Experience Matters When Taking an Exam

Experience Matters When Taking an Exam

We all know that as we gain experience at work, our work becomes easier and we are able to perform our tasks more efficiently. Just as experience contributes to our success at work, experience also contributes to our success on an exam. This does not mean taking an exam just to take it and fail it; there are other ways experience can help you pass an exam.

1. Your experience with the topics on the exam

While most candidates want to pass exams as quickly as possible, you still need to spend time preparing for the exam. Even if you have significant experience with the topics that are on the exam, you still need to spend time learning how these topics are tested. A very good example of this is ratio analysis, because different companies may calculate the same ratio in different ways. What is included in “income” for ratios that use income? What is included as the amount of “investment” in the ROI calculation? As you can see, even if you have a lot of experience with ratios, you still need to learn how the ratios are calculated for the exam.

Additionally, some topics that are new require time to “settle” in our minds. For example, many candidates have difficulty with internal controls on the CMA exam. There are no formulas and no calculations, but there a lot of key ideas that can be applied to any part of a business. For internal controls, I advise candidates spend a bit of time each day going slowly the textbook and questions. You will be able to understand and retain a lot more by studying internal controls one hour a day for seven days than by studying five hours a day for two days.

2. Your experience answering questions

If you were to take a 100-question mock exam before you start studying, you would probably miss 15-20 questions just because you did not read the question correctly. As you practice answering past exam questions, you can be certain that you will be able to read and understand questions correctly on the exam. You will know to look for and how to react to words like “always,” “never,” “most likely,” and other similar phrases. It is much better that you go through that learning curve while you are doing practice questions than while taking your exam.

3. The experience of your teacher and/or materials provider

In the same way that you benefit from experience on the job or while studying, materials providers also benefit from experience, and that experience is something that good providers can pass on to you. The more a provider interacts with students, the more they know what topics are usually challenging. The more feedback that they have from students, the better the provider knows what changes need to be made to their materials and their classes so that they better prepare candidates for the exam.

For live-taught classes, the more experience that a teacher has preparing students for the exam, the more effective their classes will be. A teacher with a lot of real-world experience may not be able to effectively teach a course for an exam, because they could over-emphasize topics familiar to them or skip over topics that they are not as comfortable with. You want to be certain that the people who are helping you prepare for an exam are experienced in helping candidates pass that exam.

At HOCK, all we do is help people pass exams. Our team members are 100% working on exam-related issues – whether it writing, editing, or improving the materials, or answering your questions; everything we do is focused on helping you pass your exams!

In summary, while it is natural to want to take the exam as quickly as possible, you need to be certain that you spend the necessary time to get the experience needed – from studying, from answering questions, and from your materials or course provider – to pass the exam.

Brian Hock, CMA, CIA