Choosing Your CPA Exam Review Course
There is no shortage of advice available about what we should do when it comes to choosing the right CPA exam review course. While that is nice and all correct, it isn’t always enough. For balance we also have to understand another side of this. We must know what to refrain from doing and what to avoid.
This informative article can help you with the way to pick a CPA review provider based on the “process of elimination”. It can help not by telling you what you should do. It helps by teaching you five things you’ll want to avoid if you want to pick an effective CPA review program with the best value for money.
With that preamble then, here’s the 5 things you need to avoid:
The main reasons that you should not do this is that you may end up picking a product that is inadequate in preparing you for the exam. When you think about how expensive it takes to sit for one CPA exam, a retake will entirely wipe out your intention of spending less with the cheapest review course.. Instead, you should spend the time to evaluate what each major CPA review course providers are offering and pick the one that best suits your needs..
The reason for this is because what is suitable for most people may not be the case for yourself, given everyone’s unique background and study style. Instead, you can simply ask around for suggestions and recommendations, but remember not to follow blindly without understanding the reason why one should pick the specific CPA review course.
Clearly this really is totally avoidable if you put a little thought in it. Do you prefer a classroom setting, or do you study better by locking yourself up in a room? And what you would like to do instead is to spend a few minutes thinking about how you plan to tackle this CPA exam and from your experience what’s the best way to study for this type of standardized test.
The reason that this may be an error is that if the majority of the students in one CPA exam review course are first-years working in Big 4, while you are someone from non-accounting background and need a lot of help in the concepts, the course will definitely not fit you because it will cater to the majority of those who are already very familiar with the accounting concepts. Instead you really want to find out the student profile of the CPA review courses and see if it fits with your own personal and educational background.
It is always a temptation to do this but CPA exam pass rate statistics has shown that on average, less than 50% of candidates fail the exam while major CPA review courses manage to attain 80%+ passing rate among their students. In light of this, it is best to remember that the CPA exam is a very different animal than the midterms and exams in colleges, so investing a good CPA exam review course is definitely a must.
If you want to pick a CPA review course provider that is the most effective for you, by all means stay away from the errors mentioned. Make use of the alternatives suggested should you desire, but just avoiding the mistakes will vastly increase your chance to pass the CPA exam on your first attempt.