10 Tips To Ace Your CPA Exam Simulation Scores

After spending over a decade coaching professionals for the US CPA exam in India, we have received a ton of suggestions to solve simulation-type questions from a range of CPA test takers of varied ages and backgrounds. The testimonies collected from both alumni roundtables and interviews have significant mentions of how simulation questions haunted their nights before the CPA exam. 

Today we have decided to draft some general to-do which helps all our CPA aspirants to keep their exam anxiety at bay.

Tip 1: “When all else fails, follow instructions.” – Anne Lamott

Start speed-practice to solve MCQs for your CPA preparation. The more you speed up on the short answer you will have enough time left to get back to the simulation questions that you have bookmarked before. It’s crucial to read the instructions as it will help you navigate the following questions better.

Tip 2: “Golden rule of life: never underestimate your rivals.” – Sid Waddell

Don’t let the research sims get in your way of becoming a certified public accountant! Be careful with the compression part in the tests and try understanding what the essay reads. Take out 10-15 minutes of time and make sure you make good use of authoritative literature tools and you will surely get them right. 

Tip 3: “We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.” – Marshall McLuhan

To solve the simulation questions, AICPA provides a range of tools to solve the questions quickly on exam day. The tools mentioned include – 

• Calculators
• Excel spreadsheets
• Authoritative literature
• Spell check
• Exhibits & highlights

Make sure that your CPA training package includes a real-time mock exam experience to get you a practical walkthrough to use the tools efficiently and get the maximum help to solve the CPA exam.

Tip 4: “Take care of the minutes and the hours will take care of themselves.” – Lord Chesterfield

Make sure you plan your minutes. Count it as a D-day haul for the CPA exam and distribute the 4 hours – 

• 90 minutes – to speed through the MCQ
• 150 minutes – to finish the simulations 

It is a notion that Certified Public Accountants are always on time. Take it as CPA practice in the making of competent accountants.

Tip 5: “Repetition makes perfect.” DeAndre Hopkins

Having said that, repetition resolves the difficulty for CPA’s task-based simulations-solves, one needs to know the right way to do it. Let’s say ‘Repeating + improvements’ make it perfect. Mark your mistakes, learn them, and make sure you are not repeating them right at the next round of revision.

Tip 6: “Set realistic goals, keep re-evaluating, and be consistent.” – Venus Williams

As you master the lesser difficulties, you will be better equipped to take on greater challenges. If you are solving 10 MCQs a day for a chapter, pick any 1 simulation question and try solving it. This will eventually help you to get closer to your CPA goals.

Tip 7: “Mental strength requires a three-pronged approach.” – Amy Morin

Apply a three-pronged strategy, and ensure you have kept a few backup plans to place you at a better score while solving the simulations. Either you can hear out our CPA alumni at events or ask your assigned mentors or craft your own ways to solve sims faster with cent percent accuracy.

Tip 8: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill

Don’t be discouraged by occasional setbacks or difficult practice questions. Keep pushing forward in your CPA preparation journey, and remember that every mistake is a learning opportunity.

Tip 9: “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” – Mark Twain

Start your CPA exam preparation early and don’t procrastinate. The sooner you begin, the more time you’ll have to cover all the necessary material.

Tip 10: “The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle.” – Richard Marcinko

Put in the effort during your preparation. The harder you work now, the more confident and prepared you’ll be on exam day.

The Major Change 

The Transiting BEC

The impact of CPA Evolution is more seen in the BEC section of the US CPA course. The BEC section will be replaced by three core disciplines: Business Analysis and Reporting BAR, Information Systems and Control ISC, and Tax Compliance and Planning (TCP). A CPA candidate can choose one of the three disciplines while taking the exams in 2024 instead of BEC. An underlying goal here is to make CPAs specialists in a particular field. 

Conclusion

In the US CPA exam, multiple-choice questions are excellent to reinforce concepts and test your key concepts. Through MCQs, AICPA learns the test taker’s – remembering, understanding, and application capability, whereas TBS tests your practical skills and exploratory analysis capabilities. This makes TBS equally important to test your capability simulations and refers to 50% of your score on all 4 of your CPA exam parts, making TBS even more crucial to scoring the optimum cut-off during the CPA exam. Further, as per our subject matter experts, we learned that one requires more than 2 hours of time to solve the simulations and settle the scores, so start practicing today with the pro tips to glide through the simulation bouts.