In my world of accounting, The Exam looms over new entrants to the profession or really anyone who hasn’t passed it yet. And I have seen a lot of really smart people struggle to get over this hurdle. It can be discouraging and maddening when you spend all of your time studying and then don’t find the success you crave. I’m here to help.
To be clear, I don’t have any magic to pass the exam. There isn’t a substitute for knowing the material. It requires a vast amount of studying. This post is about a couple of things that helped me score just enough points to be called a CPA. Feel the glory.
Develop skills in test taking
Tip #1 Break it down
Growing up in the age before Windows,
(just kidding Widows is great), the Nintendo Entertainment System reigned supreme and computer games were only a shadow of what gamers experience now. They required using the Doss system (a blinking cursor) and a floppy disk (aka the save icon) to access your game through a string of typed commands that made no sense to me at the time, or now for that matter. Me being the cool kid I was growing up, could perform this sorcery whether I understood it or not. I had 4 primitive games, Win Lose or Draw ( which I still suck at), Wheel of Fortune (with a red headed Vanna White), Classic Concentration, and Jeopardy, Jr. I invested much more time in the latter 2 games than the former. Everyone knows Jeopardy and that is where we will spend most of our time but Classic Concentration was a great game consisting of a grid of tiles overlaid on a Rebus puzzle. Look it up. The goal was to solve the underlying puzzle that was uncovered as you match tiles in a game of memory. I have won enough virtual Chrysler Lebarons to start a dealership. Anyway, I learned a lot about test taking through these games.
Here is a secret to Jeopardy and a lot of tests in general… it isn’t always about knowing the exact fact that answers the question. I learned this so well growing up playing Jeopardy that it changed how I look at most questions and subsequently made me really good at trivia games. Seriously, I have played trivia games where it was me against whoever else was in the room, 3 or 15. I don’t lose.
When you are presented with a question in Jeopardy and the CPA exam as well, there are almost always clues within the question that can aid you in getting to the right answer, if you break the question down and sort through what you know, even if it isn’t necessarily the answer to question. Here’s an example from Jeopardy:
The Category is “Playwrights”, the question: His marriage to Marilyn Monroe inspired his play “After the Fall”
What can we learn about the answer from this question? It combines literature and pop culture. We are looking for a playwright, who wrote a play “After the Fall” and he was married to Marilyn Monroe. I know next to nothing about playwrights and have never heard of the play mentioned but I did know Marilyn Monroe had 3 husbands and that Joe Dimaggio (one of the 3) wasn’t a playwright. My pool of possible answers is down to 2 names now instead of hundreds of playwrights. I happened to know one other person she was married to, Arthur Miller, and that is the answer. By breaking down the question, I was able to get the answer without necessarily knowing the fact.
How does this principle apply? The CPA exam takes a bit of pride in that it requires you to select the “most correct” answer, meaning multiple answers could potentially apply but one answer does a better job than the others. Using the above methodology, you can sort out what you know and apply it to the question to eliminate answers and narrow your pool of potential answers. If you eliminate 1 answer as obviously incorrect, you increase your odds of guessing the correct answer by 8% from 1 in 4 to 1 in 3. That may not sound like a huge difference but getting 3 or 4 more questions right could make the difference between a 70 and a 75. If you can eliminate another answer, you increase your odds another 17% to 1 in 2. That is a huge increase. So break it down and take a guess.
Tip #2 Get Some Sleep
You can google numerous studies on the benefits of sleep. Sometimes it can feel like you need to cram, cram, cram and trade sleep for study. But without proper sleep, your ability to recall that information is severely limited and you haven’t adequately rested your body and mind. It is during sleep that your brain converts those last minute cram sessions into information that can be recalled. I have been known for having an above average memory (probably due to playing Classic Concentration) and I have noticed a significant difference in its function depending on the sleep that I get particularly over multiple days. It isn’t recommended taking the CPA Exam while drunk. Likewise, it isn’t recommended taking it exhausted. If you are embarking on a career in public accounting, you will have plenty of “opportunities” to pass up sleep and work instead. Take the sleep now.
Tip #3 Eat a Good Breakfast
Yes, even if “you don’t do breakfast”. To be clear, I don’t mean grab a poptart or egg McMuffin. Eat a legitimately good breakfast. Breakfast helps start your metabolism and get your brain working properly. If your only option is a bad breakfast or no breakfast, skip it then. But it doesn’t take long to scramble some eggs, toast some bread or eat some Greek yogurt. Eating a good breakfast will keep you from being hungry, which breaks your concentration, and will give you fuel for your brain to function. Despite your brain occupying 5%of your body weight, it can require 20% of your daily calorie usage. Feed it.
Tip #4 Take it as soon as you can
This is a tip that is universal but I realize may come too late for some. Take the test as quickly as you can after college. You will never be better equipped than right out of school to take this test. The CPA Exam covers a wide breadth of material, as did your accounting degree. Your job will not. Most likely you will focus in one area of accounting and the longer you wait, the more specialized you will become. Don’t misunderstand, experience and specialization are good for your career but not the test. The ability to study and the ability to take tests are largely learned. You won’t do this much in your career and those skills will atrophy.
As a young staff, in general, you will never have more time available to you than you do now to take this test. You may feel like you are busy and don’t have time but you are wrong. You will have busy season, but that will never go away. Then you may add a spouse, civic activity, and kids. After having a child, I can’t imagine trying to make time to study too. And that is just with one. Children are wonderful, and they take a ton of time. The more kids you have, the more time they you want to invest in them. I digress, but the point is, take the test as soon as you can after college.
Tip#5 Stay calm
Take a deep breath and focus on what you know. Noticing your breathing will help you to focus on what you can remember and move through the questions in a consistent way. Don’t get too bogged down on any one question. If you get hung, don’t overthink it, go with your gut.
It could be worse. “More Experienced” accountants love to tell the youngsters about how terrible the test used to be and how hard their experience was. In many respects, it was harder having to take all 4 parts over 2 days or whatever it was. But in our defense, there wasn’t as much material to cover in each section either. You’ve put in the work. Trust what you have done, and knock it out.