I was getting ready to leave work last Friday and had to check Twitter to see if @NASBA had announced the release of AUD scores. It being a Friday afternoon, I assumed there would be no such notifications. Of course, I was dead wrong. There it was, in color, 18,839 AUD scores were released by the AICPA to NASBA. I felt my stomach sink. The moment of truth had arrived, or so I thought. With this being my first CPA exam, testing section, score release, I didn't know how long I would have to wait to find out my results. I hurried to the NASBA website to see if by some miracle my score was already there. It wasn't. So I went home, anxious as ever, to await my fate. Did the score release happening at the end of the day on Friday mean that I would have to wait til Monday to find out? I got home and checked again. Nothing. I checked many times throughout the evening to find out and my score never showed up.
I went to bed thinking that it would be Monday before I found out. But even with settling on this thought to be eventuality, I still was anxious. It was difficult to sleep. I woke up many times throughout the night. I had my Ipod right next to my bed and even checked at around 2 in the morning to see if my score had posted. Still nothing. The worst part was my dream (or was it a nightmare) that I had. In my dream, I got on to check my score and to my horror, I received a 48. Not just a bad score, but a horrible score. I woke up a few more times throughout the night/morning and felt defeated thinking that my score was actually a 48. Because of my dream, I had resigned myself to the fact that I had not passed my test. I'm wasting my money, I'm wasting my time. Sometimes, I can be a very pessimistic person.
The kids started waking up sometime after 7 in the morning. I realized that my night of on again/off again sleep was over. I went straight to the computer to look again, knowing that the scores would not be there. I typed in my section ID and birth date. Clicked on the little yellow "Score" button. And there it was. My score. 96. Unbelievable. I passed. Of course, I figured that they must have got my test switched with someone else. I had not been too confident when leaving the testing center, but I still held out hope that I had passed. Must have been the pessimistic side of me coming out. I had passed. What a wonderful feeling it was to see that score. What a relief.
The amount of time I had put into studying for FAR between the time I took AUD and the time I received my score (I tested on 8/15 and received my score on 9/16) was very small. I think I took a week off before I even cracked open the FAR book. And I never studied two days in a row. Preparing for that test had been exhausting. But receiving notification that I had passed has given me a second wind to get studying for FAR.
So, here we go. Onto the next one. Any tips or suggestions for passing FAR? I have heard this is the mother of all CPA exam sections. Leave some feedback and let me know how to go 2 for 2!
