[Pnbrock11]

What is the total pass rate for passing the CPA exam with 1 attempt on each section? I mean, if these odds are independent, then it is less than 5%. That cannot be correct. I know too many people that pass it on one try. Surely, passing one section implies you have a high percentage of passing another. Is it like about 20%?

[Recked]

I think @Tim posted a pie chart yesterday and it was slightly over 40% for people that go 4 for 4.

The repeat failures are what drop the other percentages way down.

[fwesley]

No, I think 4% to 5% is accurate. I know a lot of CPA's and I only know 1 person who passed all 4 on the first try. I don't think you can apply that statistic. Just because you pass 1 doesn't mean you'll pass any others.

It's all a complicated game.

FAR: 65 (still drying my tears) 2nd attempt: 7/2016
BEC: 81 5/2016 (WOO FIRST PASS!)
REG: 5/2016
AUD: 8/2016

[HDCPA]

I guess it depends on how you look at it. According to the pie chart posted yesterday, like mentioned above, its about 40% as of 2016. That however was only showing statistics of candidates that eventually pass. If you want to look at it at a higher level (like I believe the 5% statistics out there claim), you would have to take into account the total number of applicants, including the ones that never pass. If we call the total passing rate a 40% for easy math, that would leave you around 6.25%. I think more likely it falls somewhere in between. As far as I know we don't know how many people never pass.

[Nate]

I passed em all except far on my first try and I was thinking about this. There must be some percentage of people who take the exam cold or under-prepared and I was wondering if there was a way to adjust the pass rates based on level of preparation. My first time taking far i was ill prepared and wasn't really sure what i was doing. i didn't come close to passing and probably helped others by scoring so low. The other 3 I got my act together and passed on first shot, if you could adjust for actually being prepared im sure the pass rate would be higher.

[Anonymous]

If the % of people who eventually pass all 4 parts in 4 tries is about 40% then on a per part basis the pass rate for those people is about 80% per part.

As @Nate mentioned, sometimes people are not prepared and still take the exams. If I had to guess as to the pass rate for people who were truly prepared, I think it would fall in line with the Ninja statistics showing the percentage of people who used Ninja and were trending passing then actually did receive a passing score. I believe in that spreadsheet its around 90% of people who were trending a passing score who then passed.

Since for the most part, Ninja users tend to be more serious in preparation (just based on the amount of materials used, as well as even reading this site) I think that 90%+ Ninja pass rate is likely pretty indicative for that category.

[Anonymous]

I looked it up, in total data, the overall pass rate for people using Ninja with a trending score of passing or higher who passed the exam was 90%.

On the new exam format, over the last year or so, the Ninja pass rate for people with a trending score of passing or higher who passed the exam is a little over 94%.

[Jen-J]

There are 2 publications from 2015 with more stats than you ever wanted on the CPA exam. Nasbareport.com
In 2015, 70,209 candidates took at least one of their sections for the first time. 10,474 of those passed all 4 parts in 4 tries with their 4th exam being in 2015. Now some of those 70K didn't finish their exam series in 2015, and they may have passed all 4 parts in 4 tries with their last exam in a later year. So we know the rate of people passing all 4 on the first time has to be higher than 14%. The 40% statistic is because around 25K people finished passing all 4 parts in 2015 – but that includes people who needed retakes.

[Author]

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