Which CPAs exam did you feel were the hardest and why?

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I love when people respond to posts like this with a nice humble brag.

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FAR. Not because the material in and of itself is hard, but just the sheer volume of information that’s testable. Plus NFP and Gov’t is useless so that made it miserable

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Exam? Reg for me. Scored the lowest on it. The material just didn’t click with me since I’m in assurance.

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BEC.

To this day I think it’s still the most difficult experience I’ve had taking a test.

Came in unprepared for all that IT/COSO bullshit and got three heaping ice cream scoops of questions on those topics.

Walked out wanting to cry/puke at the same time and started planning for a retake. Squeaked by with a 78, but still, F*CK BEC.

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Reg. X100000000. I don’t have the brain for tax

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Hardest to easiest:

FAR - By far the most to know for one exam. SIMs are tough if you don’t have a comprehensive understanding of financial statements. Expect to know advanced topics and government accounting for the test.

Audit - this one depends on the person, but this test irked me with all the strict memorization you needed to know for the SIMs and MC.

REG - This one I thought was pretty straight forward and practice based. Generally, applies basic tax knowledge to basic tax problems. Also, I might be outnumbered here, but I thought the BLAW was interesting and stuck really easily. Can’t speak for the tax reform stuff.

BEC - studied for this in like 2 weeks. You learn most of this stuff in your undergrad and it’s basically a refresher course. Also the smallest amount of material.

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FAR... volume of information and level you are expected to comprehend compared to the rest

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FAR for me. Volume of information. By the time you get through the government and non for profit material, you already forget the first 5 chapters.

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Not sure. Felt like when I put in enough time for each, I passed them relatively easy. Guess I would say REG just because of all of the various entities being taxed and difference between then and how some flow through to individual. All stuff that isn’t a part of what I do

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Reg hands down. The only exam where i wasn’t done until the last minute

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Reg was the hardest. I don’t get tax at all.
Bec was the next hardest for me. I just was not interested in the material.
Far was not that bad to me. Not saying it was easy, but it was what I was most interested in.
Aud was easy. I studied the least for that one and scored a 91

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I thought FAR was the hardest, seems like I’m outnumbered though.

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The 7 parts I passed. I passed 3 parts accidentally let my credit expire and had to retake it all

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M2, i mean it is something to be proud of. The exam is challenging. So hey, if there were sections you aced, it’s def worth sharing.

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Y’all are smart

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REG for sure

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BEC. It’s a lot of obscure stuff that most accounting majors haven’t delved into deeply (IT, COSO, Finance), and there’s typically only 1 or 2 classes on cost and managerial accounting

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BEC. I am taking the exam little bit later in life and I have not touched anything in my career that has to do with BEC since MBA school in 2010.....passed with 83 thankfully.

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If you take the exams right out of college, you should be okay on FAR as the material will be fresh in your mind (still gotta study really hard though). BEC and Audit are honestly not too difficult to pass if you truly put in the study hours, in my opinion. REG is the one exam where, regardless of college coursework and how hard you study, you may just not wrap your head around the BLAW stuff and the various taxable entities, especially if you’re going into assurance.

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Reg because I'm an auditor, it was the last one so I didn't study as much, and my materials didn't cover a lot of the BLAW stuff that was all over my exam. Failed with a 73. Had to retake.

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