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2024 CPA Exams F.A.Q.s Answered
May 3, 2024
In this episode, Nate answers the most common questions about the 2024 CPA exams after the April 24th score release. IMPORTANT LINKS: Master your study process by attending one of our free study training workshops: https://www.superfastcpa.com/study-secrets/ FULL EPISODE PAGE: https://www.superfastcpa.com/2024-cpa-exams-f-a-q-s-answered/ Episode Timestamps: 0:00 Introduction 01:13 Test Dates and Score Release Considerations 12:48 Which Discipline Exam Should I Take? 16:07 Study Tips Based on the Exam 19:22 Study Tips: Back to the Basics
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0:00
Welcome to another episode of the CPA Exam Experience Podcast from SuperfastCPA
0:05
So in today's episode, I'm basically just going to kind of give a rest of 2024
0:12
outlook, or maybe some tips and commentary on the different discipline exams, the
0:18
score releases, basically the 2024 format. Well, not just the exam format and the new discipline exams, but the score release
0:28
format has really changed the strategy of when to set test dates or how, you know
0:36
what to do after you've taken an exam, if you should keep studying for the same one
0:41
or move on to the next one, because it's not just a couple of weeks to where
0:45
you'll find out it could be months. So there's just a lot of different factors that we'll kind of talk through
0:51
And then just some general study tips, because again, another form of questions
0:58
we've been getting a lot is how to study differently for these different exams or
1:05
for a specific discipline exam. So I've got some comments on that
1:10
So basically we'll just go into my slides here. So some of the test date and score release considerations
1:18
So starting with timelines for the exams. So what we've always told people in the past and, you know, our whole approach is
1:28
cutting out the fluff from the study process. Our big claims are that you can move through the material faster, take exams faster, pass
1:37
faster. So that's all true. However, it's more important than ever. Whoops, go back
1:44
It's more important than ever to be really, really prepared when you go in to take an
1:50
exam. Because again, previously with continuous testing, you know, there was some
1:58
there was some argument to setting dates and just going in, seeing how you do and kind
2:04
of iterating from there. But with these now where you have to wait months for a score, you don't want to do
2:10
that. You want to be scoring, you know, on your re-review sets or like sets of 30, if
2:17
you're familiar with our process. You want to be scoring at least in the 80s, if not 85 or above when you take those
2:27
practice sets. You just want to be as prepared as possible. And then. Yeah, I never really liked this, but again, it can make sense because if you
2:42
if you just have a specific window a month or two from now where you can take an exam
2:49
or the other way that this will happen is you take an exam, you're not going to get a
2:54
score for that again for two or three months. And so what do you do next
3:00
Well, if you start studying for the next exam and you have to wait two or three months
3:06
before you found out what even happened with that first exam you took, then you're
3:11
somewhat preparing for two or there's at least the question, should I be still reviewing
3:17
for the one that I took because maybe I failed it? And three months from now, if I did fail it, I will have forgotten everything
3:25
So, again, it just this whole format introduces a lot of new questions as far as like
3:30
what to be doing. OK, so as far as the timelines for the exams
3:36
I think. You know, in light of this, previously we would say five to six weeks
3:46
Now, maybe what I tell people is more like six to eight weeks, knowing that eight weeks
3:53
is two months and that just that seems way too long to me still
3:57
But anyway, somewhere in there, somewhere between five to seven weeks. So maybe you have five weeks of covering all the material and then a week for a final
4:07
review, or maybe it's five weeks and then a two week final review
4:12
Or the other the other version of this that we've told some of our customers or clients
4:21
and stuff like that would be spend the first month studying. Now, these would be like new customers
4:29
So they're kind of learning our process, our study process and covering the material
4:35
But for the first month or so, maybe you don't set an exam date
4:40
You just start working through the material, following the strategies. You're trying to learn the material and kind of get your process really effective at the
4:49
same time. So you study for a month or two, maybe not two
4:55
You study for a month and see how far you get, you know, in the lessons in your review
5:01
course, and then you set a test date based on that. So if there's 10 modules in your review course for that section and within a month you've
5:10
gotten through, I don't know, three or four modules. So you haven't quite gotten halfway
5:17
But, you know, in the last week or so, you're feeling like the process is starting to
5:22
click and, you know, you could go a little bit faster. So then maybe you set your test date four or five weeks from that point
5:30
But that at least, that way of doing it lets you get a month in or three to four weeks
5:37
into the material and just kind of see how it's going before you set an exam date, which
