Accounting Tips For You

3 Proposals to Jumpstart Your AICPA Exam Review

Looking for ways to jumpstart your AICPA exam review? First of all, I would like to congratulate you on making a very important decision to pursue the prestigious and the most recognized accounting qualification in the world.

Your next step is to plan your AICPA review and optimize your time and energy in passing this examination.

How should you start? I have three proposals for you.

1. Self Study

Many CPA candidates possess a master’s degree in accounting and in no doubt they are very knowledgeable in this field. If you are one of them, you may consider studying for the CPA exam on your own.

Before you dash out to buy a Wiley book, please ask yourself the following questions:

• Are you good at both accounting and exam tactics? This is critical because the CPA exam is much more than a test on accounting knowledge – instead, the exam can get really tricky in the multiple choice questions and not familiar with the exam’s computerized format.
• Are you a very disciplined person? This is a tough exam and the accounting is not terribly exciting in and of itself. Also, given the large amount of study materials, once you slack off it is very difficult to catch up.
• The Wiley book, which is probably the best unguided review books out there, can be overwhelming. Since no one is going to highlight the important points, you can easily get discouraged.

If you are not sure whether self-study is the way to go, I suggest that you take a few sample CPA questions from various websites and see if you can get most of them right. If you consistently score 70 or more (passing rate is 75), you can handle the CPA exam simply by doing a lot of practice tests and there is no need to consider any other AICPA review courses.

2. Home Study

A considerable number of candidates opt for home study nowadays because you can study at the comfort of your home. Since AICPA introduced the computerized format in 2004, a number of high-quality CPA exam review courses sprang up and everyone can access their courses via the internet or DVD.

Studying at home has the following benefits:

• You can save valuable time from unnecessary commute
• You can study anytime and anywhere (if you have a laptop and/or internet)
• These courses are generally more affordable than live classes

3. Live classes

Live classes have the advantage of learning from fellow students and having your questions immediately addressed.

Becker, Lambers and Rogers are the main players in this area. Becker CPA review is the most well known but it gets mixed views on its program, especially on the live classes. Lambers CPA review is the biggest review course in New England area. The company is relatively low-key and people do not talk about Lambers much. But I would like to point out that Lambers review has an ipod version which I think is an excellent idea for busy candidates – just think of how you can utilize the idle time during commute, between meetings, or even between your children’s naps!

Roger CPA review is relatively new but it has a good reputation of lively, entertaining lectures. Roger Philip the founder is the only lecturer for the course and so the quality is guaranteed. The flip side is that since it is essentially a one-man band the response time to questions (via online message boards) can get very slow.

These are just a small sample of courses you can pick for jumpstarting your AICPA review process. As you can see, there are strengths and weaknesses in each program, and you have to choose the one that fits you the best.

To assist your evaluation, I have prepared a CPA exam review courses comparison where you can read about the pros and cons of all major programs. Best of luck to you!

Stephanie writes about her experience in applying, qualifying and passing the CPA exam on her first attempt in her AICPA exam review website.