CPA Exam Horror Stories: Trapped at Prometric For 6 Hours

Posted on by Adrienne Gonzalez

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Imagine, for a moment, being trapped in Prometric. Let me set the scenario: you're taking the CPA exam. First, you arrive at your test center early after circling endlessly for a parking spot and finally find a sign on the door that the location has moved. The new location is across town. Fine, you get there (early!), sit down and start taking your exam. Twenty minutes in, the dreaded gray green of death! What do you do? Well you wait, right?

What happens when you wait… and wait… and wait… and are essentially trapped in Prometric for hours without a cell phone or your notes? How on Earth are you supposed to take the exam at that point? This candidate tried:

So get ready for my story! I don’t think anyone else will beat this:

My test was scheduled for 12:30pm, but I decided to go in early because I was tired of studying. It took me a good 15-20 minutes to find a parking spot (the test center was downtown – all parking is meter or 2 hours only zones, so had to go into the residential area). I got to the test center by 11, and it was EMPTY! There was a sign on the door saying they moved to the other side of town

I get to the new test center and they let me take my test early. After 20 minutes, I got the gray screen of death!!!! Apparently their system froze and they were on the phone with IT for 1.5 hours trying to solve the problem, but we ended up getting 2 choices: 1) wait for them to figure out the problem and troubleshoot the issue (approximate time- another 1 to 2 hours), or 2) Leave and reschedule, but you’ll lose whatever you did during the test. Since I started the exam already, I decided to wait. The grand total wait time……. 6 HOURS!!!!! We weren’t allowed to use our phones, leave the test center or leave to get food. If we needed to make a call, we had to use their phone and they watched you use the phone. If you wanted something to eat, they had to get it for you. And no studying while we waited. Just dandy! After 6 hours, they fixed the problem and started to call people back in to finish their exams. Of course, my test didn’t launch, nor did 2 other people’s exams. After another 20 minutes or so, they tell us that according to IT, our test packages were “corrupt” and everything is lost. One girl was taking her architecture exam, and had done 3 out of the 4 hours of her test… everything was gone!!! Now I have to reschedule, how exciting huh?

Alright. So. The upside: They fed you. It would have been truly barbaric had they starved you for 6 hours and you were forced to chew your arm off at your terminal. The other upside: you didn't have to take your exam. I know it sucks you lost 20 minutes but be grateful you weren't the architecture chick, she must be broken right about now.

The not studying part sucks but I can get why they didn't allow you to. That doesn't make it okay (I can't believe you stuck it out – MAJOR props are due to you for that). I think in the end you will be fortunate that your packages were corrupt or whatever they tried to tell you, you didn't need that stress. Seriously… you sat hostage in Prometric for 6 hours, where are your mental notes at that point?!

My question to Prometric is this: is this the best contingency plan you have? You have candidates taking not only the CPA exam but other professional exams captive in your testing center for 6 hours while you figure out whatever it is that's wrong with your computers? After making this candidate drive across town to another test center in the first place?

I have a lot of patience for errors and human mistakes but this is pretty bad.

If you look at Prometric's actual financial data, there is absolutely no reason they shouldn't be sinking some money into their own IT infrastructure. So what gives?

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Everything You Thought You Knew About How the CPA Exam is Scored is Wrong

I’m 97% sure most CPA exam candidates are confused by the CPA exam’s psychometric scoring, either because it is supposed to be that way or they haven’t done their research. Either way, I once again got the chance to speak with John Mattar, Ed.D., Director of Psychometrics and Research and Mike Decker, Director of Operations and Development, both of the AICPA’s examinations unit. This time we focused on how the CPA exam is scored. Remember that most of this information is already available on the AICPA’s website, check out How the CPA Exam is Scored and the Psychometrics and Scoring section for more detailed, less sarcastic information than what you might find here. That being said, we appreciate John and Mike taking time to humor us anyway.


Of course, no discussion about how the exam is scored would be complete without rehashing last quarter’s somewhat tardy score release issue. John and Mike compared it to buying a new car but driving home in your old car, meaning scoring is going to be a broke down Toyota Tercel for just two more quarters but if you all can be patient, you’ll be spinning around town in that shiny new Lexus by December. “We’re doing everything we can to administer a quality exam, including communicating with candidates,” Mike told us. They also let us know that they will be using NASBA to push out timely information to candidates in the quarters ahead. See? Told you they were listening to candidates’ scoring concerns.

