Your heart pounds. Your breath gets shaky. Then your stomach drops.

That’s what it feels like to learn you’ve failed the Uniform CPA Exam, according to James Tom, a recent graduate of Hofstra University and now a staff tax accountant at a Big Four firm. 

“I was at first a little angry, and then it hit me, ‘Oh my god, I put three to four months of my life in this exam just to fail it.’ It’s just so disheartening,” Tom told Accounting Today. “But then the next thing you think of is, ‘How could I have done things differently?'”

With the pervasiveness of social media, especially professional networking platforms like LinkedIn, accountants who pass all four sections of the CPA exam on the first try are sure to let everyone know. But the far more common — and less discussed — experience is to fail a couple of sections, perhaps several times. 

Students, professors and industry professionals suggest taking a break before dusting off, picking back up where you left off, and using certain studying and test-taking strategies to get that passing score on the next try. 

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Normal to fail

“It’s normal to fail,” said Liz Burkhalter, who is a CPA and the director of the CPA pipeline at the AIPCA. “I didn’t even pass all four on my first try. So it’s normal, and I think normalizing that and knowing it’s a part of the journey is really important.”

The CPA exam has taken different forms over the decades. Now, it consists of three required core sections: auditing and attestation (AUD), financial accounting and reporting (FAR), and taxation and regulation (REG). Since the implementation of CPA Evolution exam model in January 2024, test-takers must now also choose one of three discipline sections: business analysis and reporting (BAR), information systems and controls (ISC), and tax compliance and planning (TCP).

Candidates need to score a 75 on a given section to pass. This is an important distinction: They need a 75, not a 75%. Exams are “a weighted combination of scaled scores from multiple-choice questions and task-based simulations,” according to the American Institute of CPAs. In other words, because of the weightings and the way the exam is scored, a candidate could theoretically get 75% of the questions correct and still fail the exam. In the same way, a candidate could theoretically get below 75% and still pass. 

Most state boards of accountancy give 30 months from the time you pass your first exam to pass the other three sections, with a few exceptions. The time to pass was recently increased from 18 months.

The statistics paint a clear picture. Since 2024, pass rates for the three core sections — AUD, FAR and REG — hovered around 46%, 41% and 62%, respectively. Meanwhile, pass rates for the three new discipline sections — BAR, ISC and TCP — were 41%, 63% and 76%, respectively. However, “it’ll probably take easily into 2026 before we really get a picture of the volumes and the associated pass rates,” according to Joe Maslott, the AICPA’s director of CPA exam content management.

But while the exam is difficult, it’s not impossible, Maslott said. “We know that thousands of candidates a year pass the CPA exam. It is very doable. What candidates struggle with is probably the breadth of content and adequately preparing.”

Even Anoop Mehta, a past chair of the AICPA, failed the exam numerous times. 

“I signed up for a CPA review class. I sat for the exam. And I didn’t pass,” Mehta said in his AICPA chair inaugural speech in May 2022. “I had set a goal to achieve my CPA designation, but after a few more unsuccessful attempts, I gave up. I was resigned to never achieving those elusive letters. But something changed in me several years later. On my 30th birthday, [my wife] Bina asked me if I was really satisfied with my career. It gave me a pause, because in truth, I wasn’t. This was a turning point for me. So, I gave the CPA exam one last shot. You know the rest of the story.”

Training for the marathon

Studying for the exam is like training to run a marathon, Tom said. “You need to train your brain slowly to be able to sit down and take a bunch of questions that are very difficult for four hours.”

While in school, Tom woke up between 5 and 6 a.m. every morning to study for two to three hours before his 9 a.m. class. He found that in order to maintain his schedule, he needed to cut out one of his hobbies.

“What sucks about studying is you have 24 hours in a day. You usually sleep for eight hours, you have 16 left, and you have what you normally do during those 16 hours a day. Now that you have to start studying, you have to somehow take out of that time what you used to do and put it into studying,” he said. “For me, I used to play a lot of volleyball. I used to play like eight hours a week. Those eight hours go straight to studying.”

Tom says the two hardest aspects of the exam are the sheer volume of information it covers, and learning how to study. 

“You can choose to memorize it, or you can choose to understand it,” he said. “I’ve seen a lot of people choose to memorize it and then do very well, but it’s a lot more taxing on them. They’re studying a lot harder.”

Will Mann, a graduate of Robert Morris University, spent between 120 and 150 hours studying. He took and passed BEC first — an old section before the implementation of CPA Evolution — and was on a time crunch to pass the remaining three sections without losing any credit for BEC before the June 30 deadline. While in school, he passed REG on the first try and passed AUD after three tries. It took four tries on FAR before he passed in June, after he graduated — and just before the deadline. 

“It’s frustrating, for sure,” he said. “[But] instead of being frustrated and complaining about it, take that energy and try to put it towards, ‘How am I going to pass and how am I going to pass quickly?'”

Trying again

Jack Castonguay, associate professor of accounting and chair at Hofstra University, says the first step after failing is to take a break. Castonguay is also the vice president of learning and development of accounting and finance at Surgent, another one of the leading exam prep providers. 

“Most students want to immediately jump back in, but normally by the time you take that exam you’ve been studying so hard for so long. You’re a little burnt out. You can only see the same information so many times,” he said. “From there, go back and start studying the section you just failed.”

Some candidates ask if they should try another section then come back to the one they failed later. But the issue with that, Castonguay said, is “You’re essentially taking all that knowledge you built up to, and you’re storing it away, hoping that’s going to be there as fresh as it was when you put it away.”

Castonguay’s additional advice should sound familiar to any student with good test-taking practices: If you don’t know the answer to a multiple choice question, flag it and come back later. “Don’t spin your wheels,” he said. 

Analog ways of studying should not be discredited either, he said. While many test prep resources are online and the exam itself is computerized, handwritten notes and flashcards are still some of the best tools for memorization.

Mann’s advice to test-takers was to review everything — not just what you think you don’t know: “There are so many nuances to all of these exams and it’s easy to think you know something. Maybe you could answer a multiple choice question on it, but if they give it to you in a simulation, that’s a whole different ball game. You have to apply that knowledge at a much deeper level.”

He also advises going into the exam with a plan: Know when you’re going to each exam, plan which one to take first and prioritizing based on any events you anticipate, like starting a new job. He also recommends talking to someone who’s taken the test before to understand exactly what it will be like walking into the room. 

Burkhalter emphasized the importance of adjusting study plans and habits as necessary, like moving to the library if there are too many distractions at home. 

“Being able to make adjustments proactively, instead of trying to do the same thing that led you down an undesirable path is going to be the key to not only your exam success, but success in life,” she said. 

She also noted that “not every single review course provider or each study resource is a one-size-fits all.” 

Roly Marrero, a staff accountant at fractional CFO services firm Staxx, utilized more unorthodox approaches to pass the exam. Marrero made posts to the Subreddit r/CPA on Reddit with clarifying questions and joined study groups on Discord, like Big Picture Accounting.

He also stressed the importance of giving yourself enough time: “No one’s passed the exam and said, ‘I could’ve done it in less time,’ or, ‘I had too much time.’ No, it’s always you take it and then you say, ‘I should have dedicated more time to this.'”

“You’re going to pass it sooner or later,” he concluded. 

Burkhalter echoed the sentiment: “The only time you actually fail is when you quit. Failing is part of the journey. You’re not failing until you actually stop testing.”