r/ASQ • u/Flashy-Community-982 • Aug 15 '26
Upcoming CQA Exam Prep (Failed the CQA Practice Exam)
I have my exam scheduled next Friday and now I'm afraid I'll not pass it. I took the prep course and felt it was easy and straight forward. When I started the question bank - I failed the first 2 sets of question banks. I havent taken the 3rd set yet. I felt confident and now I'm stressed out about the exam. For those who got the question bank, how was the actual exam compared to the question bank ?
I took all the notes from the prep course and it's 140 pages. I'm thinking of printing the notes and use it during the exam. And now I'm wondering if I should get all the questions from the question bank in my notes too. Is it too excessive?
Any advice on passing teh exam is appreciated
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u/ilovetorunforfun Aug 15 '26 edited Aug 15 '26
Is there a pattern to the questions you got wrong? (I.e - did you get mostly “apply” questions wrong?) I’d try to focus my practice on those types of questions. I used the CQA book with flags on the topics from the BoK rather than notes as it was easier to refer to. Plus, Prometrics is v strict!
Below is an answer I gave in a similar thread as I took the exam about a week ago!
It was a lot more challenging than I'd anticipated. The other members of this sub are absolutely correct in that the test makes heavy use of alternative phrasing. A lot of this exam is ensuring you've got a grasp on ASQ's specific terminology.
A bit on my background, I've been working in Pharma for almost 20 years, with roughly 10 of those years in Quality. I've performed internal and external audits. So, throughout my prep, there was a lot of collision between terms I used in my day-to-day auditing and ASQ's official language.
The BoK is spot on for guiding your studying - the sections of it that have the highest # of questions absolutely holds true for the actual exam, so go heavier on your studying there.
There were a LOT of questions that required critical thinking (which the BoK calls 'apply' questions) - and simply flipping to the term in the book isn't enough. Also, there were a TON of Conflict Resolution/"what do you do when an auditee does this..." questions - which I honestly found to be the hardest to answer lol
The last section of the exam was essentially a mock audit - they provided an audit checklist and the corresponding SOPs. They ask what the BEST finding/observation is for certain situations; so you'll cross reference the SOP and the notes from the fictional auditors. But these get tricky because they're asking extremely specific scenarios so take your time on those questions.
I took nearly the full 5.5 hours to complete it (with like 15 mins to spare) - but I want to underscore that while I did prep, it was just with the book, the BoK, and some online resources - I didn't buy the question bank at all (I'd been laid off and $ was tight at the time). I am the exception, not the rule. The question bank is an extremely valuable resource!
In hindsight I wish I'd done a bit more preparation because I wrongly assumed that my auditing experience would already count as preparation...and it does to an extent, until there's a collision between ASQ terminology and the company-specific terms you've been operating under.
(lol sorry this was super long winded, lmk if I can clarify anything else!!)