When talking about how the CPA exam is scored, it’s important to remember that candidates take different but equivalent exams. “It’s not possible to say what each testlet is worth because everyone is taking different exams,” said John. That being said, we did manage to get them to tell us that, contrary to popular belief, candidates are not compared to each other when they are scored. How do we know? While we still don’t know how many points each question is worth, John told us “we can say with 100% assurance if two different candidates get the same question, they will both get the same amount of points or credit for getting that question right.” This whole exam scoring thing is feeling less and less insidious by the minute, isn’t it?

For the final time: the CPA exam is not graded on a curve, nor are you compared to everyone who did better than you, nor are you compared to everyone who showed up to Prometric that day or week or month. “The way the exam is scored, candidates are compared to a fixed ability level. They are not compared to each other. If in the next window candidates maybe aren’t as well-prepared, fewer people will pass. They are being compared to a fixed level of ability,” John told us. Twice. Just to make sure we all got it. Got it? Let’s go over it one more time (from the Scoring FAQs):

The CPA Examination is NOT curved. Every candidate’s score is entirely independent of other candidates’ Examination results.

The CPA Examination is a criterion-referenced examination which means that it rests upon pre-determined standards. Every candidate’s performance is measured against established standards to determine whether the candidate has demonstrated the level of knowledge and skills that is represented by the passing score. Every candidate is judged against the same standards, and every score is an independent result.

Are we clear on that? Awesome, moving on…

Pretest questions make up fifteen MCQ in AUD/FAR and twelve in REG/BEC, one task-based simulation in FAR, AUD and REG and one written communication in BEC. The problem with gaming this system is that you can’t, since you have no way of knowing which questions are pretest and which are operational. So just guess equally on all of them as if every single one counts, mmmkay? Pretest questions will resemble operational questions since they are testing whatever is in the Content Specification Outline, meaning IFRS wasn’t tested on a pretest basis last year. What this means for candidates is that nothing outside of the CSOs will EVER be pretested. Maybe not a life-changing piece of information but really useful to know if you are prone to asking “what should I be studying?” and are familiar with the CSOs.

So what’s with the score report you get when you fail that compares you to those who scored between 75 and 80 in that window? Why not compare you to the CPA exam superstars who pulled down 99s without breaking a sweat?

“If you compared [failing candidates] to people that got all the way up to 99, it’s not as useful,” John said. “We want the basis of comparison that is going to be the most meaningful to the people who failed and that group is those that got closest to passing. If I got a 62 and the comparison group includes all the people who got above 90, that isn’t going to help me as much. Most of the people who pass are between 75 – 80.”

While we appreciate the AICPA taking the time to speak with us, we feel it’s important to point out that, at the end of the day, they are the best source of information for candidates. Answers to most of your questions can be found on their website. If you’re having trouble finding something or have a specific question related to the CPA exam, get in touch and we’ll do our best to do the Googling on your behalf.

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The Quickest 2011 CPA Exam Breakdown You’ll Ever Read

Because we know all of you are very busy tearing up your last exams before CBT-e hits in January of 2011, we won’t waste your time and get right to the point. 2011 is coming, the exam is changing and though we’ve been over it plenty in the last several months, let’s go over it one more time.


Simulations – This year’s simulations are next year’s simlets. Simulation problems will be shorter, task-based problems that should take you about 10 – 15 minutes to complete as opposed to the 45 minutes they take now. AUD and FAR will have 7 smaller simulation problems while REG will have 6. As usual, not all of these are graded.

Multiple choice – BEC and REG will contain 24 MCQ per testlet while FAR and AUD will still contain 30. MCQ will make up 60% of the FAR, AUD and REG exams and 85% of BEC.

Research – if you’re taking the exam this year, research is buried in simulations and doesn’t carry much weight point wise. Next year, however, research will be its own tab worth as many points as any of the other simlet problems. FAR research will be easy as it is limited to the ASCs (Accounting Standard Codification) and REG will mostly draw from the Internal Revenue Code but AUD will come with a dropdown menu that includes PCAOB ASs, the Code of Professional Conduct and SSARS just to name a few. You’ve been warned.

Written communication – WC is out of FAR, REG and AUD and slapped into BEC. You’ll have to write three written communications, of which two will be graded.

International standards – IFRS and international auditing standards will be added to current FAR and AUD content (respectively) while REG is mostly unchanged by this as you can’t really test international standards of federal taxation. Keep in mind that this additional content will most likely be gently mixed in with what is already being tested and does not make GAAP completely irrelevant so don’t use 2011 as an excuse to procrastinate all the way through the holidays.

Now stop wasting your time with inflammatory nonsense blogs and GET BACK TO STUDYING!

(btw: if you have a CPA exam question for us – anything from applying to qualifying to passing – do get in touch)