Preparing for the Certified Public Accounting exams is time-consuming and laborious
. Fortunately, there are many free CPA exam resources available for applicants to use.
You commonly hear people referring to the review process as "having to learn topics a mile wide and an inch deep," referring to the vast array of subjects that you must be familiar with. Sure, you don't need to be an expert in everything, but you need to thoroughly understand all of the relevant areas in order to be successful with the CPA exam.
Odds are you are contemplating buying a professional CPA exam review course. If you don't live in a major metropolitan area, your course may be limited to books and CDs. That's alright until you have a question on a topic and are having difficulty understanding it. The company's customer service representatives may be able to help you, but talking to a person over the phone may not be ideal. Another great idea is to look for tutorials or courses online regarding your particular question.
Just look at YouTube. I included a few sample videos below, but it is safe to say that many (if not "most") of the topics on the CPA exams are covered in videos that are found on YouTube. I used YouTube extensively to address topics that did not click with me when presented in the CPA exam material. I spent a lot of time trying to understand items like Variance Analysis and Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery with my review course, but I couldn't "get it" until I watched a few of the videos.
Other great resources are the free CPA Exam Sample Questions. Take a look at these collections of questions. While these questions will probably never be on the exam in their current state, they will still help for understanding the topic and becoming familiar with the question-writing style of the AICPA.