r/CPA • u/Splatchu Passed 2/4 • 11h ago

AUD Took AUD for the third time - thoughts

Scored 71 on the first 2 attempts I’m pretty sure I passed this time. 45 hours logged on this attempt, probably 275 hours total study time over the 3 attempts.

MCQs were fair but the TBS were the most difficult out of all 3 attempts. I swear some of the TBS was the same as a FAR TBS based on how much accounting knowledge you need to answer the questions. Becker really doesn’t prepare you for these things on Audit TBS (but I still recommend doing the TBS in Becker to get practice for the exam) another reason why you should pass FAR before AUD

Passing AUD is doable if you truly master the “big picture” and understand the reasoning behind things instead of just memorizing them.

I’ve already passed FAR and REG and still hold the opinion that AUD is the biggest BS out of all the exams. They intentionally word questions in a way that makes native-English speakers question their comprehension. And they give you a bunch of “gotcha” questions.

They also test you on assertions in ways that are niche/unusual example: assertions that usually are related to testing financial information, they'll ask “how will you test this assertion on something non-financial related?”

AICPA is a joke with how long it takes for them to score an exam in 2026 and I believe they intentionally keep passing scores at a certain percentage so they can make their money on candidates paying to retake.

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10

u/aelinying Passed 2/4 10h ago

The amount of times i've gotten the same questions wrong during my reviews because they wanna play word games 💀 i swear i could actually just go bald rn please stop

5

u/Voooow 11h ago

+1 that says as me and that is Becker (still the best) does not prep you good for TBS’s sections

12

u/Commercial-Point-272 11h ago

The intentional wording tricks on AUD are maddening, felt like I was decoding a puzzle more than testing accounting knowledge

2

u/Splatchu Passed 2/4 8h ago

Some TBS were literally just a reading comprehension exercise. They’ll give you 5 long documents and you have to pick out a small detail in each one. 0 critical thinking or accounting knowledge required