Where do CPA Exam Research Questions Come From?
So, how well do you know the Financial Accounting Standards Board Accounting Standards Codification? Can you recite it from beginning to end without missing a beat? Is committing the standards to memory even a reasonable or practical expectation? A similar question posed one of the primary challenges that led to the development of research questions on the U.S. CPA Exam.
In a periodic assessment of accounting practice known as the Practice Analysis (1999), the AICPA CPA Exam team found that accounting references were becoming increasingly lengthy and complex, and were also available in an electronic format. Essentially, in the real world, CPAs were only memorizing sections of the standards that they used on a daily basis and used an electronic search to find any additional information they required. At the time of the 1999 Practice Analysis, the CPA Exam was still in pencil and paper format, so testing the application of accounting references that reflected real-world accounting practice posed an obvious challenge for CPA Exam developers.
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