5:42
you will then either have to, you know, pay money to move back or, you know, the worst
5:50
thing to do is people tell me this all the time, though
5:55
I'm just going to go in and see how I do. Even I'm pretty sure I'm going to fail
5:59
It's there's no reason to pay $300 to do that. Anyways, so somewhere in there, you know, six to seven weeks, or if you're just starting
6:13
on your first section, you spend a month studying to just see how it goes and then make
6:19
a decision from there. The thing that I would not do, and again, this happens quite a bit, is schedule all
6:27
four. And then you're kind of locked into like if things go off the rails, life happens
6:35
I mean, any combination of things and you're forced to either, you know, just
6:42
Like a like an NTS is going to run out or something like that, or multiple NTS are going
6:48
to expire. And then you just have to accept that that's going to happen
6:53
You've burned $700 for no reason. And you're just choosing one out of the three you have scheduled to actually focus on
7:00
So I would kind of schedule them one at a time or two at the most
7:05
Okay. And that brings us down here. Tips on preparing for two exams at the same time
7:12
Now, fully studying for two at the same time, I would not recommend at all
7:16
You know, you would not want to do a thing where you set, you know, like FAR one day
7:24
seven weeks from now, and then reg like the next day and then think you're just parallel
7:29
studying for two, like fully studying for two at the same time
7:34
That's you never want to be doing that. Maybe if you're not working full time and you can do
7:39
But even then, it would just be better to do, you know, three or four weeks on one exam
7:43
Take it three to four weeks on the next one and take it. Where this makes sense is kind of the scenario I mentioned where you, I guess the most common
7:59
scenario would be you've taken an exam or you're going to take an exam and then you just
8:05
know on these score release dates that you're not going to get your score for two months or
8:09
more. So then you have to wonder, what do I do? After I take this exam while I'm waiting for two months
8:18
So. Let's say that you felt decent about the attempt. Obviously, it's nearly impossible to know just from taking the exam whether you passed or
8:28
failed. But if you feel decent, like there's a reasonable chance I pass that, then I would
8:34
definitely move on to studying for the next exam. And so that would be, you know, your main study session
8:41
You've moved on to the new exam. So let's say you just took FAR and then you start, you know, the morning study session in
8:50
the mini sessions throughout the day, like our whole process. And you're moving on to REG
8:54
So your two hours in the morning would be REG following just the, you know, the standard
8:59
study approach. You're fully studying for REG. Now, the thing that you could add in to either keep FAR fresh or and it's never a bad
9:11
idea because, again, two months from now, if you do find out you failed it, then you
9:17
will have forgotten most of what you had studied. And so you're kind of starting over
9:22
So that's never ideal. So an easy way to kind of stay fresh on the previous exam you took that you're waiting on
9:29
the score on. I guess the easiest, the most simple version would be to divide your mini
9:36
sessions in half throughout the day. So when you're reading our notes, taking our quizzes, maybe it's like until 2 p.m
9:46
I'm going to keep doing REG, the new section. And then for the afternoon, all my mini sessions are on FAR just to kind of keep things
9:54
fresh. And when you're doing that, I would almost exclusively do the quizzes just because
10:00
they're questions. They hit everything. Every five questions is random. So the quizzes are kind of the best tool for that
10:07
Now, if you want to add in another step that would be more effective, but is obviously
10:11
more time consuming, then, you know, you would still just be studying in the morning for
10:16
your new exam like normal. But you would do a set of 20 to 30 questions at night for FAR or whatever the previous
10:27
exam you're waiting on the score is. So roughly half the mini sessions and then a re-review set at night would be real
10:38
solid, you know, if not still improve where you were on test day by the time you get
10:43
your score release back or your score back. So that if you do need to retake it, you're almost ready right then and there
10:50
And maybe you just, you know, do two weeks of full restudying to get really prepared to
10:56
retake it. But anyways, so that's. Those are just some things you can do when it comes to preparing for
11:06
I guess preparing is not the right word. You'd be kind of waiting for a score on one, still trying to keep it fresh or slightly
11:13
improve in case you need to retake it while putting in minimal time, because again, you
11:18
don't know. Maybe you passed. Anyways, that's something you can do. And then I guess the question of if this window's coming up and let's say right now
11:30
I'm in a window where I can't take one of the exams I want to take and I've got to
11:34
wait. So, but there's 10 weeks until then or something. I still think it's better to fully study for one and then maybe go down to this, even
11:46
if you haven't taken them both or you haven't taken the first one. I still think it's better to fully study for one each day, get through all the material
