A Vision Fulfilled: The Computerized Exam after One Year: There Is Much to Celebrate, and Work Still to Be Done

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY * THE NEW EXAM REPRESENTS STATE-OF-THE-ART technology and provides a platform on which the content can be continuously improved. * PASS RATES FOR FIRST YEAR OF THE CBT have overtaken pass rates for the paper-based exam. The higher pass rates may result, in part, from more focused preparation by candidates for the sections taken, a greater percentage of partial-credit candidates finishing needed sections and/or more capable candidates. * CURRENTLY, EXAM CANDIDATE VOLUME is below original projections. A number of reasons might explain the difference: There seems to be a tendency for candidates to postpone taking the exam until their professional workloads lessen and the availability of testing times may have diminished candidates' perceived urgency to take and complete the exam. * EDUCATORS CAN TAKE STEPS TO BETTER PREPARE students for the CBT: Include more writing assignments in coursework and grade them; include assignments that help students deal with ambiguity; require students to conduct research using the professional literature; give open-book and computerized exams; and encourage students to visit the www.cpa-exam.org Web site. * THE NEW EXAM MORE CLEARLY REFLECTS THE WORK environment candidates will be entering. Preparing for the exam now is comparable with preparing to enter the workplace, and the testing of communication skills will persuade candidates how important they are in the business world. A seminal event occurred just over one year ago that changed the licensing process forever--the launch of the computer-based Uniform CPA Examination. It was the single most significant change in the licensing of CPAs in the profession's 100-year history. The computer-based test (CBT) took more than five years to create and was a collaboration of volunteers and the professional staffs of the AICPA, the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA), Thomson Prometric and individual state boards of accountancy. And the results are encouraging: Post-exam surveys showed that 97% of candidates were satisfied with their test experience on the new exam. The timing of the exam's appearance was fortuitous. Though it had been on the drawing boards for several years before the big business scandals hit the headlines, the announcement of the new exam came out almost concurrently with the breaking news of corporate misconduct. While the image of the accounting profession has undeniably been tarnished by those scandals, the same events also made clear the importance of CPAs in the functioning of the nation's economy and capital markets--and of an exam that ensure that entry-level CPAs have the skills needed to protect the public interest. Public outcry over highly visible costly business failures led to the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and highlighted the importance of the accounting profession's roles and responsibilities in protecting the public interest. That protection is the paramount objective of the CPA exam; it is critical for those who rely on the work of CPAs to have faith in the licensing process. Assuredly, the revisions to content and administration are more important than the new computerized format. The knowledge and skills necessary to practice competently are not static; the pace of change is accelerating, and accounting pronouncements, as well as the work that CPAs perform, are becoming much more complex. For example, Dennis Beresford, former FASB chair and now an accounting professor, recently stated that in order to practice competently accountants must search to see whether there is accounting literature on point and then decide how it applies to the is sue under consideration. While computers help greatly in the identification of applicable literature, humans still read the material and decide how it should be interpreted THE EXAM TODAY The accounting profession and the CPA exam respond quickly to changing demands in practice, and the CBT is one mechanism for accomplishing that objective. …