prior to the mentioned dates have just been plain cruel.

[Hmmmmm]

“Putting FAR SIMS on an AUD exam is just plain wrong.”

Hmmm… have you ever worked in audit? How can one evaluate financial statements without understanding the basics of financial reporting? When I was a first year staff at an audit firm, it was not uncommon to review bank recs, do journal entry testing, test capital and operating leases, inventory analysis, review proper cutoff, PPE etc. etc. If you don't understand these financial statement relationships, how can you efficiently audit and note when things don't look appropriate?

“Putting NON BEC topics on the WC is plain wrong”

It sucks to get an unfamiliar topic, but I read on this forum that the grading focus is more on form than content?

“This thread was started by an Attorney. Therefore if I am not mistaken he/she has a JD AND passed the BAR exam. If educated people (including myself) are stating that the exam(s) are NOT fair it is legit.”

I'm sure if I tried to study for the bar without the experience in law, I would struggle too. I wouldn't ask that they change the standards for me. Check out the I passed it threads … don't discount their time and effort. I get the frustration, but too often our scale of fairness is relative to our own individual experiences.

[HoldMyBeerCPA]

I do not think that the FAR SIMs, nor the SIMS on the other exams encourage malpractice. In fact, I believe it focuses on time management, prioritization, and critical thinking.

Time Management

: These SIMS are definitely lengthy, but that's where I think taking some reps before the exam (maybe practicing 10 or so) really makes a difference. If you know the structure of the SIMs on exam day, you'll know exactly what to focus on. In my experience, when I was doing the FAR SIMs, I knew that a lot of the instructions were fluff. As such, I took the same approach as the MCQs…find out exactly what is being asked first and work my way backwards. Using this methodology, I'm able to answer a SIM in about 10-12 minutes and leaving myself a bit of time to review my answers.

Prioritization

: I get is, not all SIM testlets are alike, but you do have a chance to at least view each sim when you start a new testlet. My strategy is to always look at each sim in my testlet and make a quick note as to how long each of them should take. If I know there's one that's super difficult that will take a lot of time, I usually save that one for last in case I run out of time and need to plug zeros. This factor of prioritization kinda piggybacks off of time management. If you can determine what's being asked in your sim before you even read the initial instructions, you'll save quite a bit of time, in my opinion.

Critical Thinking

: Here's where I think the SIMS is really focusing on. Plenty of my FAR, REG, and AUD SIMS required me to really consider the circumstances detailed in each problem. There were a few occasions where, for example, a problem would mention four facts about the Company's taxable income. Normally, you would think that those four facts are the only instances that would cause an adjustment to taxable income. However, by looking at the financial statements (not necessarily the default company supporting documents), there were additional elements that would cause a change to taxable income that could've been missed if it weren't caught. The point is that I think these versions of the SIM are littered with nuances that may not be observable after the first glance, but noticeable after considering the circumstances a second or even third time.

TL;DR: I do no think that the SIMs encourage any form of malpractice. I think that it focuses on our time management, prioritization, and criticial thinking skills. All of which would be needed in the “real world”. While the scenarios presented in each SIM may not be realistic, the core qualities that are being tested should continue to be tested.

P.S. The authoritative literature is your friend! I peppered the heck out of the Internal Revenue Code and the FASB Codification during my REG and FAR exams and was able to clarify a handful of obscure concepts and determine the right answer.

[jc1103]

After taking the new FAR, I can say that some of the SIMS are long but they should not be an issue if you allocate your time sufficiently. I had about three or two hours left for SIMs and found no issue with having enough time for each of them. The documents are definitely long and plenty. It was straightforward finding information from the documents that I needed. I think they purposefully put in big documents to try to make it so that candidates know how to sift through large amounts of information and find what it is relevant. In terms of mistakes, I had time to double-check most of my SIMs.

[Choco415]

shawn in VA – I do indeed have a JD, passed the bar on my first try while working, and had a 3.9 GPA in Accounting.

CPAMAX91 – maybe the 45% that passed got easier exams. People have recently posted wildly different accounts of their exam experiences on this forum. Some people got an exam with 0/8 SIMs with supporting documents, some people say the got 8/8 SIMS with supporting documents. These are completely different exams. If I printed out two piles of sample SIMs from the review courses – one pile has old style SIMs, the other pile only SIMs with supporting docs. – even a person off the street would able to recognize the difference.

I do hope the AICPA has a way of adjusting the scores for these very different tests in a way that makes the process somewhat equitable in the end. I don't believe anyone on this thread asked for a handicapped score. However, the AICPA should not be handicapping a candidate by having them do 8 SIMS with 6 support docs. each, while giving other candidates SIMs with no supporting docs.

[Superdude3000]

This is why they ‘statistically reevaluated' the scores though, so it shouldn't really matter what version you get. For example, for individuals who got sims with no supporting docs about 45% pass and others fail. For individuals who had Sims that all had supporting docs, 45% of those candidates pass and the others fail. This is why I think the exams are very fair. You're not competing against the exam itself, your competing against the other candidates who had the same exam as you. People should stop viewing these exams as ‘i need to get x% of my questions correct' and instead see it as ‘i need to do better than x% of other candidates'. That's how I see it anyway and I feel it is a very fair process. I feel good about my far exam, but maybe im in the lower half in comparison to other candidates and I will fail, i'll just have to live with that unfortunately but I have zero issues with that process myself.

[Superdude3000]

I think this test actually ‘tests' multiple things outside of just knowledge. I believe it tests time management, critical thinking (both stated above, well said turbo) as well as ‘level-headedness'. I think the pre-test questions are literally there to throw you off, make you wanna stick your head in a hole and cry. You need to be able to brush it off, answer them the best you can and move on and not let it consume you. I believe the AICPA wants candidates to demonstrate more than just smarts but additional traits that a successful CPA needs to do well in the real world.

[Hmmmmm]

I agree with Superdude300.

Again, “maybe the 45% that passed got easier exams” is discounting the efforts of your peers / other candidates.

If I don't pass my 9/10 FAR exam, I wouldn't think I drew the short stick. I would just question whether I truly grasped the subject matter and better allocate my time for my next attempt.

Also, in more progressive firms/businesses moving paperless – you wouldn't be printing out 30 pieces of supporting documents to answer some of your client's questions. You would at least have a decent dual monitor though…

I see the documents on the SIMs as resources – little extra nuggets of information that they are giving you for free. You will have to review e-mails, policy memos, legal letters, etc. in real life. Clients, partners, coworkers will data dump on you often (by e-mail, USB, dropbox) and expect you to be able to sift through it quickly and give them answers. There is more effort needed then memorization for these exams.

[Author]

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