As CEO of Surgent, my career has come full circle. Upon college graduation over 20 years ago, my path was set towards public accounting. During my senior year at University of Michigan Business School, I had already interned the previous summer for a Big 4. I even had my offer in hand! The only thing left to do was to pass the CPA Exam. At the time, it was much different – there were no online courses, all parts were taken the same day, and the exam was only offered a few times per year.
To prepare, I found a course off campus review courses. When I arrived, the course instructor rolled out a television, popped in a VCR tape, and a group of us watched a taped lecture. It was boring, and it was linear (chapter 1, exercise 1, quiz 1, chapter 2, exercise 2, quiz 2, and so on and so forth). Having just taken all my college accounting courses, it wasn’t long before I realized how much of that information that I already knew and was fresh in my mind. After about the third class, I decided to skip the rest and just study on my own using the books. I sat for the exam just after graduation and passed all four parts, but I spent a lot of time doing so!
Now, over 20 years later, I am leading a company that has a better, faster way! Honestly, I wish I had the Surgent back when I was studying for two main reasons: adaptive learning and ReadySCORE™.
Adaptive learning
You might have heard a lot about adaptive learning already from some of the other big CPA Review courses. Truthfully, they tend to throw around the term “adaptive” pretty freely, with nothing to really back it up. To them, it’s just another marketing buzzword – maybe there’s a small feature in their course that may be a customizable, but that’s pretty much it.
At Surgent, on the other hand, our course features a proprietary adaptive software – A.S.A.P.® Technology – which features state-of-the-art artificial intelligence with sophisticated algorithms to create a personalized learning program that adapts in real-time based on a student’s study progression. It generates study material based on what a student actually needs to learn, instead of wasting time with what they already know.
In turn, Surgent drastically reduces study time while making sure that you’re ready to sit for the CPA Exam.
ReadySCORE™
Surgent’s “ah-ha” feature is no doubt the ReadySCORE. ReadySCORE uses each student’s study performance as well as the CPA Exam content weightings to estimate what they’d score on the Exam. ReadySCORE is presented cumulatively, but also by content area and topic, and by question type (MCQs vs SIMs), students know exactly where they need to focus their study time.
Right off the bat, a student can better assess how close he or she is to passing the exam before they dive into studying. Better yet, ReadySCORE lets students take the guesswork out of when they’re actually ready to sit for the Exam.
If I had a ReadySCORE when I was preparing 20 year ago, I would have realized how much time I was wasting by studying for what I already knew, and I would have felt way more prepared going in to sit for the Exam itself. I mean, why study what you already know? Focus on what you don’t!
That is where Surgent helps students the most!
We’ve found that students who achieve a 75% ReadySCORE across all content areas, topics, and question types pass the CPA Exam a whopping 88% of the time. In fact, students increase their ReadySCORE, on average, from 43% to 84% while studying with Surgent!*!
So I ask you, what is your ReadySCORE?
Evan Kramer
CEO, Surgent