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Here’s How International Candidates Fared On the CPA Exam in 2011

Posted on by Adrienne Gonzalez

Great news, folks, I have the brand new 2011 NASBA Candidate Performance book in my hands as of yesterday and have to tell you, I'm pretty excited about this new and improved version. It's substantially thicker than the last version (size does matter and don't let anyone tell you otherwise), which means it's packed with way more data to dig through (try not to get too excited). Sexists, xenophobes and overly enthusiastic college alumni should be able to find tons of interesting information relevant to their interests that will keep them busy for months. Well, at least I'll be busy for months.

Remember that while I'm sure NASBA does their best to make sure accurate information makes it way into this book for those of us actually interested in these numbers, some data is voluntary or self-reported, leaving a lot of room for error. So please don't go basing your entire life on these statistics.

While I planned on hitting California performance first, I found the section on international CPA exam candidate performance to be much more intriguing for our inaugural 2011 CPA exam stats post. This data is new to the 2011 version, obviously, as the exam only went international mid last year. Let's take a look at how candidates sitting for the exam in other countries did last year:

  • Bahrain had 93 candidates who sat for 164 sections for a pass rate of 31.1%, the lowest of international exam-takers sitting outside of the U.S. The average score was 65.6.
  • Japan sent the highest number of candidates at 898 (no shock there, they also send more candidates to take the exam in the U.S. than many U.S.-based colleges each year) and took 1,749 sections for a pass rate of 35.1% and an average score of 66.8. Interestingly, of all international candidates, Japanese candidates were the oldest on average at 35.7.
  • Kuwait sent 66 candidates who sat for 118 exams for a pass rate of 64.4%, the highest pass rate of all candidates sitting for the exam outside of the U.S. In fact, candidates from Kuwait performed better than every U.S. jurisdiction. By comparison, the best performing CPA exam jurisdiction in the U.S. – Utah – pulled a pass rate of 57.4% overall.
  • Lebanon sent 176 candidates to 333 exams for a pass rate of 52% with an average score of 70.7.
  • Lastly, United Arab Emirates had 371 candidates who sat for 705 sections for a pass rate of 43.3% and an average score of 68.4.

Stay tuned for more.

 

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CPA Candidate, Who Hasn’t Taken a Single Exam, Is Already Freaking Out

Side note: I’ve never seen anyone use double periods in a sentence like this..So it goes without saying that the following has been edited and please, don’t do that on BEC. Here’s a tip: if you are looking for more written communication practice, try it on lazy, F-bomb-obsessed bloggers or even in emails to your mom. That’s all the AICPA is looking for; you don’t even have to be correct, just on topic. They make up 15% of your BEC score so get in the habit of pretending like random communications are being graded by a machine. It’s an undervalued commodity in your professional lubmission from the mailbag was close to correct (a beginning, a middle and an end, somewhat on topic) but needed a little work to be aesthetically pleasing to the CPA exam robots. Working on our emails would be a good supplement to whatever CPA review materials you bought, and I don’t say that to be mean.

Adrienne,

I am just about to begin the grueling process of the CPA exam..

I have been debating whether to take BEC or FAR first before starting work in July. Because I have more time to study now than I will for future tests I want to take the hardest one first. For me I feel like this will be BEC because this seems like it has the most new material and I did pretty well in Intermediate accounting. However it sounds like no matter how much studying some people do, they just can’t get prepared for BEC because it has recently changed. Should I just play it safe and use all this time I have to get prepared for FAR or should I take a shot at BEC?

Also, my firm only supplies me with Gleim self study books. Have people done alright on BEC with just these? How should I supplement these?

Sincerely,

Already freaking out

First, stop freaking out. You haven’t even started yet. Start and then let me know if you are still freaking out. You might like it. Get words like “grueling” out of your head now but you’re more than welcome to pull it out later if your experience proves to be exactly that. Until then, try to stay neutral on how much of pain the next 6 months – 2+ years of your life will be.

Second, we’ve discussed CPA review plenty, you can check the CPAnet forums for comments from actual review students who are taking whatever you bought or are looking at buying and any combination thereof. My experience has been that BEC is pretty hit or miss and that no review course covers it in as thorough detail as FAR, AUD or REG. That doesn’t mean they don’t do that section well, it just means I tend to hear the most complaints across the board regarding various review courses’ inability to truly cover BEC.

Don’t blame that on the new exam; that complaint goes back several years. It isn’t fair to compare the last version of computerized testing (CBT 2004 – 2010) to this one (CBT-e) as they are different exams, it’s too early to judge whether review courses and candidates promptly catch up to the new material, along with the AICPA. They have been clear about this being an improving work in progress for 2011, therefore it would be equally unfair to make a call at this time. Don’t say everything is “because of the change” as if you’re a Boy Scout with a flashlight under your face trying to scare everyone around the campfire. Was it this bad when the exam went from paper and pencil to blips on a screen and digital fingerprints?

Third, don’t get high on study drugs while studying for BEC or you might really be freaking out.

I always tell candidates to start with the section that will be hardest for you as that’s when your 18 month timeframe begins so your plan sounds good. If you bomb a section a few times, the clock isn’t ticking. Of course, this also leads to procrastination if you continuously bomb, which is an entirely different problem. Not to make you freak out.

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Lucky me, I’ll be speaking with the AICPA about the successful launch of CBT-e as well as grilling them about the new format, their motivation behind the change, and all this nonsense about changing the passing score from 75.

Because you guys are the ones taking the exam and I’m just the one writing about it, I figured it would be appropriate to give you all the opportunity to weigh in on what I should ask. I swear I’m not being lazy as I have plenty of my own questions to ask but thought it might be nice for all of you with questions to have the chance to get them answered directly from the source.

You’re welcome to put your suggestions in the comments or, if you’re embarrassed because your question also makes you look like a big fat failure, please feel free to email me and I promise I’ll guard your identity like Caleb guards his yoga mat.