[GWS CPA]

Comparison of Old and New Charts of Content Areas

Old (O) and New (N)
Roman numerals are not used; instead, Arabic (regular) numbers are used.

OLD Content Areas

O1: Corporate Governance
16%-20%

O2: Economic Concepts and Analysis
16%-20%

O3: Financial Management
19%-23%

O4: Information Systems and Communications
15%-19%

O5: Strategic Planning
10%-14%

O6: Operations Management
12%-16%

NEW Content Areas

N1: Corporate Governance
17%-27%

N2: Economic Concepts and Analysis
17%-27%

N3: Financial Management
11%-21%

N4: Information Technology
15%-25%

N5: Operations Management
15%-25%

OBSERVATIONS

BEC has reduced its number of areas from 6 to 5.

O1 is N1, O2 is N2, O3 is N3, O4 is N4, and O6 is N5.

O5 moves for N1 for Enterprise Risk Management, N2 for Economic Strategies, N3 for Financial Risk Strategies, and especially N5 for budgeting and long-term strategic plans.

O5, O6, and N5 contain managerial/cost accounting concepts.

N1, N2, and N4 increase their percentages at about the similar amount.
N3 has decreased its percentages from O3 because the financial formulas from BEC are covered in AUD for analytical procedures and FAR for financial statement analysis.

Each of the new content areas has a 10% variance (17%-27%), just like the skill level percentages.
Like AUD (did not mentioned in a previous post), BEC had a 4% variance for each of the old content areas.
Now, the variances are wider for the new version.

NUMBER of Areas, Groups, Topics, and Tasks for Old and New Outlines

Areas: 6 for old; 5 for new

Groups: 24 for old; 18 for new
Topics: 49 for old; 20 for new
NOTE: A group without a topic does not count as a topic itself.

Tasks: 63 for only new because the old outlines did not show the tasks within each group or topic

Since the CPA exam is in the new version, the number of groups and topics for each area of the old outlines are not shown below.

NUMBER of Groups, Topics, and Tasks for each Area in the New Version
N1: 3 Groups, 4 Topics, 10 Tasks
N2: 3 Groups, 2 Topics, 7 Tasks
N3: 3 Groups, 2 Topics, 17 Tasks
N4: 5 Groups, 6 Topics, 15 Tasks
N5: 4 Groups, 6 Topics, 14 Tasks
TOTAL: 18 Groups, 20 Topics, 63 Tasks

NUMBER of Tasks by Skill Levels for each Area in the New Version

N1
Remembering and Understanding: 6
Application: 4
Analysis: 0

N2
Remembering and Understanding: 1
Application: 4
Analysis: 2

N3
Remembering and Understanding: 4
Application: 4
Analysis: 9

N4
Remembering and Understanding: 3
Application: 12
Analysis: 0

N5
Remembering and Understanding: 2
Application: 7
Analysis: 5

TOTAL
Remembering and Understanding: 16
Application: 31
Analysis: 16

All of the new content areas have greater importance of Application than before.
Application accounts for 50%-60% as the highest skill utilized in BEC; of this, 10%-20% are in BEC’s WCs. Analysis and Evaluation (for example, thought process) are not utilized in WCs because this is cost-prohibitive and time consuming to administer.
N2, N3, and N5 have Analysis because they have calculations on them. Analysis is also added because TBSs are added to BEC for the very first time.

Best of Luck for the CPA candidates taking the new version soon.