Therefore, let’s start with the most heartening news of all, which has been discussed elsewhere in these guidelines but bears repeating. If you have attended class, read the required texts, and completed all of your coursework, it is quite probable that you will pass the test.
This is not just statistically correct (the majority of pupils will pass), but also logically or probabilistically true. As mentioned in the first chapter, one of the purposes of tests is to ensure that students have grasped the course material. If you’ve done everything the course asks of you, the test will just confirm that.
The only cases in which this may not be true are the very uncommon competitive tests with a set number or percentage of passable applicants.
In such a scenario, you may have completed all of the necessary tasks yet be “beaten” to the finish line by individuals who did even better than you on the day in question.
For the great majority of exams, however, this is not the case, and you can confidently assure yourself that if you have completed all the essential studies, you will likely pass.
This does not indicate the level or grade of your course pass, nor should it be used as an excuse for complacency, given that a course’s coursework includes test preparation.
Exam Myth #1: Poor exam performance can destroy your life.
Exams contribute to your personal development and improvement. They are a way to see if you have learned the things that your great teachers have been trying to teach you.
Are examinations important? True, but they are unlikely to destroy your life.
Here are a few justifications.
After finishing school, you should be a well-rounded human being, not just an exam-taking machine. So, the skills you get from a part-time job, groups at school or college, or volunteer work are just as important as how well you do in school.
What follows these exams?
Consider the fact that tests are often followed by, well, more tests. Depending on how old you are and whether or not you go to college, there is a good chance that you will soon have to take more tests.
This also applies to tests with low marks or a failing grade. You may retake examinations to improve a failing score or get passing marks.
Next time, you may need to take a few more courses or study harder, but with more tests come more opportunities to recover from low performance.
Exam myths debunked No.2: Your parents would be embarrassed by your low performance.
Parental humiliation is one test myth that leads many young people to bear a suffocating amount of pressure.
What young people may perceive as pressure to escape the embarrassment of low performance is often our parents’ well-intentioned support. Occasionally, they perform badly.
We believe in you.
Your parents want you to achieve your full potential because—brace yourself—they believe in you more than you do. Even if it may not always seem that way, your parents will always love you. And the prospect that you may not get perfect scores on all of your examinations pales in comparison to what you have already subjected them through.
They cherished you then and continue to do so today.
They adored you when all you did was defecate, weep, and vomit. They adored you when you spent the whole day rolling about in the mucky grass and then sat on their new cream couch. Or when you threw the mother of all tantrums at the grocery store. I could continue, but you get the idea.
Instead, take comfort in the fact that your parents want you to succeed for yourself, not so they can brag about you on Facebook as it is mentioned at resultexams.
Exam myths debunked number three: failing exams makes you a life failure.
Exams are important, but the notion that they can “make or break” your life is one of the most harmful exam myths. It is easy to overlook the fact that your life is yours to live. Consequently, what are you seeking in life?
What would success look like to you based on your own viewpoint, not that of your parents, friends, or society? Getting into the most challenging university courses and becoming a neurosurgeon may be your goals. Or it may not be so.
How do you define “success”?
A natural conclusion arises from this fact: success is determined by literally tens of thousands of choices and life experiences. Exams are a component of this process, but they are not the sum and substance of it.
For instance, if you don’t meet the prerequisites for your preferred university course, you may erroneously believe that your options are exhausted. Game over. In practice, you may begin a relevant course and switch later, repeat courses at college to get the desired grades, or locate a firm that accepts school dropouts as apprentices or trainees.
It is ultimately up to you to decide what you want to do with your life; exams will be a part of that journey, but they will not be its conclusion.
Myth 3: More content always equals better content.
Proper preparation does not need a great deal of resources; all that is required is a method of study and practice. This typically includes a textbook (but may potentially include videos if the videos cover the complete curriculum) and sample questions from previous examinations.
The number of pages, questions, video hours, etc., is not as significant as whether or not the information is comprehensive, relevant, and adequately prepares you to pass the examinations. You also don’t usually need a lot of question banks because the ones from each vendor are usually very similar and have the same questions that have already been released.
Myth4: More costly materials are superior.
Although it is generally true that “you get what you pay for,” this is only true if what you are paying for provides you with value. When a material provider pays for “status” from an examiner or has an affiliate arrangement with another site that “recommends” them (more on this in the next section), these are fees that are passed on to you without adding value. If someone “approves” or “recommends” a certain piece of content, make sure to determine the basis for that suggestion. Any advice that is not based on quality offers no value to you.
Myth 5: Review comparison websites are really impartial.
For a variety of professional examinations, there are websites claiming to give impartial assessments of the various providers. What is not well known is that the majority of these sites earn compensation from the content suppliers featured on them, making the evaluations biassed.
Typically, the best-rated firm is the one that pays the greatest commission to the review website. On some websites, this link is mentioned (though not always in a big way), but on many others, it is not mentioned at all.
As an example, one of the review sites for CMA materials previously ranked HOCK as their number one source with five stars. When the site’s owner urged HOCK to join an affiliate compensation scheme, but we declined, we lost two stars overnight and dropped from first to third in their rankings. The change had nothing to do with the content. Instead, it was made so that the review site could get paid to promote other suppliers.
In addition to hiding how they make money, these sites sometimes have wrong or out-of-date information because they write a review and leave it up for years without changing it. Also, most platforms don’t give course providers a way to post new information or respond to reviews that make wrong or false claims.
You may have noticed that many of these review comparison websites for CMA, CPA, and CIA materials exclude HOCK. This is often the result of our refusal to pay a commission to the site’s administrator.
I am confident that we have lost business over the years as a result of this choice, but I also know that it has helped us to make our rates more inexpensive for you, as we no longer need to add a 20% or 25% commission markup. What you spend on HOCK materials is invested in value-added initiatives, not costly marketing partnerships.
Passing percentages are accurate and sincere.
Numerous course suppliers provide a pass rate for students who use their resources. I have already written about how these pass rates are almost meaningless since there is no easy and consistent method for calculating them. Who are the candidates included? Or exclusion? How do we determine a “pass?”
Conclusion
For instance, if a candidate purchases materials from Provider X and fails the test, but passes after buying materials from Provider Y, is that individual considered a “pass” for Provider X, Provider Y, or both? Does Provider X include the first failure in its pass rate?
Provider X may claim a 100% pass rate for that one student since they ultimately passed, but a 50% pass rate would be more honest and true.
Or, who gets the “pass” if a candidate uses materials from three different sources and passes on the first try? Examining all of the suppliers who post pass rates reveals the inaccuracy of pass rates. Every organization asserts a pass rate that is much greater than the exam’s reported pass rate. If these stated pass rates were accurate, the actual pass rate for the test would be identical to what the providers claim.