11:55
and then kind of go down to that maintenance phase that I just talked about
12:00
But yeah, preparing for two where you're going to take two exams really close together
12:05
and the preparation window includes both. That's just really tough to do well, in my opinion
12:12
So you want to avoid that if possible. But that is one way of doing it
12:17
I guess the main recommendation would be split the window in half and fully study for
12:23
one. Then maybe take it down to the maintenance thing I just talked about and then fully
12:29
study for the second one. But that scenario is not ideal to like try to fully study and prepare for two at the
12:38
same time. So I would pretty much never recommend that. OK. Which discipline exam
12:45
We've been getting asked this a ton. OK, so we we've now had the first score release, which was just let's see, I think it
12:57
was just for discipline exams. Right. So. We got a lot of messages from people that passed ISC
13:06
ISC is almost purely conceptual. It's all IT concepts, you know, but it is mostly purely conceptual
13:18
So if you're good at memorization or just making sense of concepts and reading a lot
13:29
I think our notes cover ISC really well. I mean, again, the way we make our notes is we just go task by task down the blueprint
13:38
and directly address every little representative task that's mentioned. And so along with those past comments on ISC, we did get a lot of comments that a lot
13:51
of what the notes covered people saw in the exams. But then the other thing we're hearing is that a lot of what a lot of what people saw
14:03
in the exam was not covered in their review course. So where these 20, 24 versions are new, especially these discipline exams, there is
14:14
just this whole period of what the review courses cover and what might actually appear
14:23
on the exams. Now, the only constant thing is the blueprints that the AICPA has
14:30
provided. I mean, I I have those here. I could drag them onto the screen, but nothing to really show you on those
14:37
Anyways, I do think that all things being equal, the least amount of time, if you are
14:46
starting from scratch, like bare zero somehow on the three discipline exams, I do
14:51
think ISC is the easiest. So I'll say that at least. Now, if you work in tax
15:01
And if you've taken reg or basically if you work in tax and you just feel pretty
15:06
comfortable with. You know, the tax laws in general, then TCP is a great choice
15:15
I think bar is the hardest. Discipline exam pretty easily, actually, if not the hardest exam audit didn't really
15:28
change, whereas reg and far got some significant areas kind of chopped off and added
15:33
to bar basically, which is why bar is a tough exam. So, yeah, I would say ISC is the easiest if you have direct experience in tax or you did
15:48
well on reg or you took reg fairly fairly recently or I don't know, in the last year
15:54
or so. TCP is basically reg part two, so. So I would rank them ISC easiest, TCP and then bar
16:07
OK, so we've been getting asked this a lot, not really this exact question, but the
16:13
question of like, I'm going to take bar, how do I study for bar compared to far or I'm
16:20
going to take ISC, how do I study for it based compared to the other sections
16:26
The answer is the study approach doesn't really change. Well, it doesn't change
16:33
I guess naturally you might spend more time like let's take ISC where I said it's
16:41
mostly conceptual. Still, the primary thing you'd want to be doing is practice questions from your review
16:47
course. And then, of course, our many sessions thing where the rest of your day you're
16:53
using all of our different study tools at different times, listening to the audio notes
16:57
reading the review notes. Like I said, our review notes and audios cover not just ISC, but all the topics really
17:06
well because we we directly use the blueprints and we just go down the line topic by
17:12
topic. They match the blueprints exactly. But anyways, I guess naturally you might spend less time
17:24
Well, you won't be spending a bunch of time reperforming calculation based questions on
17:28
ISC, for example, but you're primarily still working through questions, making sense of
17:35
them, making flashcards for things that you've missed two, three, four times
17:42
Just everything from our pro course, all the pro course key strategies just apply
17:49
The approach doesn't really change. But I guess with either audit or ISC, where it's mostly remembering and understanding
17:58
type tasks, you would just naturally spend more time on concepts and memorization than
18:05
you would on, you know, reworking calculation based questions or and or simulations
18:14
So the study approach doesn't really change the core basics of using the MCQs to inform
18:21
you know, what you need to know on a per topic basis and how the questions appear, how
18:27
they're worded, how the solutions work, just really making sense of the questions
18:31
That's still like your primary thing. And then with our mini sessions, that doesn't change at all
18:37
You want to be grinding through quizzes, trying to cumulatively read slash listen through
18:43
our notes at least once a week. And that's where all that just that repeat exposure
18:49
That's what our study tools make it so easy to do or simple and convenient because you
18:56
