[Anonymous]

I know the rule that harder testlets have wordier/ visibly longer questions, but on both FAR and AUD I always find myself unsure if my 2nd or 3rd testlet increased or stayed the same in difficulty.

If you’ve experienced an increase in difficulty on Audit and Financial – have you noticed more of a change in the ratio of long and short questions or where all questions visibly longer ?

[skiw97]

I guess I'm more concerned with solving the problem as opposed to pontificating about how long and wordy a question is. I just don't see what you are going for here. My advice is concentrate on the study material vs ratios of long vs short questions.

– The Pontiff

FAR 11/13 - 78, BEC 1/13 - 82, AUD 2/23 - 94, REG 5/15 - 86

[The GaJone]

FAR I could not tell at all. AUD I could DEFINITELY tell. The AUD questions got WAY wordier, had a lot of questions with the words “not” and “except for”, and were on very obscure topics that are not covered in great detail in Becker.

FAR: 81 (1/20) AUD: 88 (2/27) REG: 91 (4/19) BEC: 75 (5/20)

[Anonymous]

For AUD & REG there was a noticeable difference for me between 1 and 2/3. For FAR I couldn't tell a difference, but testlets 2 and 3 took me 10-15 minutes longer than testlet 1.

[Anonymous]

I'll give the advice my GMAT prep gave me about “difficulty” of exam questions/testlets…

It is a waste of your energy to try to determine if your questions are harder or easier. It can get inside your head and cause you to perform poorly.

Instead of worrying about whether the test has become adaptively easier or harder, keep the mentality that (1) the test is getting hard because I'm doing well or (2) the test is easy because I have prepared sufficiently.

Once you get a question/testlet/simulation, there is nothing you can do about it. Worrying about its difficulty and the effect on that difficulty on your score won't benefit you. Answer the question to the best of your ability and move on.

That's just my two bits though.

[Vince]

+1 on what Allen said. When I did FAR, I did the best I could on the current question and left it alone after I picked an answer focusing on the next. Then after you are done and at the bar, think about it bc thats all you can do. I didnt really see a difference besides the 1st testlet was very easy and the others were ok. scored a 83

FAR (Feb. '10) - 83
REG (Apr. '10) - 88
BEC (May '10) - 79
AUD (Aug '10) - 80

[FARbehind]

Good advice AllenA,

I had promissed to myself not to take an advice from a person who is in the 90-ties, but I will make an exception this one time. Like Vince said easy questions mean good preparation and this is exactly how I felt in AUD…. the questions were easy and I still passed….

aud,bec,reg-passed
far-->75 Done!!!!!
ethics-100

[PursuitCPA]

Heres the scoop. If they give you questions that take up the whole page and very wordy, then its really difficult.

CPA EXAM - Passed

[The GaJone]

There's a HUGE difference between “worrying” about whether or not there is a difference in testlet difficulty and “noticing” whether or not there is a difference in testlet difficulty.

It takes no effort whatsoever to notice whether or not your teslets are getting harder. And to say “don't worry about it” is pretty worthless advice IMO because it is going to be in the back of your mind no matter what. You're going to notice regardless of whether you go in and say “I'm not going to pay any attention to teslet difficulty” or not.

Besides, it's not like your mentality is going to change regardless of what you notice. If you notice it getting tougher, you're not going to say “well I killed that first part, now I can slack off on these next 2”, just as you're not going to say “man this teslet isn't any harder, I must have sucked on the first part, might as well give up now”. Regardless of what happens, you're going to try your best to get each question right.

So to me, thinking about your teslet difficulty is not a “waste of time and energy” seeing as it requires literally 0 time and/or energy to notice if your tests are getting tougher or not.

FAR: 81 (1/20) AUD: 88 (2/27) REG: 91 (4/19) BEC: 75 (5/20)

[Author]

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