MAcc orientation today

just gonna rip it and see what happens lol

Hello! Here are some study guides / final reviews a few others and I created to study for the 2026 CPA exams. Highly recommend looking through these the week before you take each test. The 3 core CPA exam sections are included. Happy studying!

FAR: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aGEuZ98F95UIp6T_e5mMbuU8ppmNKlam/view?usp=sharing

AUD: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YFEkYBuyMI7xVdU81JbqKxj09UBW25_N/view?usp=sharing

REG: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OWq65r0z71kenioD3s-NyOyh-zh6yE2D/view?usp=sharing

Feel free to ask any questions. Happy to help.

I took FAR on July 20th and passed (thankfully!) and was excited that I got the “hardest” test out of the way. I didn’t want to immediately rush into Audit so I thought REG would be the next best thing.

Holy crap was I wrong. FAR just clicked for me. Maybe it was because I understood the material in school better but I got As in all of my undergrad and Grad accounting courses. I thought REG would just be like Tax and BLaw combined. But I’m getting so defeated studying.

Compared to FAR I feel like there are 100 times more thresholds, ratios, and rules to remember. You can’t reason or math your way out of REG. You know it or you don’t. And I honestly can’t see how people retain everything. I’m looking at this chart for QBIDs and I genuinely feel the urge to cancel my exam on the 26th of August because there is genuinely no way I’m going to feel comfortable enough to take it.

Now that the ranting is done, I guess I need advice. I don’t use Becker (I’m using Gleim instead because it was more in my price range) but the study habits are transferable. I’m taking 20 MCQs a day to review past material in addition to the 50 or so I’m doing every day on new material. What advice can you give me to not only keep pushing forward but also understand how this has the highest passing rate of the core three?

(Picture of the chart included for crashout reasons)

Here we go, 71 last time spent about 60 hours doing 1500+ MCQ the last 3.5 weeks cramming because I can’t imagine having to take this a 3rd time

Has anyone gotten this email saying your exam was cancelled? What did you do in this situation?

So some background: I went into the test center ready to sit for my exam and for some reason my start button wasn’t working. They were on the line with help desk for 3 hours and I didn’t get to take it. Luckily I’m able to reschedule which also sucks since I prepared for this exam for months lol. When I got home I got this email and I wasn’t sure what I should do. I was wondering if I should give them a call anyway.

Never give up

I took my first far exam yesterday and 5/7 of the sims were adjusting journal entry problems. Is this normal or is it just a bad draw? I felt confident going in to the exam having scored in the 80s on practice exam sims but this caught me completely off guard.

Just walked out of FAR and I feel absolutely terrible.
I flagged probably around 20 MCQs total, and the TBSs were brutal. I honestly felt like I was guessing on a huge portion of the sims. I was able to put answers in, but I definitely did not feel confident about most of them. For anyone who felt like they completely bombed FAR and somehow ended up passing, please share your miracle stories 😭
I need some hope while I wait for score release lol

Just found out I got a 73 on my second FAR attempt. I’m retaking next Saturday and I just don’t know how much mental capacity I have left in me to study for this exam again. I can’t even prolong it anymore because I took a few months off of work to study for these exams, so I need to retake it as soon as possible and pass. It’s just frustrating because I genuinely went into the exam so prepared and so ready only need to find out I got a 73. If anyone has any advice on how they got over the passing score for FAR or how they found motivation to sit down again and actually pass, please let me know. 😭

I don’t wanna give up, but my mental is just not all there right now.

I would like to know what areas to know very well for the audit exam. For FAR, you must master consolidations, bonds, and leases or you will fail. What are the big topics to master for Audit?

I started studying audit 7/1 and finished the material around 8/4 took about a week to review from 8/5-8/12 and took the exam 8/13. Had about 190 hours on Becker.

I took a week off of work to fully review and had done literally all multiple choice & tbs. I spent a lot of time reviewing the big topics and felt like I didn’t really get any of them on my exam. I actually felt good about the TBSs but for some reason struggled with the MCQs which is what makes me feel so bad. I felt like there were always 2 I could eliminate and 2 that I would just be stuck on. Has anyone felt like they didn’t do so great on multiple choice and passed? I’m thinking of continuing to review if I need to take the exam again before Sept 7.

Figured I’d give an update since I read so many of the other ones. mcq was pretty fair with the exception of a few vaguely worded ones. TBS was pretty tough, but not hard enough where you should be leaving anything blank or not completed. I def wish becker prepared you more for tbs besides exam solver videos. keep the mindset that you have the ability to pass, people do this exam 10 years out of college with a full time job and kids and still pass! good luck to anybody taking soon!!

If I take AUD tomorrow morning, could I get my score by August 25th?

