Chapter 5 Links to Intermediate Accounting 11th Edition Chapters 35CHAPTER 5Links To Intermediate Accounting, 11th Edition ChaptersLINK YOUR CONTENT TO THE CPA EXAMShould we teach to the CPA exam? This question has been hotly debated by accountingfaculty throughout the nation for several decades. Some say absolutely not! I will notallow the CPA exam to drive my class content. I will teach what I believe is important.Others say why not. They believe there is a direct link to student classroom performanceon the CPA exam and performance in the profession. Why not help students achieve twogoals at once – pass the exam and perform well in the profession. Finally, the middleground approach is to teach and test some CPA topics with little or no emphasis on theCPA exam. No matter how you answer the question, I hope you agree that the CPA examhas some relevancy to an accounting major’s skill set. Clearly there is value to earning theCPA title. The AICPA certainly believes so, as they often quote: “Licensing of CPAs helpsto protect the public from substandard work performed by incompetent individuals.”1 Ifyou desire to help your students pass the CPA exam read on.Chapter Purpose and Organization1 Information for Uniform CPA Examination Candidates, seventeenth edition, page 1, paragraph 2.36 Chapter 5 Links to Intermediate Accounting 11th Edition ChaptersThe purpose of this chapter is to help identify some of the skills that an accounting majorshould master to not only successfully complete the Financial Accounting and Reporting(FAR) section of the exam, but also to succeed in the accounting world. Look at thischapter as a “laundry list” of important content areas. By helping your students to masterthe content, you are increasing their chances of passing the CPA exam. A separate content list is presented for each chapter of the 11th edition of IntermediateAccounting. (A separate content list for Fundamentals of Intermediate Accounting isavailable on the website) Isn’t this rather subjective on my part? Yes, somewhat. Howeverit is based upon my 17 years of experience in the CPA exam review arena. Hopefully,future communications will also include your input.Where’s the Value?What value is there in it for you? The lists might help you to prioritize your coursecontent. The lists might also help you to identify important material that is essential tooperate within today’s business environment. Recall the CPA exam content specificationsserve as the ‘blueprint” for exam development and are based upon the results of periodicstudies of public accounting practice and the evaluations of CPA practitioners andacademicians. When you link your course content to the content specifications, you are ineffect covering CPA exam content as well as helping to teach some of the skills thattoday’s entry level professionals should possess. You are channeling your students’ efforts.You are helping your students to focus on the key concepts.You Have Your Own Ideas About Course ContentYour ideas about intermediate accounting course content and how it should be linked to theCPA exam just might be better than mine. Your experience counts. Your ideas could alsopossibly be the same as mine. Why not consider my representations? I will consider yours.Let’s get a dialogue going. I am confident that the AICPA would listen to us if wepresented our thoughts about today’s important intermediate accounting areas. We canwork together to help develop future guidelines. Ideas, thoughts, and concerns abouttopical areas and course content as it relates to the CPA exam will be communicated to youvia quarterly emails entitled The CPA Connection, scheduled to begin in April 2003. New Questions For the CBTFor almost two years, groups of professionals and academicians have been working tocreate new questions for the computer-based test (CBT). Does this affect the contentareas? Will the questions be so different that our experiences in the past will be irrelevant?I don’t think so. The examiners will continue to test the fundamentals of intermediate accounting. Whilethe questions may be written in a manner that integrates more information or that relatesthe information to more real-world situations, the underlying, fundamental accountingconcepts are still the key to passing the exam. The 11th edition of Intermediate Accountingcontent is central to the material.Chapter 5 Links to Intermediate Accounting 11th Edition Chapters 37The Choice Is YoursAuthors Kieso, Weygandt, and Warfield have worked diligently to prescribe coursecontent. The authors have presented an entire year of coursework. However, the ultimatechoice of content is yours. You will decide what to present to your students. See the itemslisted in this chapter as a guideline. Whether you totally agree or disagree with the ideaspresented here, let’s communicate. Your input is welcome. You are a valued Wileycustomer using the 11th edition of Intermediate Accounting. Your opinion counts. Atextbook is a guide. These are times of unprecedented change for the accountingprofession. Let’s work together to meet the challenges of change and to continue to helptoday’s accounting majors become the very best CPAs that they can be.CHAPTER DESIGNThe material below is presented in tabular form with a table corresponding to each chapterof the 11th edition of the Kieso, Weygandt, Warfield, Intermediate Accounting text. Thefirst column of each table identifies topics contained within the chapter that are consideredto be essential knowledge for passing the CPA exam. Look at these topics as the “meat andpotatoes” of the CPA exam. If you think about the CPA exam as a meal, the beverage,dessert, and side dishes make the meal interesting, but the real heart of the meal is theentrée. Without the entrée there would be no real substance. Candidates pass this exam bylearning and understanding the fundamentals – the meat and potatoes. The second column of the tables presents the testable concepts. Consider this column tobe a list of items or key concepts and the manner in which they could be tested. The topiccolumn represents what might be tested and the testable concept column is how it mightbe tested. Am I guessing here? Not really.