The AICPA recently released their list of 2009 CPA Exam questions, which is something that they do on an annual basis. They release fifty questions or so per section, which is in addition to the questions that they license to the various CPA Review courses to use in their books.

Should candidates spend valuable study time going over them?

To answer this, I asked Phil Yaeger of Yaeger CPA Review.

His response is as follows:

“While I realize that there is some buzz about the 2009 AICPA Released Questions, I do not recommend that my students (or any other CPA candidates) spend time studying them. The reason for this is two-fold:

1. The questions that they released are old, retired questions that they have decided not to use on future exams. Candidates who spend time tryng to answer these questions are not only wasting their time on them, but also risk becoming frustrated because their review material hasn’t covered these topics. At a recent meeting with the AICPA they told us that these questions have been purged from their exam test bank and won’t be used in the future.

2. In our course we use the Wiley CPA Review textbooks and Practice software. There are several thousand good multiple choice questions and simulations to work on and study from. Within our DVD lectures, we go over close to a thousand questions and simulations. WHY go over Released Questions that you’ll never see again? There are more than enough good, worthwhile, questions to study from. We carefully choose questions that we believe best represent how to apply important concepts. We teach concepts and use questions to reinforce solid understanding.

I do not recommend that my students spend their time and energy on the 2009 AICPA Released Questions. Their time would be much better spent reviewing their notes or working the Yaeger-assigned questions in the Wiley books. The questions that we assign and review in our DVD lectures will appear on the CPA Exam, wheras the AICPA Released Questions will not be on the Exam.”

I’m always here to help,

Phil Yaeger, CPA, CFP, PhD

Yaeger CPA Review 1-800-824-2811

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Daniell Blue under this Creative Commons license.

Related posts:

1. Free AICPA Released CPA Exam Questions
2. New AICPA Sample CPA Exam Tests Released 5/5/2008
3. CPA Exam Pass Rates for 2009 Q4 Released; Weakest Quarter of the Year

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