Since nobody shared any good advice, I passed the 2020 AICPA Ethics exam last night (03/09/2020) and here are some updates on how it is done in 2020:
(1) It is online or you can buy the physical book with a code in it. Here is my advice: ABSOLUTELY DO THE ONLINE VERSION. The guy at the AICPA told me that if you buy the book you literally only get three tries and then, of course, with a physical book, you cannot do CTRL F. This is literally a CPE course, they just call it an exam because the exam at the end is all that matters.
(2) I called the AICPA to figure out why there was no current 2020 information on the exam. Basically if you have questions just call them, they know everything, there is just nothing published about the 2020 version. They update the version every September. That means they updated it last Sept. 2019.
(3) You do not have to take the entire course or watch any of the videos or do any of the modules. All you do is the test, period. Doing anything else on that online course is worthless and does not give you any credit.
(4) The test is 40-50 questions. It will ask you what state you are qualifying for and I believe the test could change slightly based on your choice, maybe not though, idk. I marked that I wanted to qualify for Utah and Texas, and my test was 46 questions. There is a youtube video made by a girl named Heaven and she says her exam for Tennessee was also 46 questions. Her video is good, but she went through the entire course and spent like 8 hours. I spent 3-4 hours total, most of my time spent was figuring out all the steps I am about to list. The test part itself took me 2-3 hours.
(5) There is a pdf version of the material that you get access to when you buy the online course. It is in the resources section of the online course. You can CTRl+F answers to some of the questions, but others are not so easy. The hardest questions are ethical dilemmas that you really can't find a whole lot of info on, you just have to go with your gut.
(6) You have unlimited tries now, though I hear that if you go beyond three tries you may have to contact the AICPA to tell them to reset your exam tries? That is what some people on google say, but I have no idea. The guy at the AICPA told me there are unlimited tries IF AND ONLY IF YOU DO THE ONLINE VERSION.
(7) My advice is to buy the material and then to immediately go in and look at your test. You can go in and look at every question on your test before submitting it. Your test questions do not change after you look at them the first time. You can get to the very last question and then hit restart and it does not count as an attempt to take the exam. You can write down your questions and then go into the material to find the answers.
(8) The exam does not let you go back after answering a question, so don't get to the end of the exam and hit restart to go back and review your answers because you will have to take the whole thing again.
(9) Once you submit you get your results within a minute or so and then if you passed you get a certificate.
(10) I wish someone else would have posted this 2020 AICPA Ethics Exam guide so I wouldn't have had to go figure it all out on my own.
(11) Your welcome.
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