[McGeeAndMe]

I see that over the years the number of MCQs in Gleim, Wiley, and Hock just seem to grow, and grow, and grow. I’m assuming they just leave untested material in there? Becker’s number doesn’t seem to have changed much in the last 5 years, so I think they may actually purge out old questions. Roger specifically says they actually review their MCQ test bank and remove questions that are no longer relevant/tested.

But I don’t see this mentioned by most of the others. I get the sense some programs like Bisk, Yaegar, and Lambers in particular are basically zombie courses with very little maintenance. Places like Surgent and FastForward are probably new enough that they don’t need to purge much. I just wonder if anyone other than Roger actually mentions that they ever remove questions from the test banks?

I think this is especially important considering how much the focus of the test changed in 2017.

[Kimberly]

I know that when I was studying FAR with Surgent earlier this year, the number of questions changed more than a few times during the course of my studying. In fact, I still have access, and the number of questions has changed since I took the test 3 months ago. They definitely adjust their material there.

[McGeeAndMe]

@Kimberly

Surgent removes old questions, or just add more? Wiley and Gleim in particular have added tons of new questions. I just don't know if they ever remove any, particularly due to obsolescence.

[Kimberly]

Fair question. There website says they update multiple times a year. I saw my total number of questions in the FAR program go both up and down…but there's no way I could know 100% for certain.

Wiley, on the other hand, doesn't feel like it updates as frequently.

[jeff]

The review providers don't purge questions – unless they are completely obsolete and can't be tweaked.

It's an arms race to see who has the biggest test bank.

Instead – they update old questions and add to them.

NINJA owns the Bisk content, btw. 🙂

[jeff]

btw – it's rarely necessary to update more than twice a year – December and June, as that's how the AICPA tests new material, typically. You have an occasional September tweak. If you update too frequently – you run the risk of changing material that the AICPA isn't testing differently yet.

The AICPA lets the review providers know when new material is tested.

[Author]

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