can do it as you go throughout your day. But it's just that deep level, deep layer understanding, deep level understanding comes
19:04
in layers as you do the mini sessions and just read the notes over and over, listen
19:09
to the audios over and over, take our quizzes over and over. So that just solves a lot of problems for you in advance by constantly doing the mini
19:19
sessions and using our study tools. OK, so a few study tips
19:25
This always goes back to the basics. I'm just going to reveal all these because this is what I want to point out
19:35
OK. So the big thing with our process and our strategies like our pro course
19:44
Our strategies are what will help you be so much more efficient and effective with your
19:49
study, which means you can literally spend less study hours overall and get better
19:54
results than someone who's just constantly watching and rewatching lectures. Right. However
20:04
The your routine and the consistency has to be in place first
20:11
So let's use the trying to learn the guitar example. If you sit down to practice once or twice a week and then maybe sometimes a week goes
20:21
by, you don't practice at all, your skills are just like never going to develop
20:27
Right. You've got to be sitting down doing it each day for the actual skills
20:31
It's like you can learn the what are they like, learn the scales, learn the chords
20:38
You know, you can like memorize those. But you having like a practical command or a being able to actually play and do it well
20:47
and you're like your muscle memory, that will never happen unless you're doing it every
20:52
day. So. Whoops. So our strategies and the effectiveness of your just basically how good you are at
21:01
studying. And that's a very real thing. How good you are at studying at this point
21:06
Your routine and the consistency has to be in place. So that's first
21:10
So the two hours in the morning and what I mean by how to tell is if
21:18
Because we hear this constantly, people like I'm just not a morning person, some some
21:23
form of just I don't want to study in the mornings, basically
21:28
Studying in the evenings. You're fighting yourself to sit down and do it to make time
21:32
The evenings are obviously when everyone's at home. Dinner's happening. Your people are trying to make plans
21:39
You're just fighting off endless distractions. But all that being said, if you can sit down and study each night and literally make it
21:48
happen and it's effective and you feel OK, like you're not so tired, you're not so
21:53
tired, you're not so tired, you're not so tired, you're not so tired, you're not so
21:59
tired from work that you're trying to even stay awake, let alone make sense of these
22:05
questions and simulations in front of you. If that's all working and you can be consistent and do it two hours every night, great
22:13
You know, it doesn't it doesn't really like in a vacuum. It doesn't matter when you study
22:18
However. Ninety eight percent of people. Can solve all those problems for themselves if they would simply get up and just do it
22:27
two hours in the morning, two hours in the morning. I won't get into all of our strategies, but you can watch our free training to get an
22:36
overview on those or go straight to the source and just get our pro course or I would
22:43
recommend our total bundle if you have all four sections left, because the pro course
22:49
will teach you the optimal version of every aspect of the study process and how it all
22:54
fits together. The whole idea is to be layering. Advantages together so that every aspect of your study process is benefiting every other
23:04
aspect of your study process. And then the other thing people don't realize is when if you have one big weakness in
23:10
your, you know, all the different kind of strategies or study methods you're using, if
23:15
you have one big weakness, it's going to kind of ruin everything else you're trying to
23:19
do. If if you're just if you have no re-review process in place, even if you are making
23:27
the time to study and when you study, it's pretty effective. You feel like you're learning each topic, but then you get to the end of eight weeks
23:34
and you've forgotten most of it, then all you've done is wasted your own time
23:39
Right. So the re-review or the retention aspect has to be there
23:43
And obviously on the other end, if you just can't get yourself together to study
23:47
consistently every day, then your whole process is dead before you even start
23:51
So all the little things need to be there. Um, okay. So studying in the mornings, I would just say for most people, unless it's physically
24:03
impossible for you to get up at four if needed. I mean, that just might be what it takes, which it does suck
24:12
That's exactly what I did. And a lot of people on our podcast eventually got to where they're like, okay, I'm like
24:19
BSing myself. I'm not consistent. I'm just going to do this. Once and for all
24:26
And they start getting up at four and that's like the first domino to fall to them
24:31
finally breaking through and passing their exams. So whether it's four, maybe you can get it done at five or you work from home and you
24:39
don't have to be online until eight, then you get to start at six, whatever
24:44
Whatever that has to be, I would say for pretty much everyone, the mornings will work
24:49
better unless you legitimately can make it happen each night and it's effective and
24:57
it's just working for you. That's the big, uh, that's how to tell if, if you can actually feasibly study at night
