I took my first unit exam in my Financial Accounting course
at Penn Foster
College. I have to be honest, there were times during
the exam that I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. It really doesn’t matter that this exam is
open-book, because the examples in the book didn’t help me that much. Still, I did the best I could and kept my
fingers crossed as I hit the “submit” button.
My score: 80! It’s not great, but it’s a passing grade, and
I’ll take it!
I got 5 questions out of 25 incorrect. The final portion of my exam required me to
prepare journal entries for a business, as well as an adjusted trial balance,
an income statement and a statement of retained earnings. I never did get my adjusted trial balance to,
well…balance. As a result, I could not
get the other statements to give me the proper answers, either. I just got as close as I could to one of the
answers in the multiple choice selections and went with it. As a result, I only got one wrong in this section. Still, this will not serve me well when I
get to the final proctored exam.
Thinking that maybe I was just too slow to pick up on
Financial Accounting, I later went to a message board for Penn
Foster College
students and looked up “Financial Accounting”.
It seems I’m not the only one who has had trouble with this course. Many other students, some of them who are
accountants with years of experience, said they also had a tough time figuring
it out. So, it’s not just me.
I think there should be an introductory accounting course
before students get to Financial Accounting.
The Math for Business and Finance Course does not prepare students for
the Financial Accounting course, and this course doesn’t seem like an
introductory course to me. I have also
been looking up some supplemental material online to just give me the basics of
accounting in “plain English”. I did
find a good resource at quickmba.com, although I may also look for an “Accounting
for Dummies” book, too. I certainly feel
dumb as I struggle through this course.
I’m taking Easter off before I hit the books for my next
assignment. Only three more exams to
go.