DIFFICULTY OF THE CPA EXAM EXPLORING THE 50 PERCENTAGE PASS RATE
How hard is CPA exam? Why pass rate is only 50%?
Why is the CPA Exam Hard?
To understand what makes the CPA Exam so challenging, let’s take a synopsis of the exam. The CPA Exam is made up of four distinct parts: Monetary Auditing and Reporting (FAR), Auditing and Attestation (AUD), Regulation (REG), and Business Environment and Concepts (BEC). Per exam, the section focuses on various accounting knowledge and operates questions kinds like simulations and multiple-choice questions to evaluate your knowledge. Every section has a time limitation of four hours, or a total of 16 hours to conclude the entire CPA Exam.
To compute, the US CPA Exam is hard, because there is a comprehensive amount of details covered on the exam and, with most examination courses, quite a plenty of study time is required.
What is the Most challenging Section of the CPA Exam?
Pupils often convey that Financial Accounting and Reporting (FAR) is the most difficult factor of the CPA Exam to pass because it is the most exhaustive section. Nevertheless, how hard you find any given exam section will depend on your accountancy knowledge. The CPA Exam is deemed one of the most formidable accounting credentialing exams due to the mere scope of the four exam areas. Going over a CPA Exam section's lodestar can help you resolve which section you will feel most prepared to tackle based on your experience.
How Prolonged Does It Take to Pass the CPA Exam?
While CPA candidates have up to four hours on each exam area, all four areas of the CPA Exam must be passed within an 18-month testing window, beginning after you pass the initial exam section. Fortunately, the exam areas do not have to be taken in order. We recommend that you start your study strategy with FAR, then move on to AUD and REG, and end with BEC. Carrying the CPA Exam sections in this order will permit you to build upon the details you have in to lay that cumulative knowledge to each exam section. Comprehend more about why we recommend taking the exam sections in this order – and how you can pass a CPA Exam area in three to four weeks.
How Long Does It Take to Become Exam Ready?
The amount of stretch it takes students to become examination prepared depends on many variables. Many review courses advise reading through every page of every book, attending every lecture, and responding to every question in the course – and then taking various sample tests to kick! Surgent CPA Review authorizes candidates to study more virtually by directing them to the scope and questions they need to understand to be able to pass. Plus, Surgent is the singular course with an exam-readiness metric, ReadySCORE, that offers candidates an estimate of what they would achieve if they were to sit for the CPA Exam at that point – to within 4 points of actual CPA Exam scores. While some study courses suggest spending hundreds of hours exploring for just one exam section, Surgent has reduced our students’ intermediate study time until exam preparation to 46 hours per exam section, on average.
What is the Pass Rates for Each CPA Exam Section?
The CPA Exam's moderate national pass rate is around 50%. That indicates that most candidates do not crack the CPA Exam the foremost time and must retake at least one section of the examination. The pass rate can be smashed down by exam section, indicating that FAR acquires the lowest scores and BEC receives the loftiest. The subsequent chart represents cumulative pass rates noted by the AICPA for the first three quarters of 2019.
CPA Exam Section Pass Rate
AUD
52.06%
BEC
60.45%
FAR
48.30%
REG
56.51%
Do Questions on the CPA Exam Get Harder?
The CPA Exam has a testing prototype called multi-stage testing. All candidates begin with a medium-difficulty test. If you achieve well on the first test, the next test you receive will have more difficult questions. If you do not achieve as well on the first test, you will acquire a second medium-difficulty test.
That’s why boosting your proficiency across all CPA Exam topics is significant. To match the increasing tribulation of the actual CPA Exam, Surgent presented MyMCQ, a difficulty progression component. As candidates move through their examination course, multiple-choice questions will rise in difficulty to fit the candidates’ increased proficiency level, just like in the multi-stage testing model used by the AICPA.
Is the CPA Exam Curved?
There’s a lot of disarrays out there regarding whether the CPA Exam is graded on a curve – implying that the prevailing grade would be based on a comparison of all test takers, as opposed to how the person scored.
The AICPA has verified that CPA Exam is not graded on a curve – but that’s not to state that it works in the same way as a standard examination. As you presumably know, each area of the exam is reported on a scale that ranges from 0 to 99 and to crack a section, the candidate must achieve a minimum of 75.
Within each examination, three tests vary in tribulation. Each candidate will begin with a test of medium tribulation, and their performance will depict whether the next test they acquire is more difficult – basically curving the exam based on the individual’s performance, while still grading the exam unassisted by other test takers.
The Most suitable Way to Prepare for the CPA Exam?
The soundest way to prepare for the CPA Exam is to pick a review course that will not just assist you to passing but will also assist you to pass each section on the first try, so you haven’t stuck re-taking any section of the CPA Examination. Even when studying with most examination courses, about half of all CPA candidates have to retake at least one section of the exam. Time devoured retaking a section of the examination cuts into the 18-month window that candidates have to crack all four sections, so selecting a review course that esteems your time is significant.