2017 CPA exam changes—Harder or easier? - Page 2

AICPA:
Bad news — 2017 Changes are going to be harder, more complex, and longer
Good news — Break time is NOT going to be deducted from the candidate's official testing hours

“So are you saying that since the field is losing so many CPAs, the AICPA is making the exam easier, to fill those voids?”

Yep! They can't announce the exam is easier without getting everybody who took it before mad. So it's more SIMS to test your true practical knowledge on a subject, but those SIMS will not be nearly as hard as the SIMS we have to do now. That is my theory. (and OP's)

@TheHound:

I think your theory is way off, but you're entitled to it. And I think the OP was asking a question, which seems to indicate he/she doesn't have a theory. Not only did they not announce “the exam would be easier”, they specifically announced it would be “harder”. I'm sure some growing pains will occur, and some kinks will have to be ironed out, but I doubt the AICPA suddenly plans to water down the integrity of the exam, simply because of the exit of CPAs in the coming years.

@How many letters – I'm with you, I've always been better at the practical than at specific rote memory. “In what year did King Henry IV die?” I don't know, don't care, and won't remember unless I have to for 30 seconds for an exam. It's just rote memory. A lot of the review course methods right now (*cough*Becker*cough*) are very heavily reliant on memory, throwing out all these acronyms for random things that they swear you must know in order to answer an MCQ that will ask for an item out of the list, and with MCQs, they're often right. However, I do better with things that depend on application. How would you do xyz? Can you do this real-world accounting example? Now that's my type of problem! I preferred the MCQs that were almost like a SIM to the MCQs that were fact-recall. I also think that SIMs represent the real world a lot more than MCQs. In the real world, you're not going to have to fill in the blank in a definition, but you are going to have to solve real-world problems, and that's what the SIMs replicate. I think the biggest struggle for the 2017 changes will be for exam review providers to re-write their materials to teach people to learn instead of teaching people to memorize.

So, I'm honestly a fan of the new exam format. I think it will be a much better gauge of individual's ability to apply what they've learned in protecting the public in real-world situations. I just wish it was changing the percentage of scores more than it is… Based on a prior post in this thread, it's going from 60/40 to 50/50 for FAR, AUD, and REG – that's barely even a change. 😐

@Lilla:

In reality, neither what you learn out of a textbook, or what you typically see on exams, is how it is done in “real world” application. For example, I just worked at a place that utilized cash accounts simlar to how you would revenue accounts, and on their books cash would be credited every time they received money for a service. Took a while to wrap my head around it, since it was counterintuitive to my accounting brain. There were other things they did that went against everything I learned also.

I do agree with you though on this point…That to show a general knowledge of the material, you need to be able to apply it to a scenario.

I strongly disagree with the notion that because many CPAs will be retiring in the near future that the AICPA is just now trying to make it easier for candidates to pass the exam. The people retiring are disproportionately going to be management-, principal-, and partner-level accountants (or private equivalents) with years and years of experience. No number of new CPAs will be able to fill the need for those positions for at least a decade. That ship already sailed.

I would argue, in fact, that there is little point in passing more candidates than the entry-level job market (meaning positions filled by those who are taking or recently passed the exam) can accommodate. Companies don't create, say, six new first-year associate jobs when somebody retires, hoping that one of the six sticks with the firm long enough to replace a key management or partnership position years in the future. You can already see this by looking at the significant demand for seniors and managers in many markets, in both public and private, while entry-level positions remain viciously competitive. Passing more CPA candidates than there are entry-level jobs for leads to a build-up of candidates making lattes for Starbucks while begging for an accounting job and devalues passing the exam. One of the last things the AICPA and NASBA want. I imagine, is people grumbling on sites like this about how passing the CPA exam was a waste of time and money.

The new exam's focus on application actually reads to me like the AICPA approached the industry, asked what they wanted, and the industry responded that they wanted CPAs who were ready to step in and work with minimal additional training. Which has been the M.O. for the entire economy the last 15 years. That will work to the benefit of students who were able to land internships or their first full-time position before taking the exam, but to the detriment of those whose accounting knowledge comes primarily from their academic background. That's what I predict anyway, but then I'm just guessing, the same as most everyone else.

@Howmany:

I don't want to give the impression that I think requiring application knowledge is a “bad thing”. In fact, I even stated that regardless of the format, you either know it or you don't. I somewhat got off track, but my main point was that I don't believe for one minute, candidates in 2017 will see an easier exam.