[Big Tasty]

I know that no one knows for sure how the CPA exam is scored so this may be a shot in the dark, but when I took FAR a couple weeks ago I felt like I left a large amount of the sims blank. The directions for all the ones I left blank said that some may be left blank but still, I left several half empty. It got me thinking though. It’s been a while since high school but if I remember right when I took the SAT’s they said that if you really don’t know something, then don’t guess because a wrong answer is worse than a blank one. I’m wondering about the opposite of that though. Does an extra answer count off the same as not putting anything? For instance assume there are 6 blanks and the answer is A,B,C in the first 3 blanks and one person puts A,B only and another person puts A,B,C,D. Anyone have any clue whatsoever if those 2 people would get the same score for that sim? The closest I could find to an answer about this in another thread was someone asking about sim scoring and Jeff said that the AICPA reached about the thread and replied “A candidate receives credit for each measurement opportunity (question) in each simulation. The total simulation score is based on the number of questions answered correctly across all the simulations that the candidate takes.” To me this sounds like if you are only 50/50 about something like a journal entry it would be better to put it than to not.

[water]

It could be opposite or it could be the ordinary way. Sometimes I leave more than expected blank, others I have no blanks, either way you should go with judgement in deciding to leave blank.

[SiNGjAi]

I think it depends on the layout of the question. Like if the question is standalone and there is an option to either leave blank or fill in, it probably will count if leave it blank, assuming you should.

On the other hand, if the blank answer is dependent on another answer, I.e column B should be blank based on the answer in column A, then both answers will be wrong if you get either wrong. I was able to confirm that with Becker.

Another thing I found was when I submitted the Becker practice exams without doing any sims, I got a certain percentage correct because those correct answers were meant to be blank..

This is all speculation based on my personal experience and in no way proven by the AICPA or any testing officials.

[Author]

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