[GWS CPA]

This is the next skill level above Remembering and Understanding.

AUD: 30%-40%
BEC: 50%-60%
FAR: 50%-60%
REG: 35%-45%

OBSERVATIONS and INSIGHTS

Application was used to be 50% of all the sections in the previous version.

Now, each section has its different percentages (BEC and FAR have the same percentages). Even FAR and BEC each has the higher percentage than in the previous version (50% previously vs. up to 60% now).

Application, as the highest level in some situations, is appearing in both MCQs and TBSs (and WCs for BEC). This is the only skill level, at its highest level, to be appearing in all testlets.

For BEC, written communication involves Application.

Application is the use or demonstration of concepts, knowledge, techniques, examples, or vocabulary. Candidates apply the accounting concepts to many situations. They use and demonstrate these accounting concepts to: questions, exercises, and problems in accounting courses and the CPA exam (MCQs); real-world events (case studies) in accounting courses and simulations on the CPA exam (TBSs); and accounting work experiences and practices. For BEC, candidates have to apply their business/professional English writing concepts and communication skills to write professional memos, reports, and other media in written communication.

The most common tasks in each section that candidates are most likely to apply are:
AUD: performing audit procedures, drafting audit reports, adhering to auditing standards and professional ethics
BEC: calculating in cost accounting and financial management, applying COSO to business challenges, coming up with solutions to problems in information technology and threats in economics, drafting and polishing business written media (memos and reports)
FAR: journalizing transactions and events, calculating numbers, applying GAAP (or other accounting frameworks)
REG: preparing tax returns, calculating taxes, applying and adhering to regulations (laws and ethics) in different tax and business scenarios and circumstances (especially IRS, SEC, and UCC)

TIPS

Candidates have to practice on how to demonstrate the concepts on MCQs and TBSs (and WCs in BEC). The more the candidates practice, the better they are in applying the concepts and doing well in the CPA exam.

Watching the professor demonstrating the concepts that you have recently learned is not Application, it is Remembering and Understanding. It is the same for your supervising CPA showing you on how to do the tasks in your accounting job. In the first example, you, as the student, have to demonstrate the concepts on questions, exercises, and problems. In the second example, you, as the CPA candidate, have to do the tasks the same (or similar) ways as your supervising CPA was showing you. If, instead, you are the professor or supervising CPA teaching your students or training your CPA candidates in these 2 examples, you are using Application.

Application can be utilized after candidates have mastered Remembering and Understanding.
Application has to be used in order to utilize higher skill levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Good Luck for the CPA candidates taking the new version soon.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, some of us will need all the “Good Luck” we can get. If these exams weren't monstrous enough for the vast majority of people in the past, now it's going to be like Samwise Gamgee fighting Shelob in Shelob's Lair in Mordor. We might win, but we're gonna emerge with silly string and superglue all over us.

The one good thing about the new version is that it's probably going to curb people like Mr. Fork, who leave four SIMs blank on FAR and still pull an 89.

[VDP]

Mr. Fork, lol!

[Author]

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