For our Ontario audience today:

Congratulations to the many students who were notified of their success today for the SOA exam. Those with positive SOA results will be continuing on to the final step which is the UFE. For those that were not successful this year, this may be a tough time for the students that will not be continuing on to challenge the UFE this year. I’ve had several friends that have paused at this step in years past and many have been successful in subsequent tries so please take time to reflect and learn from the experience and don’t lose hope.

For those with positive results today, I hope you’ll continue to join us here in building a community for CA students. As we get closer to the UFE, I’ll be working on continuing to make this a great source of info for all CA students.

In the meantime, celebrate over the weekend!

For all the Ontario students expecting School of Accountancy SOA exam results tomorrow: I want to  wish you the best of luck! These waits tend to be pretty painful and I know how nervous people start to feel as the big day approaches. I have several friends who wrote this year so I’ll be crossing my fingers for them and everyone else.

I hope you’ll all join us here in congratulating those that are successful and supporting the ones who will have to try again as we gear into the UFE study period.

Some of this applies only to Ontario students but the information about the UFE is general so the rest of you might pay attention as well.

1. The UFE is a Three Day Exam
   If you don’t already know this, you should – The UFE is a 3 day exam taking place on September 11, 12 and 13, 2012
   Day 1: Five Hour Comprehensive Simulation (Comp for short)
   Day 2: Four Hour Multi-Competency Simulation (Multi for short) which has, for many years now, been three simulations varying in time length between 60 minutes a piece to 90 minutes a piece.
   Day 3: Same as Day 2.
2. Indicators are not called Primary and Secondary indicators vs. Diagnostic and Summative at SOA
   This is not just a change in terms! Think of it this way: There are no more Diagnostic indicators on the UFE, only Summative. They use Diagnostic Indicators at SOA (I assume) in order for you to learn how to put the pieces together to score on a Summative Indicators. For the UFE it is assumed that you know this and therefore that crutch is taken away. We’ll learn a little more about this in a future post. This naturally leads to a different marking key.
3. The UFE is less directed
   The UFE is considered less directed by most people than the SOA. You’ll find that the issues in the UFE are a more difficult to spot and you’ll have to exercise professional judgment in order to determine which issues take priority and which to let slide in your limited time.
4. Less Time Pressure
   Although I’m sure this is debatable and in some past UFEs  probably not the case, but many would say that compared to the SOA the UFE has less time pressure.
5. The UFE has a greater focus on depth of your response
   Although, of course, the SOA tests some depth, you’ll find that the UFE requires more depth, especially for Performance Management & Reporting (PMR) indicators. You’ll need to be able to develop a richer, more in-depth, discussion of accounting  topics in order to achieve the same level of performance. For SOA, it was more important to identify and hit across all the topics covered in the simulation.
6. The criteria for passing the UFE is different than SOA
   For SOA you must only score, in total, above whatever cut off is set which is not the case for UFE. This is straight out of the 2011 UFE Report (page 2) with my comments added in italics.

• The response must be sufficient, i.e., the candidate must demonstrate competence on the primary indicators (Level 1). In assessing sufficiency, the board considered the number of times that a candidate achieved “Competent” and/or “Reaching Competence” across all primary indicators (both specific competencies and pervasive qualities).
  (Your overall score must meet the minimum set cutoff)
  
• The response must demonstrate depth in the areas of Performance Measurement and Reporting and Assurance (Level 2). In assessing depth the board considered the number of times that a candidate achieved “Competent” in each of the Assurance and Performance Measurement and Reporting primary indicators.
  (You must score enough PMR and Assurance indicators as Competent (C) in order to pass)
  
• The response must demonstrate breadth across all areas of the Map (Level 3). In assessing breadth the board considered the number of times that a candidate achieved “Reaching Competence” across primary indicators in each of the specific competency areas, except for Assurance and Performance Measurement and Reporting. If a candidate failed to demonstrate  breadth on the basis of the primary indicators, the board considered the information provided by the secondary indicators for the deficient competency area.
  (You must score enough Reaching Competence (RC) across all the indicators, or you can also think about this as, you must not ignore any indicator) 

We’ll be covering these topics more in depth in future posts. If you’ve got any requests for topics to cover or want to highlight some more differences between UFE and SOA leave a comment!

Some of this applies only to Ontario students but the information about the UFE is general so the rest of you might pay attention as well.

1. The UFE is a Three Day Exam
   If you don’t already know this, you should – The UFE is a 3 day exam taking place on September 11, 12 and 13, 2012
   Day 1: Five Hour Comprehensive Simulation (Comp for short)
   Day 2: Four Hour Multi-Competency Simulation (Multi for short) which has, for many years now, been three simulations varying in time length between 60 minutes a piece to 90 minutes a piece.
   Day 3: Same as Day 2.
2. Indicators are not called Primary and Secondary indicators vs. Diagnostic and Summative at SOA
   This is not just a change in terms! Think of it this way: There are no more Diagnostic indicators on the UFE, only Summative. They use Diagnostic Indicators at SOA (I assume) in order for you to learn how to put the pieces together to score on a Summative Indicators. For the UFE it is assumed that you know this and therefore that crutch is taken away. We’ll learn a little more about this in a future post. This naturally leads to a different marking key.
3. The UFE is less directed
   The UFE is considered less directed by most people than the SOA. You’ll find that the issues in the UFE are a more difficult to spot and you’ll have to exercise professional judgment in order to determine which issues take priority and which to let slide in your limited time.
4. Less Time Pressure
   Although I’m sure this is debatable and in some past UFEs  probably not the case, but many would say that compared to the SOA the UFE has less time pressure.
5. The UFE has a greater focus on depth of your response
   Although, of course, the SOA tests some depth, you’ll find that the UFE requires more depth, especially for Performance Management & Reporting (PMR) indicators. You’ll need to be able to develop a richer, more in-depth, discussion of accounting  topics in order to achieve the same level of performance. For SOA, it was more important to identify and hit across all the topics covered in the simulation.
6. The criteria for passing the UFE is different than SOA
   For SOA you must only score, in total, above whatever cut off is set which is not the case for UFE. This is straight out of the 2011 UFE Report (page 2) with my comments added in italics.

• The response must be sufficient, i.e., the candidate must demonstrate competence on the primary indicators (Level 1). In assessing sufficiency, the board considered the number of times that a candidate achieved “Competent” and/or “Reaching Competence” across all primary indicators (both specific competencies and pervasive qualities).
  (Your overall score must meet the minimum set cutoff)
  
• The response must demonstrate depth in the areas of Performance Measurement and Reporting and Assurance (Level 2). In assessing depth the board considered the number of times that a candidate achieved “Competent” in each of the Assurance and Performance Measurement and Reporting primary indicators.
  (You must score enough PMR and Assurance indicators as Competent (C) in order to pass)
  
• The response must demonstrate breadth across all areas of the Map (Level 3). In assessing breadth the board considered the number of times that a candidate achieved “Reaching Competence” across primary indicators in each of the specific competency areas, except for Assurance and Performance Measurement and Reporting. If a candidate failed to demonstrate  breadth on the basis of the primary indicators, the board considered the information provided by the secondary indicators for the deficient competency area.
  (You must score enough Reaching Competence (RC) across all the indicators, or you can also think about this as, you must not ignore any indicator) 

We’ll be covering these topics more in depth in future posts. If you’ve got any requests for topics to cover or want to highlight some more differences between UFE and SOA leave a comment!