I recently received the following email from a professional who not only passed the exam but helps others to pass as well. This person has some concerns about the "10-minute time out" at the beginning of the testing process at Prometric:
I am sure you have heard about candidates being locked out of the CPA exam. Or maybe you haven't and the issue is a greater problem in California, which is not a NASBA state. Anyways, I perceive this to be an issue for candidates and I am hoping GC can do a little market research (or you can send me a link to articles on this subject).
Unless one reads the 43 page Candidate Bulletin and/or listens to every minute of a review course, they might miss this key information:Once you enter your Launch Code, you must proceed through the subsequent introductory examination screens without delay. There is a 10-minute time limit to read and proceed through the introductory screens and, if the 10-minute time limit is exceeded, the test session will automatically terminate and cannot be restarted. In this case, you must leave the test center, forfeit fees, reapply to test in the next test window, and receive a score of 0.What this statement doesn't tell you is that there is no 10 minute clock on the computer, no clocks on the wall, and obv the kids aren't wearing a wristwatch, checking their iPhones, or even wearing large hoop earrings for that matter. Moreover, this information isn't given to the candidate by the Prometric worker nor shown on the computer screen. If you snooze past 10 minutes, you loose your exam fees and the hours of your life you spent to prepare because your ass ain't taking it again at least until your nil score is released. Why would it take a candidate longer than 10 minutes you may wonder? Because any person who has a short-term memory like me sat their ass down and wrote down all the shit they just scanned in the lobby, like formulas for ratios. I get WHY they have the rule; I just don't understand why they aren't more forthcoming with it.
