What do they even mean by “2 years of experience”? In public accounting? Or doing audit/tax work? I don't have that. I do have 2-3 years of general accounting work, but that's it. But come on, these tests are mostly not even testing real-world stuff. They're just standardized tests…academic tests…of how book-smart people are. Or, not even that so much as “how much stuff you can cram into your head, and perform successfully on 4 exams, in an 18 month period.” I remember before the new version came out, there was all this hullabaloo about newly licensed CPAs underperforming on the job, and that's why they put in the DRS's and reconstructed the tests to reflect higher-order thinking skills. They also said, and I quote directly from the AICPA's website, “Candidates are expected to perform at the level of a second year CPA.” Now, does that mean they're expected to perform on the EXAM at that level, or in the workplace after being licensed? Big problem with that…how does a new CPA who just got licensed perform at that level when they haven't been a CPA for 2 years? And how does a non-licensed CPA perform at that level (I guess that would mean on the exam) when they aren't even licensed? They also said they wanted candidates to do more communicating with CPAs and seek out information from them as part of their preparation for the exam.
There may be no curve. But the scoring does have algorithms or tolerances or *WHATEVER* built into it, to give someone the benefit of the doubt. On my last FAR attempt, I got 62. I was sure I got in the high 40s or low 50s when I walked outta there. I wasn't prepared. But, I'm sure my raw score on the questions was probably 48-55 and they bumped me up a bit to account for any bad questions or questions I might have misunderstood. So, that's actually fair. They may also have a percentile system that they use…those who do better than the average end up with surprisingly high scores, while those who are below the average get even lower scores than they probably should.
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