[MastaWang]

I am about to take my first exam for the CPA, FAR, and I did the first practice exam set up by becker. One of the Simulation questions asked for a journal entry and as I was running out of time I put in something like this:

New Equipment 110,000

Accum Dep 20,000

Cash 10,000

Old Equipment 140,000

It was marked incorrect due to the fact that the Cash debit was supposed to be above the Accum Dep debit. Is the real exam that picky? Or will it be marked correct no matter what order the JE is put in?

[lyzgrace]

I don't have any experience with Becker, but I haven't run into anything like that with Kaplan. I'd be interested to see if that really is incorrect, though. I normally try and do JEs in normal BS/P&L order just to keep things straight in my mind, but I didn't think that was required.

AUD: 82
FAR: 78
BEC: 75
REG: 8/1 score release!!

[Anonymous]

You have to realize most study programs will have 1 set answer and if you don't format it exactly like the preset answer within the program they will tell you it was wrong. I had this problem with CPAexcel too. I imagine it's just not cost-effective to program several different answers into the study programs.

I don't have anything to support this, but I assume on the real exam the computers are set to accept answers in any order. I realize this exam isn't always fair, but it would be crazy to mark something wrong just because it was in a different order (unless the exam told you the proper order, which normally they don't).

Also keep in mind that if your grade is borderline, they will manually regrade your exam. In which case if you had a SIM marked wrong, but it was in fact correct, it would be fixed by the manual grader.

[Getting a CPA]

I have the same concern about the real exam after using CPAExcel for FAR! CPAExcel will mark it wrong/down if you enter “N/A” instead of “NA”, and that's a nit-pick.

The actual exam is computer scored, correct? That scares me then…

[Anonymous]

From my understanding you can put journal entries in any order on the real exam as long as its an appropriate debit and credit entry it will be correct.

[Anonymous]

This question has been asked before so I e-mailed the AICPA last June and here is their response:

We are following up regarding your inquiry about the general format of journal entries on the CPA Exam.

It doesn't matter what order the Debit/Credit responses are entered in as long as the proper corresponding debits and credits are provided with each response.

We apologize for the delayed response. We appreciate you taking the time to research this information and look forward to serving you in the future.

Kind regards,

XXXXX XXXXXX

AICPA Member Service

America Counts on CPAs

[Anonymous]

@Getting a CPA – Yes the exam is computer scored. However, if after computer grading you receive a failing score that's close enough to passing that small nit picky items in SIMS would make a difference, your exam is manually graded. I would also imagine the computers are programmed to accept different versions of the same answer (i.e. NA and N/A).

[Author]

Replies