So, why are the CPA exams so difficult
I'll wait just a minute for you to turn on your sound if you haven't yet. The CPA exams have a fail rate of 50-55% and they are widely considered to be the most
difficult professional exam that there is, and that includes the bar exams for attorneys
and the board exams for doctors. There are three specific reasons why passing the CPA exams is so difficult, why so many
people fail multiple times, and why many candidates eventually just give up and never
actually become a CPA. Who am I? My name is Nate. I'm a newly minted CPA, and I run the website superfastcpa.com, which is geared towards
helping busy candidates pass as fast as possible. Now, the short version of my own CPA story is that I spent three months studying the
normal way, only to fail far on my first try. Then I switched to some of my own ideas for studying in a completely different way, and
in the next three months I passed all four exams. This is my NASBA score sheet as proof
You'll see that those dates add up to just over three months. Now, let's get back to the three reasons why the CPA exams are so difficult
The first one is retention. Learning all the concepts and rules alone is staggering
There are literally hundreds of different topics that the exams cover, and many of them
are difficult and calculation heavy. But not only that, you have to learn them over several weeks, and then remember everything
that you've studied well enough to actually pass on exam day. This was one of my biggest stumbling blocks when I started studying, and I figured out
a way to overcome this once I tried out my own methods, and I'll tell you more about
that in a minute. The second challenge are your actual study methods
What do you actually do when you sit down to study every day? Is it effective
Do you have a specific plan you follow, and are you making progress
When I talk to other CPA candidates about how they study, they all tell me the same thing
You know, I start out watching the video lecture, I kind of zone out, then I try to read the
chapter or skim the chapter, then I try out a few questions, and I can't really get any
I don't know what it's talking about, so I go back to the video lecture
You know, and then it's an hour through your study session, and you kind of give up for
the day, and then the next day, the very same thing happens again
So I hear that over and over and over, and I know that's how it is because that's exactly
how my first three months were. So this was another huge struggle for me
Every day I would jump around to different resources in my review course, and as time
went on, I just felt more and more overwhelmed. When I sat for FAR that first time and saw the exam in person, a few things jumped out
at me, and I knew exactly how to study from that point on
And after trying out my own ideas for studying, I literally studied less each day, I had a
clear plan for every single study session, and I knew that I was making progress each day
And so the study process itself was a lot easier to deal with mentally because of that
The third challenge is just literally not having enough time in the day
So most CPA candidates work full-time, usually in the very demanding field of public accounting
and there's people in your life that want to see you after work like family and friends
And so fitting in three to four hours a day of CPA study is literally not possible for
most people. And on the other hand, that's about how much you need to study to pass the exams within
the time frame. So how does that work? You literally don't have that much time, but that is how much time it takes to study
I kind of come up with a solution for that. But back to my story for a minute to illustrate this
The three months where I studied for FAR and failed that first time, I had all day every day
It was the summer before I started my job in public accounting. And I started my job a week before I sat for FAR that first time
So then I had started my job, and the three months afterwards when I ended up passing
all four sections, I was working full-time. So I was able to study and pass all four sections with much less daily study time than the first
time around. So obviously I had made dramatic improvements in the effectiveness and the efficiency of
my study methods. Now I can't give you all my best advice on how I did all that in this short video
But what I have done is I put together a free online training class where I will take longer
and walk you through my best tips about these changes I made that made such a big difference
in helping me pass all four sections in just a few months while working full-time
So this training class is completely free to attend, and I guarantee you you'll find
it well worth your time because it will save you so much time in passing your exams
So to register, all you need to do is click the link or the button below this video or
go to superfastcpa.com slash training. Also, if you're on the training live, I will be giving you a free copy of my CPA flashcards
So these are a digital copy. You can use them on your desktop or on your smartphone
There's over 750 flashcards, and they cover all four sections. The big advantage to these is that they are completely customizable, so you can add other
flashcards to the decks or customize the wording on any of the cards to something that's
easier for you to remember personally. So again, to register, just click the link or the button on the video that will take
you to the registration page, or just go to superfastcpa.com slash training in your browser
and I will see you there