Everyone wants to find a a high quality free CPA review that would eliminate the cost of buying a professional CPA review course. These days a lot of people are forced to write the CPA exam without having a job lined up meaning that these students have to foot the bill for the actual exam and the study course. In addition, a number of firms are no longer paying for the CPA review courses. When the job market is dire, it is easy for firms to limit benefits for newly minted accounting grads.
As you can see most graduates from college are graduating with large student debts. Subsequently, a lot of prospective CPA’s actually have to take on additional debt in order to take one of the expensive courses.
Sadly, after shelling hundreds of dollars out on exam fees, it’s now time to shell out thousands more on study materials. The CPA exam is a grueling exam and requires the right preparation in order to pass it during the given 18 month rolling window. Each of the four sections of the CPA exam must be taken and passed within an 18 month period. If you do not pass the last part within 18 months of passing the first part, you take the first part over. This makes it highly desirable to take the sections, and pass, as quickly as possible. This is why it is imperative that you find the right study materials for you, and most CPA’s would love to find a free CPA review, after spending so much money on exam fees.
Most candidates are looking for the best study material for the money. Most likely the best study material for the money would be the Becker program,. If you take a look at most of the CPA review course comparison you might be disheartened to know that some cost in excess of $4000.
It is hard to find a quality free CPA review course. The cost to purchasing a study program for the CPA exam can be anywhere between $250 on the low end, to $3000 for the most robust and comprehensive program out there. Becker is one of the most highly regarded CPA study programs and has a very high success rate in passing the CPA exam. With that though comes a high cost as the Becker program is the most expensive program on the market.
Options When Searching for a Free CPA Review
CPA Review for Free
CPAreviewforfree.com is a site that is owned and operated by three individuals that have years of accounting and CPA exam experience. This site is offered to help CPA’s study for the exam for free. This is a great supplemental resource for those that are already using another study program. The site is a free CPA review and offers hundreds of exam questions, and other helpful materials.
However, it is recommended that you use this free cpa exam review in conjunction to another more robust program, in that it does not offer a guided study program, and does not offer any help in the way of time management, which is a huge hurdle when studying for the CPA exam.It seems like with the CPA exam being as difficult as it is, the silver lining should be that it is cheap. It is not. So, not only is it a completely stressful and overwhelming experience, you have to pay a lot of money to go through it. So, in light of the economic recession and the new age of bargain shoppers out there, many CPA candidates are trying to figure out a great CPA review for free. This is hard to find, because most courses cost (on the cheap end) are $500 and the more mainstream CPA Review courses are closer to $2000. So, where does this leave you?
CPA Review for Free is a site that is designed to help CPA candidates study for the CPA exam. However, the title of the website is a little bit misleading because the practice questions that CPA Review for Free offers actually cost $30 per section. In addition, the company offers premium content that costs $15 per section. In essence the website is using the “freemium” model whereby some of the content is free yet users have to pay for the best content.
Fortunately, the site is user-friendly and is pleasantly not plastered with Google ads, which one would expect on a site that offers a service that is generally priced above $2000, but offers it for free. There simulation questions are an excellent feature that most other companies do not offer.
CPA Review for Free has decent review questions and practice exams. However, if you have to pay $30/section it would probably make more sense to use the CPA Army test bank.
Actual class lectures, concepts, and guided review will not be found on the CPA Review for Free site. Rarely do students use CPA Review for Free exclusively to pass each part of the CPA exam. There is no reason not to use the program to help you study, but your results will be better if you also use a guided study program.
Other Free CPA Review Materials
An often overlooked source of free cpa review materials is AICPA’s website. If you need an overview of the CPA exam, the NASBA provides a 41 page handbook that provides information about eligibility, registration and what you can expect at the AICPA test center.
For short practice exams for all four sections you can use the AICPA website that provides a free tutorial and some sample questions. Rest assured that these questions will almost certainly not be on the actual exam. Unfortunately, you will have to use Internet explorer and download some software if you want to access the free questions. The best part of these free questions is that AICPA has the same look and feel of the Prometric exams.
These days there are a lot of new blogs and information portals about the CPA that are popping up. I would be leery of using these sites for your CPA exam study as most of these sites are simply designed to drive traffic and advertising revenue yet the information is largely copied and pasted from official sources.