@Kasia
I laughed out loud at your description and the mental image of you beating him with your keyboard. As a matter of fact, I'm DYING laughing typing this right now. I don't know why I think that's so funny, but I needed a laugh, so THANK YOU!
@givemesleep
I haven't taken REG yet, but I must say I'm a little more intrigued knowing that somewhere in there I will learn about calculating applied horse dong to overhead. I can't begin to imagine how accountants would do this other than via the use of a tape measure, but I'm willing to learn. I love “Dirty Jobs”, so I've seen some things that might have prepared me for the task.
@dtomasello
I felt the same way you did when I sat for AUD. Enraged. I was a lot calmer by the time I got home, but I think for me, it was realizing that there really is no transparency in the grading system. I got an 88* but there's no way I got “88% of possible points” right. They tell you that right there on your score that it isn't a percentage right, but they don't tell you what it actually is, whether it's a percentile or just an assigned number based on how many other people got right (which is essentially a curve, even though they say they don't). The secrecy really frustrates me because it means they can't possibly be held accountable in any way other than internally, which is basically not worth jack.
I also REALLY hate the hoop-jumping just for the sake of hoop-jumping. My entire nature rebels against it. Aside from the fact that a lot of what we're tested on is obselete and/or not used in actual practice, nobody remembers more than 10% of this stuff six months after they receive a passing score. I guarantee if you took 100 practicing CPAs and asked them to take the test not even 10% would pass, so it isn't a good measure for practical knowledge. For all the “protect the public interest” talk (which, don't get me wrong, is an admirable goal), the CPA exam itself doesn't really do that. All the CPA exam does is measure persistence. If this were not true, we wouldn't have the statistics about 80-90% of people eventually pass it. But it's the hoop you have to jump through to earn the right to learn what you really need to know on the job.
So, for all my frustration with the system, it IS the system in place, so I try to just ignore the ridiculousness, inefficiency, and obvious revenue-generating purpose of the system, and study for my next section.
*The content of this post is precisely why I do not go by my real name and post my exact scores on this forum. I actually got higher than an 88, which just proves that the exam is curved or whatever you want to call it.
AUD - 88
FAR - 90
REG - 85
BEC - 88
.