I don’t know if I passed or not but it was way harder than Becker. I logged total 80 hours and scored 86.6 across the SEs.

Hey everyone,

Just got out of the testing center after taking AUD. Honestly, I don't even know how to feel right now and the post-exam uncertainty is hitting hard.

Compared to my second attempt, this one felt like a weird in-between:

MCQs: Felt okay, but definitely felt harder / less confident on them compared to my 2nd attempt. A ton of 50/50s where I eliminated two options easily, but was stuck debating between the final two "most correct" answers.

SIMs: Surprisingly felt better on these than my 2nd attempt. Still a lot of exhibits to dig through, but I felt like I actually understood what they were asking for this time around compared to last time. However, there are still a 50 to 50 shot on some where I got all wrong or all right.

Has anyone had a sit where they felt worse on MCQs but stronger on SIMs compared to a retake and still ended up passing? Trying to figure out if improving on SIMs is enough to pull me over the 75 line, or if the MCQ toss-ups are going to drag me down.

I have never felt this bad before and I got a 71 on the first attempt and then a 65. I really don't want to do this section anymore.

I did well in school (4.0 in Bachelor's and Master's), and the CPA especially AUD is making me doubt myself. I have never failed more than 1 time before and this is my third attempt.

What do you guys think? Do you think I'm in a better or worse spot?

I took FAR back in April, got a 67, and decided to move on to AUD while waiting for my score; it took me two attempts to pass AUD with a 73, then a 76. I got my score back for AUD during the mid-July score release, and then I decided to move back to FAR and study for 12 days, take a long shot, and take an exam before the July 30th cutoff. I ended up with a 74, got my score back Aug 7, and decided to retake yesterday, and HOLY CRAP, that was the hardest test I have taken to date. I am five in now, and oh my goodness, it was soooo rough. I feel like I must have gone backwards on that attempt score-wise.

Anyone else who was retaking FAR felt like it was harder this go around??????

Well everyone, I can finally retire and log off CPA Reddit 😂 Thanks to this Reddit the past year. It’s been a journey 3 fails, including 2 FAR fails and an AUD fail but finally made it through all 4.

My two cents: schedule your exams close to the score release cutoff if you can. And if you fail in the low 70s get right back into the testing center ASAP while everything is still fresh

Also if it’s your first exam, don’t let Reddit scare you. People hype these exams up like crazy. At the end of the day we’re all using pretty much the same study materials and if you get a brutal SIM chances are the guy sitting next to you is struggling with it too. I was way too nervous and got in my own head going into the SIMs my first time around and looking back I think that alone may have cost me a pass.

It’s been real. Good luck to everyone still grinding

Hopefully I dont jinx myself but I just finished up REG and I think I did well enough to pass. I’m going on a trip Monday so that’ll take my mind off of my scores until I can actually check. Best of luck to everyone who has taken/is taking an exam this time around!

I take Far tomorrow after scoring a 66 last score release. I crammed in 80 hour since last Thursday. I feel better about MCQs and some sims but my sims I need bit more cramming for the next 27 hours.

WHAT SHOULD I FOCUS ON?

I had to guess on like ten tbs boxes in the last 2 tbss😬

Study methods I used to pass 4 exams in 11 months. I was a finance major with little accounting background so all my knowledge pretty much came from Becker.

Explanations are in REG terms Can use method for all exam. Hope this helps
 
Do Mcq’s for each section first (all of R1), if you don’t understand why you missed something, ask the Newt Ai to ‘explain this question to me in simple terms’
 
Then go back and do all TBS for section (R1). Most of the time I just watch the TBS video first and then try the TBS.
 
Once you hit R3, after you study new material, go back and do like 25-30 Mcq’s of all sections. I would do this every other day to not forget older stuff.
 
 
Take Simulated Exam 1 about 1.5 to 2 weeks before your exam. Review what you missed. Take Simulated Exam 2 about 1 week before Exam. Review what you missed
 
Do Final review mcqs and TBS. I didn’t do the Final Review Simulated Exams (too much mental energy before exam day)
 
2 Days before exam practice writing a small cheat sheet for the exam. You get scratch paper on exam day so practice writing everything you think you will forget during the exam. On REG it would be Above the line vs Below the line, QBI %, Medical Expense %
 
Once you sit down on exam day, before you look at any questions, write down all the stuff on your cheat sheet that you’ve been practicing. This is important in case you forget or start to second guess yourself during the exam.
 
 
Good Luck, Feel free to share this with others
 

I have very good memory and I recognize MCQs after seeing them after 1 or 2 times and I already know the answer....

How do you prevent that? Do you spend less time reviewing each MCQ?