MACC Readiness Exam for Foundations Course, ACCT 562, Intermediate Accounting
What is this?
All incoming MACC students are required to take, and pass, a readiness exam. You can see a sample
exam, with answers, here. The exam covers material from introductory and intermediate financial
accounting. The exam will have 30 multiple choice questions, and students will have 90 minutes to
complete the exam. A minimum score of 80% (or at least 24 of the 30 questions correct) is required.
It is our expectation that all students will have passed the readiness exam prior to the start of their
first semester in the MACC program.
Why is Olin doing this?
The purpose of the exam is to help us better target the information provided during orientation.
During the orientation period there will be a review course (from August 15-August 26) which is
intended to ensure that all students possess a minimum understanding of introductory and
intermediate financial accounting. This level of understanding is necessary in many of the financial
accounting requirements and electives that you will be taking as a MACC student. The readiness
exam will help to ensure that students are receiving help in areas where it is needed, but do not have
to sit through discussions that are of little or no value.
Your results on this exam will not show up on your transcript or in any way impact your GPA. We
will use the results of this exam to provide additional help to any students who demonstrate a need.
Any student who does not meet this target will be provided with an opportunity to improve their skills
through the review course (August 15-August 26) and then retake the readiness exam. Note that the
review course will convey no credits, and also has no cost.
What should I do over the summer?
Please look over the sample exam provided (here), and consider taking it as a self-assessment. While
the specific questions and topics will vary from exam to exam, this should give you a broad idea of the
topics and level of difficulty. Based on your self-assessment, decide where you fall:
1. Very confident.
If you are very confident of your ability to pass the readiness exam, you have nothing that you need to
do over the summer. You can wait to take the exam at the end of orientation on August 29th. Be careful
though – if you do NOT pass the exam on August 29th, you will have already missed the orientation
review. If you prefer, and if you are on campus, you may opt to take the exam earlier. We have
scheduled a time on August 10th for those who arrive on campus in time for the full orientation program.
2. Somewhat confident.
If you are somewhat confident in your ability to pass the readiness exam, you should consider reviewing
the material which you find most difficult. Any introductory or intermediate financial accounting
textbook should provide an adequate review; some that we use here at Olin are listed at the end of this
page. You should also plan on taking the readiness exam prior to the orientation review course – August
10th would be the best day to do this. By doing so, you will have the opportunity of taking those
portions of the review course which will be most useful to you, and have a second opportunity (on
August 29th) to pass the readiness exam.
3. Somewhat concerned.
If you are somewhat concerned about your ability to pass the readiness exam, and feel that reviewing
material over the summer may not be sufficient, you should plan to take the readiness exam on or
before August 10th. This will allow you to take most or even all of the review course between August 15
and August 29, before taking the readiness exam for a second time on August 29th.
4. Very concerned.
If you are very concerned about your ability to pass the readiness exam (for example, if you’ve never
taken an intermediate accounting class) you should contact Tom Fields (tfields@wustl.edu) during the
summer. We can discuss other alternatives to making sure that you get the instruction that you need to
succeed in and benefit from the MACC program.
Conclusion
Again, the idea is that the exam will help to determine your level of preparation for the program, so that
we can help to ensure that all students have a level of knowledge that will allow them to succeed in the
program. If you have questions or concerns about the process, please let us know (tfields@wustl.edu).
Recommended Introductory Textbooks
Financial Accounting: An Introduction to Concepts, Methods and Uses, by Stickney, Weil, Schipper, and
Francis. Published by South-Western.
Financial Accounting, by Libby, Libby and Short. Published by McGraw-Hill.
Rcommended Intermediate Textbooks
Intermediate Accounting, by Kieso, Weygandt and Warfield. Published by Wiley.
Financial Reporting and Analysis, by Revsine, Collin and Johnson. Published by McGraw-Hill.