[NY.CPA.Someday]

I just had a general question about the AICPA’s supposed curve. I know they explicitly deny curving the exam in the typical sense of the word. But I also know that there is a general consensus that they do place people into certain percentiles based on their performance relative to others. My question is, how could they possibly achieve this if scores are released in two separate waves? Wouldn’t they only be able to tweak peoples’ scores for Wave 2 since they already have information recorded from the Wave 1 candidates? Or is each Wave curved based on the people who took the exam within that particular wave? I know this discussion is probably moot but I’m just curious about other peoples’ insight on the matter.

FAR - 8/4 - 93
AUD - 8/26/10 - 97
REG - 10/3/10 - 93
BEC - 11/21/10 - 82

[potatogun]

Considering that the AICPA is able to weight the value of individual questions based off of statistical analysis and expectations from pretest issuance and prior live tests, I imagine it has a very good level of consistency using prior data on exams.

I don't think there is a curve from the standpoint of if everyone did terrible we have a better chance at passing. I think the AICPA is able to use historical results to form a baseline on each question that is considered passing at a certain rate/value. The AICPA uses those benchmarks to compare candidates in a wave perhaps, but I don't think chances of passing are greatly affected just from the scores of one wave.

But I mean, really, who knows. Unless it had a full disclosure of the statistics behind it we just have to believe or not and make conjectures.

FAR 92 - AUD 91 - REG 94 - BEC 86

[NY.CPA.Someday]

Potatogun, I definitely agree and think that is a very logical explanation for the grading process. I never really thought that the grading was done on relative performance within a testing window, but rather based on statistical evidence of questions before they were operational as you stated. I just just curious about peoples' explanation (that believe in the relative performance grading) for relative performance grading when scores are released in 2 waves.

FAR - 8/4 - 93
AUD - 8/26/10 - 97
REG - 10/3/10 - 93
BEC - 11/21/10 - 82

[Author]

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