[animalwithin]

Hi all,

I’ve got some concerns you may be able to help me with. Some back story:

I spent about seven years as a pre-med (way too long). And one of the reasons why it took me so long was because I could not get a high enough MCAT score. For those of you who don’t know, the MCAT is like the SAT for med school. If you don’t get a high enough score, you don’t get in to med school.

I took the MCAT five times. Of those five, I got the same score three times consecutively. Finally, the last time I took the test my score went up one point which was still too low for me to get in to med school and thus my journey to medicine ended (for the record, my GPA was solid).

I then decided to go to work for my dad and take over the company (he’s a CPA with a very successful firm). I’m almost done with the accounting/business prerequisites and I’ll soon start studying for the CPA exam however I’m very concerned.

I don’t want a repeat of the MCAT disaster. You won’t find anyone who put more work into the MCAT than me: four full courses, 20 textbook sized review books, I did over 10,000 questions, took nearly 20 full-length exams. I spent a total of two years studying for the MCAT and I couldn’t change my score.

I’m worried the same will happen with the CPA exam which is significantly harder. I don’t doubt my ability to comprehend the information, I just don’t know what I can exactly do to prevent a repeat of my past experiences with standardized exams.

Perhaps someone has had a similar experience? Any thoughts? I know this isn’t a healthy way of thinking but you can imagine this is always in the back of my mind. Thanks for your time!

[tncpa2018]

There's really no good answer for your question as each individual is different. Two of my mottoes in life is “You'll never know until you try!” and “Quitters never win!”. A lot of members in this board eventually succeeded in passing the exam after several tries. There's quite a number who'd taken each part of the exam at least 2-4 times. I think the exam also tests our perseverance 🙂

Maybe your calling isn't in the medical field, maybe you are born to be an accountant and you will breeze through the exams. You'll never know until you try. And if trials do come up your way… don't give up! Just shrug it off and start over – use what you learn from the past mistake and use it as your weapon to slay the beast.

Good luck with you Endeavor in becoming a CPA!

[Anonymous]

In my experience, the longer you work at these exams, the easier they become. I thought I'd never pass REG – by the time I actually did I looked back and thought “that wasn't so bad!” The reality of the situation was that it wasn't too bad after I studied for the better part of a year. Most struggle with these exams. Most have 1 or more failing scores along the way. If you want to pass the exams you will. You have to keep working on them though!

[Author]

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