[waffle_house]

I read all the time that AUD is considered one of the “easiest” of the four exams. However, the AICPA pass rates show the AUD exam as being the lowest. What is the reasoning behind this? Is it because people tend to believe work experience is sufficient to not study? Or is this test really that tricky?

Can someone enlighten me on their experience.

AUD - 80
BEC - 75
FAR - 84
REG - 76

Exams started Sep 2014 -Exams done Mar 2017

Texas CPA

I put in work, it was evident

[mystical guy]

AUD is like the girlfriend you take for granted because you got her easy through a friend. It's a big big mistake to take an “easy” exam for granted. But if it's the CIA exam, go drunk and unprepared haha kidding.

CPA - Since 2015
CISA - Smashed 2012
CIA - Passed 2015

[sar_rah]

Yeah I'm wondering the same exact thing! I'm studying now and literally breezing through it, getting much higher on the homework and progress quizzes than I've gotten in any other exam. That lowest pass rate thing freaks me out though! I feel like BEC was MUCH MUCH more difficult than audit, but is like 10% higher when it comes to pass rate comparisons

AUD: 98
REG: 91
BEC: 86
FAR: 83

DONE DONE DONE and DONE all on the first try! It IS possible, just keep on studying!

[mitchmatch]

Hate to be that guy, but yes even though my score does not fully reflect the situation, it was definitely the easiest, and studying felt like a breeze compared to the rest. For all of you taking Aud here is the biggest trick, and this makes the exam so much easier, in every question look our for answers that have words such as ALWAYS, MUST, HAS TO, CAN NOT, WILL NOT, these are almost never the right answer. They will usually give one or two answers like this, which you can eliminate, and then use your brain from their. Follow that rule, i lived by it and it worked!

FAR-76 First attempt.
AUD-79 First attempt.
REG-79 First attempt.
BEC-79 First attempt.

Done!

BECKERS

[Anonymous]

I thought AUD was the hardest of the 4 exams. I did over 3,000 MCQ to pass it whereas I did approximately 2,000 on the passing exams for the other tests.

Don't kid yourself though. All of the tests are hard and take a lot of commitment and concentration.

[CPA2BEE]

AUD is a scary one. First time I took it I thought it was easy while studying, still put 150+ hours in, thought the actual exam was a cake walk – boom, 71. I'm re-studying and still really feel like I have a grip on the material but am nervous because I felt this way the first time around and failed. I retake on Jan 12, my plan is to just go much slower while taking the exam and go over all of my answers after answering them – I finished with about an hour and a half left my first time. I am also going to incorporate using AL for the SIMS, I've heard this can help a lot.

CA CPA - est. Dec 2016

FAR - 80
AUD - 82
BEC - 80
REG - 85

ETHICS - 90
EXPERIENCE - COMPLETE
Application for California license mailed 8/4/2016

[amandafaith15]

I feel exactly the same as @CPA2BEE. I thought the studying was easy (only put in 40 hours compared to 180+ for REG) and breezed through the exam in an hour and a half and (foolishly) felt pretty confident. Way more confident than both times on REG. Then to find out I made a 73?!?! I've been approaching the studying now through the NINJA method and taking time on MCQs to really understand why each answer is right or wrong… It gets really tedious, but I am so nervous about my retake on January 6th. Any time I feel unmotivated I go back to that moment of finding out I failed and am able to get just enough panic to be motivated to study.

I think the low pass rate is because its so conceptual and the questions try so hard to trick you.

REG -73 (8/2015) 81 (10/2015)
AUD - 73 (11/2015) 84 (1/2016)
BEC - 84 (2/2016)
FAR - 77 (6/2016)

[Anonymous]

I could go on and on about this, but I concur with whomever said above that the focus is on designing tricky questions as much as it is on content knowledge. Hence the stress on doing thousands of MCQ's – that teaches you not so much about the needle in a haystack exceptions, as it gets you better at spotting and eliminating wrong answers.

I'm not sure if being a non-native speaker helps as the difficulty of the questions or helps in that you don't rush through the wording.

[Anonymous]

I think the wording of the questions is a big part of it. Also, for someone like me, who has always worked in industry and only had one auditing course in college it was harder than FAR or BEC was for me. It took me five tries before I passed audit.

[Jdn9201]

I just took AUD last Friday (1st time) and I agree the wording of the questions makes it tricky. I've already passed BEC and REG (1st attempt on each), and AUD by far was the hardest one for me. I'm not sure if this applies to other people, but my brain is so math-oriented that it almost needs numbers in order for the concepts to make sense and stick. What threw me off and made it harder for my brain to absorb the information is that AUD is so concept-based and many of the problems do not involve numbers. I also don't have much exposure to it because I work in Tax and only took 1 audit course in college. It's possible I passed but my confidence is much shakier than after taking REG or BEC. Provided I pass, I'm almost looking forward to FAR because I get to jump back in the math again.

BEC - 88 8/29/15
REG - 82 11/14/15
AUD - 83 1/8/16
FAR - 80 2/29/16

[Jackobe24]

I hate audit so much!

there is no numbers involve….

and the stupid sims I got on the exam was so damn tricky….

FAR - 9/8/16 (Hopefully it's my last CPA exam, God bless me!)
REG - 80
BEC - 81
AUD - 69, 81

[cpabruh]

It's probably the hardest exam after FAR.

IMO, Audit is mainly memorization. If you're good with memorization, you'll be good with Audit. Also, if you don't have experience in audit you may struggle trying to understand basic concepts and terms.

[Author]

Replies