[rahee]

Is it true that AICPA adjusts the exam throughout the testing window? I was under the impression that there are multiple versions of the exam for each quarter. I took the AUD exam at the end of 2nd quarter and then retook it beginning of Q3. I felt like it was a completely brand new exam (absolutely no overlaps–i know some people on this thread got repeat questions from Q2 on the Q3 exam). My coworker was saying that AICPA adjusts the exam depending on how people do throughout the quarter and use the scores from the beginning of the quarter as a benchmark to adjust the exam for people taking it at the end.
Is this true?

[YouCanDoIt]

Only the VERY BASICS are known facts regarding the CPA Exam, i.e # of ?s, and level of difficulty of testlet #2, based on performance of T #1, and SIMS with no correlation to MCQ performance. And of course, whatever their % of grading are, the rest is all up for speculation. So, to answer that question, who knows?! except the AICPA itself maybe ; )
Only way your co-worker would be right about CPA exam algorithm is if she knows someone from the AICPA who decided to tell her what's up.

FAR: 76
REG: Currently studying
AUD:
BEC:

[rahee]

@youcandoit True! I guess there really isnt any way of knowing unless you are AICPA. Wish we had a little more info though!

[jeff]

The AICPA reached out to me:

The AICPA doesn’t “adjust” the exam throughout the window.

Each section utilizes multiple forms of the exam. To ensure fairness, each test form must be constructed to meet the same content and skill specifications which are designated in the exam blueprint. Every test form includes the same types of questions and the questions’ range of difficulty overlaps across testlets. Item Response Theory (IRT) scoring ensures that scores from different examination forms are comparable.

IRT scoring ensures that scores derived from different examination forms are comparable, and we do statistical item analysis to ensure that the items and simulation tasks are not too easy or too difficult. Based on the large amounts of data that are collected in pretesting, the difficulty level as well as other statistical characteristics of examination questions are known and taken into account in the calculation of scores so scores will be comparable when candidates answer different questions and simulation tasks.

We also encourage candidates to go to our website for more information about scoring and IRT.

https://www.aicpa.org/becomeacpa/cpaexam.html

[rahee]

@jeff wow, I wasnt expecting a response from AICPA! Thanks!!

[Author]

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