When I went in to take the exam for the first time I was not expecting to pass because I didn’t have enough time to study the material, but given the limited score release dates for core exams, I went in giving it the best I could with a mindset that I would not be disappointed if I didn’t pass because I was not expecting to. Afterword, I concluded that I most likely scored somewhere in the 50s as the exam was quite difficult (I ended up with a 65 which I saw as a good indicator under the circumstances).

The following week after the exam, I commenced studying, but I did so more intensely than I have ever done and so far I have passed two exams. When I went in this last time to take the auditing exam, I felt pretty good going in and I felt pretty good coming out. I then spent the following three days assessing how I thought I did on the exam, and my conclusion was that, unlike with the other two exams, that I would be very, very, very surprised if I didn’t pass. The material on the exam was also significantly easier than the last one.

I used the three categories to classify each testlet: Good, Decent, Bad

Testlet 1: good Testlet 2: good 3 of the simulations were good, 3 decent, 1 bad, and of course one of them is not counted. There is no way I couldn’t have gotten the full weight of the score on the multiple-choice questions (or at least close to it) and at least 31 or 32% of the weight of the score (and this is under the worst case scenario) on the simulations.

Unlike with the other two exams, for the first time I felt as if it would actually be a wise decision to start studying for the next exam. Normally, I would not study for the next exam until I knew for a fact that I passed. So I spent the next 35 days studying for it until score release date. My score ended up being 68.

I ended up checking my score several times that day and a couple times the next day to see if the score changed due to an error because I was so convinced that I had passed and had given this considerable thought.

I decided to commence studying for auditing the same day due to the limited testing schedule this year when normally I would have taken a day off to give my mind a mental break. When I opened up my Excel workbook file with all my notes (that I had spent an easy 2000 hours creating) I learned that the file had been corrupted when it was in my flash drive, and after trying to recover it by myself and with Microsoft support, I learned that it is permanently unrecoverable. Obviously, I have taken additional measures so that something like this never happens again in the future, but I have always relied so heavily on notes and there is no way that I am going to re-create them with this testing schedule.

I thought I would mention all of this to see if anyone has any helpful methods or suggestions for dealing with either of these devastating events.