Professor Elam

Tuesday May 27 2014

I am reading Richard Chambers Lessons from the Audit Trail. He mentions that in the first two years the CRMA designation was offered, 13,000 individuals passed the exam. The CRMA link is here.

In the graduate ethics class this spring, one student remarked in an essay that 'accounting has been drilled into our heads for the last few years. The class then scored an average of 3 out of 13 possible points  on an adjusting entry quiz. Drilled indeed…

I make this post to bring this nugget of information to your attention. 

The standard CRMA Core Exam will be a 100-question, multiple-choice exam, with a seat time of two hours. These exams will be instantly scored like all of the other IIA exams, and will be administered at Pearson VUE testing centers around the world. All CRMA eligibility requirements will apply.

That works out to 120 minutes / 100 questions = 1.2 minutes or 72 seconds per question. 

My point here is that none of you have any experience with such a timed ordeal. This requires very quick thinking and a high level of alert attention for a stunning two straight hours. 

There are some 19 books and papers recommended as reading for the exam but I do not see any questions and answers. now that makes it another proposition altogether. I suspect that some questions of this type are on the CPA Audit Exam. 

Interestingly Chambers is NOT a CPA but has the four designations offered by the IIA, no wonder he is their CEO. 

The best preparation for any certified exam is answering exam representative questions during a timed test. 

Period. Anything else is like taking the proverbial shower in a raincoat.