By Janel Knispel CPA
Experiencing failure early in CPA PEP was eye-opening for Janel Knispel CPA. But she used it as an opportunity to take a step back and put a new study strategy in place, which helped her succeed throughout the rest of the program. Janel is an Assistant Controller at Conviron.
Failing Core 1 came as a shock to me. I suspect most candidates who fail the module are also high-performing individuals who aren’t used to failure. Failing at the very beginning of CPA PEP was so impactful to my professional journey that I mentioned it in my convocation citation.
I still remember the morning the results were released—it still feels as if it happened…well, this morning. I was so DEVASTATED and upset that I had to leave work. So many thoughts went through my mind, and between the sobs and the curses, I honestly thought about quitting my pursuit of the CPA designation altogether.
The thought was fleeting but it was there. So if you have similar thoughts and doubts, know you aren’t alone. Continuing is a decision only you can make, but thankfully you don’t have to make it right away. Failing sucks, so take a little time off for some self-care: hide away and wallow with some ice cream, Netflix, shopping, or whatever you need to do. However, if you decide to rewrite the exam, I really want to help you succeed, so here are my top tips:
Resist the Handbook
Knowing that everything you need to pass the exam is right there at your fingertips to copy and paste is very tempting. During the weekly assignments, you have the entire week to research every last standard and craft the perfect response. But actually being in the exam and feeling the time crunch is a very different experience.
Unfortunately, I found out the hard way that there is not enough time to rely on the handbook. During the last case, I ran out of time because I copied the wrong standard, panicked, and got flustered. I took a quick break in the bathroom to hyperventilate, and then spent way too much time trying to figure out which standard I needed. When I finally found it, I had only minutes left to complete the remaining AOs. I believe one of the reasons I failed was because I didn’t know enough of the information by heart.
I knew I had to learn more of the information before my second attempt. To do this, I started using flashcards where I summarized all the key information and criteria in my own words. Then every night I went through them, separating each into a good pile, which contained all the information I already knew by heart, or a bad pile, which contained everything I still had to review. My ultimate goal was to eliminate the bad pile by the time I got to the exam, which I did. When I was successful at my second attempt, I continued using flashcards throughout my CPA PEP journey, and by the time I got to the CFE, I had a huge pile from all modules that I could review again.
Resist doing the “ya-ya-yas”
Someone once told me he failed because he got stuck doing the “ya-ya-yas” when studying. In other words, when he got his assignments back, he looked at his mark, read the comments, looked at the answer, said “ya-ya-ya,” and then moved on. He wasn’t taking the time to debrief.
I realized that by not debriefing each weekly assignment, I was guilty of the “ya-ya-yas” too. I often submitted on the last day and sometimes at the last hour. By the time I got the results back, I was so immersed in the next assignment that I didn’t think I had time to thoroughly debrief. However, I knew I needed to make this a priority. So I worked hard to rearrange my schedule to spend less time responding to practice cases and more time debriefing. I tried hard to submit my assignments on Tuesdays at midnight, giving myself the remaining days to debrief the previous week and work on my flashcards.
Of all the emotions I felt after failing Core 1, embarrassment was the biggest one. But statistically speaking, it is the hardest exam you will write before the CFE, so I really shouldn’t have felt so bad. In 2021, the pass rate across Canada for Core 1 was 77.1%, which was lower than any other module by 8% – 14%. So please don’t be discouraged because it does get easier, and I am rooting for you to bounce back like I did.
The views expressed in this post are those of the guest writer, Janel Knispel CPA. Please refer to cpawsb.ca for the latest guidelines from the CPA Western School of Business.
