Statement of Ray M. Sommerfeld President of the American Accounting Association Before the National Conference on Proposed Changes in The Uniform CPA Examination.

Abstract The article focuses on Ray M. Sommerfeld's,1986-87 President of the American Accounting Association (AAA), opinion concerning the Board of Examiners' proposed changes to the uniform CPA examination. The 1985-86 AAA Executive Committee on November 1, 1985, voted unanimously to endorse a portion of a report that it had received from a 1983-85 AAA Committee on Professional Examinations. That AAA committee was critical of recent trends in the scope and content of the CPA examination. The portion of its report that was endorsed by the Executive Committee concluded that the exam's coverage was too narrow and that its manner of questioning candidates was too mechanical. At its next meeting, on April 12, 1986, the Executive Committee voted, with one abstention, to support the position that candidates for the examination should have completed all of their educational requirements prior to applying to take the exam. Author's personal concern about the CPA exam over the past 25 years has largely been that it has traditionally reflected too little of what the best academics have to offer and too much on the most mundane aspects of practice. The manner in which the Board reached its conclusions enforces this innate bias.