25:05
All right. During the main session, this stands for do what works, which of course is spending the
25:12
majority of your time on MCQs and then simulations as needed. Or again, that's, we will, we talk more about that in our, um, in the free trainings, if
25:26
you've never watched one of those, or again, go straight to the source and just get our
25:31
pro course and everything's laid out in the pro course. And then throughout the day, I already went on a diatribe about our study tools and the
25:41
the mini sessions, but that's all that means. So your main session, I guess, to explain practically how this should be working, your
25:53
main sessions where you're doing 90 minutes of new material, doing the questions first
26:01
approach, um, that is where you're trying to get a practical understanding of, okay
26:08
for this topic, these are the questions I'm seeing. And then you spend time reworking the questions, making sense of the solution
26:16
You're really trying to get clear on the what and the why. And so you're, you're directly focusing and spending time on test day context, right
26:28
And then, so, so that's where that happens. You're spending most of your time where you can be sitting there fully focused in front
26:36
of your review course, your main study sessions should be 90% just working through
26:41
MCQs going lesson by lesson, and then you'll do more Sims on the weekends
26:46
But anyways, then the mini sessions, they still add, they still add a lot of that
26:53
especially our quizzes, because our quizzes are at the end of the day, just MCQs
26:59
They are simplified so that it's feasible to actually do them from your phone throughout the day
27:03
But our review notes and audios, they, they help provide the, maybe some of the
27:14
conceptual stuff that's missing from the main sessions when you're just doing questions
27:20
It just helps fill in a lot of gaps over time. And again, the main idea with our study tools is that you're working through the
27:28
combination of the notes and audios at least once a week, if not twice
27:33
And over the course, you know, six to seven, eight weeks, that means you'll be
27:39
getting through all the material dozens of times because through the quizzes
27:44
through our quizzes, our quizzes are fully random and that's by design
27:49
So as you just grind through quizzes each day, and then you're also ending each
27:53
main study session with a re-review set. So you're constantly re-hitting all the previous topics
27:59
You're hitting, you're getting a big picture understanding in advance as you
28:05
listen through our audios or read our notes. And, you know, you get out ahead of where you're at in your Becker material, for
28:11
example, and then our quizzes are just from all topics. So half the time, some of the questions will be re-review for you
28:20
Half the time it will be just, okay, this is a question on something I haven't
28:25
covered yet. But as you take the question, read the explanation, you're getting an
28:31
understanding in advance. Just every single question, whether it's in your main session or in one of our
28:36
quizzes. Well, I shouldn't say a question. Any, any study session, one little session of listening to one track of the audios
28:46
I mean, whatever it is, it's just one building block in your overall understanding
28:52
of all the topics. And the deep level understanding comes in layers as you do those mini sessions, you
29:00
know, three, five minutes at a time. Maybe it's 20 or 30 minutes of audios while you're driving somewhere in your car
29:07
Whatever it is, all those little things, all those little sessions add up
29:11
And the study tools make it easy to fit in all this extra time without having to find
29:18
that much dedicated extra time to sit in front of your review course. So I guess to point out the big benefit of this, first of all, is it works better than
29:28
the traditional approach, because under the traditional approach, you go through each
29:34
topic once, right? And then you do your final review. So essentially, you've covered each topic only twice
29:41
So it's really hard to have a deep level understanding or a practical command of the
29:48
dozens and dozens and dozens of topics covered on that exam by only covering each
29:55
thing twice. Whereas with our approach, you're hitting every topic 30 to 50 times over the same six
30:02
to eight weeks. But the big, I guess the attractive advantage, stop doing that, is if
30:12
you do the studying in the morning, your main two hour session in the morning, and then the mini sessions throughout the day, you're done studying by the time you're done with
30:19
work. So you have your evenings free to do the things you like doing, you know, just
30:24
that whole thing that we're always talking about. So that was pretty much what I had to cover on this
30:32
Why? And I guess any questions you have on anything I mentioned, I will really try to
30:40
keep an eye on YouTube, because I'm going to post this video on YouTube. So post your questions down below in the comments, whether it's, I don't know
30:49
questions about the different discipline exams or I don't know, any questions you have
30:54
on anything I covered here. But yeah, hopefully you found that helpful and I'll end this, but we will see you on the
31:02
next episode. So thanks for watching
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