There’s been a big anti-lockdown protest in Dublin today. I’ve been staying in all day studying for my CMA accountancy qualification exams and had no idea it was going on. A friend sent me a video posted on social media, and then I noticed the sound of helicopters overhead. The gardaí clashed with protestors and several were arrested after setting off fireworks. Apparently the protests are planned to occur weekly on Saturdays for the foreseeable future, and there’s also a big protest being planned for St. Patrick’s Day. It will be one to remember!
A clip from a video showing the scene on Grafton Street earlier today:
My first practice run on the CMA exam questions wasn’t too bad… I scored 74% on 50 multiple-choice questions covering the first section of material. I made some stupid mistakes due to misreading the questions (swapping true vs. false, etc.), otherwise my score would have been higher. In the actual exams, you only need to score 50% on the multiple choice questions in order to advance to the 2 essays, but the final score in a combination of multiple-choice and essays. It’s even possible to pass the exams on just the multiple questions alone, so obviously it’s to one’s advantage to score as high as possible on them. Another challenge is the time limit. In each of the actual exams, you have up to 3 hours to complete 100 multiple choice questions an an additional hour to complete 2 essay questions (any unused time from multiple-choice questions can be used for the essay questions).
I’ve also been practicing how to use my new HP financial calculator, which is approved for use during the exams and has some financial functions built in that can be used to save same (e.g., calculating depreciation, present time value of money, etc.). I’m a little rusty on the reverse Polish notation (RPN) entry-method that is the default on HP calculators, but it’s coming back to me quickly.
Until next time….
