Saturday, November 22, 2014

Today is 4 days after I wrote the Core 1 CPA exam.

Here's what I have to say:

Well! It was a good experience! I highly suggest anyone who's writing it to follow my words here:

Aim to improve, not to win.

Aiming to win would be arrogant. But aiming to consistenly improve would be humbling.

That's what I did. And whether I pass or not, I learned a lot of information about ASPE and IFRS.

So all wisdom aside, here's how the event went down.

I drove to the writing centre (I'm from Toronto so our writing centre was in Mississauga on airport rd).

Before I left my home, I took the following items with me:

- my phone with inputted directions (MISTAKE! I should have used the GPS in my car, I ended up wasting 10 minutes because I went the wrong way! Yikes! Nevertheless I left an hour early so I had the slack time to make a mistake travelling)
- my laptop (I did take my laptop adapter wire, but never planned on using it because I didn't they were allowed. THEY ARE ALLOWED! IN FACT almost everyone had a laptop wire.)
- my laptop battery which was attached to my laptop. It had nearly 7 hours of juice before i wrote the exam. I kept that baby charged!
- pencils (you could bring them but you won't need them, they supply you with pencils!)
- an eraser (you will need one most likely, and it won't be supplied unless you want to use the one at the end of their pencils)
- I didn't bring a calculator because I knew they would supply one! The one they supplied was exactly like my BAII Plus calculator. Except theirs said CPA on it and you couldn't take it home. Ah well!
- the practice case solutions (I reviewed whenever I possibly could. E.g. a red light. Before the exam started)
- 4 yellow highlighters and one red & one blue marker which looked like highlighters but were actually markers. (I tend to highlight practically everything I read)
- Water; useful! I didn't spike my water with vitamins as usual, but it was still good. They were actually anal about this, when i got there they were like ARE THE CONTENTS OF YOUR BOTTLE CLEAR!? I was like... Yessss. And then, they took off the label off my bottle, so i was left with an entirely clear water bottle, which was fine.
- a giant bag to carry my laptop and anything else I just need if I'm going out anywhere.
- I used a jacket with zippers to hold everything I would be using during my exam, so I wouldn't get confused about where I put what right when I got there.
- a pencil sharpener to sharpen the pencil (I was told right before I wrote the exam, that I was not allowed to have that at my desk! My reply: How am i going to sharpen my pencil if it goes dull? Supervisor's reply: Don't worry we're going to give you 2 pencils! And two pencils WERE given, so don't bring a pencil sharpener. I'd bring one or two well-sharpened pencils before you come)

I cannot believe how many people used zip lock bags. Yes, in the video, they tell you to use zip lock bags at your desk or behind your desk, because this is actually what they put the core 1 exam in. Ridiculous. If I want to use a zip lock bag, it will be for frozen food! or a sandwich! Not an exam! Or writing supplies! Okay, I am guilty of using a zip lock bag for writing supplies, but that doesn't change the fact that it's an out of the box method! My suggestion to anyone who plans on writing the core 1 exam: don't use a zip lock bag, unless you studied with one. I would just bring your supplies as I did (i.e. put some highlighters in your pocket (i.e. highlighters of different color), a pencil and eraser and that's simply all you need! Oh and a brain, bring that too!)

So once the exam started... It didn't! And by that I mean, the supervisors made us wait 15 minutes for them to solve their technical difficulties. Which is totally understandable, but during those 15 minutes they literally expect you to sit in your seat, not to talk anyone and don't do anything but listen. Well, if this isn't training for becoming a perfect sheep, I don't know what is! My advice to the prospective exam taker is. DO everything you have to get ready for the exam, but look at useful stuff on your laptop like a solution to a practice case or something similar like practice MCQ, and then when they finally tell you to login and write the exam, go ahead and do that because it really doesn't take too long.

Okay so they give you this laminated sheet that tells you how to enter and exit secure exam. Their was no password to start the exam. we simply had to write Start. Their was however a password to end the exam which was EXACTLY the same as the password to end the exam for the MOCK exam. I highly highly highly suggest anyone writing the core 1 exam to do the MOCK exam that they upload on D2L to help you prepare for the core 1 exam. It will help big time.

***HIGHLY APOLOGIZE TO THE READERS OF THE BLOG, because a large portion here was removed so that specifics of the exam would not be disclosed, since I have agreed to not expose exam details that I have written. I'm sure it's fine to write about how I prepared for the exam but to actually explain exam specifics, I would probably get in trouble for that; as a result, it was removed.***

MCQ was full of various questions. Most of which accounting, some auditing, some tax, some cost accounting. They really spring questions on you and it COULD go like this:

- HERE"S AN ACCOUNTING QUESTION
- HERE"S AN AUDITING QUESTION
- HERE"S ANOTHER ACCOUNTING QUESTION

so basically their might not be a uniform order; like a sporadic order of type of question.

get really fast at typing, if you're not fast already.

I type fairly fast! And I still had trouble writing my case quickly...

I started freaking out as i wrote the MCQ, but I did make good time. They give you three hours.

The end was a lot of silent waiting too. You can't really do anything at this point. Exit and save the exam when they tell you to, and then you can enjoy the experience as much as possible and LEAVE. Be on the lookout for friends who were in your CORE 1 orientation classes and talk about the exam or whatever else you'd like to.

Those are my 2 cents on the exam, and I hope you enjoyed this short yet informative blog. :)