CPA Exam and Review

At Meaden & Moore, we are strong advocates of continuing education and providing the resources and tools to help our accountants achieve their goal in passing the CPA exam.  The CPA exam is a 14-hour, computer-based, multi-part professional exam given by the American Institute of CPA’s. 

Requirements to take the exam
To become a licensed CPA you first have to meet your state’s requirements for education, experience and knowledge.  Most states now require 150 semester hours of university education.

Becoming a certified public accountant
You must pass all four parts of the Uniform CPA Examination.  Each state administers the examination and reports scores to its candidates. The exam is made up and graded by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.  You are also required to take an ethics exam, which consists of 15 questions taken online. 

Examination Dates
The exam is offered up to 6 days a week during January, February, April, May, July, August, October and November of each year.  You can only take each part of the exam once per quarter.

After the state board determines an applicant is eligible to sit for specific sections of the CPA Exam, the applicant will receive a Notice to Schedule (NTS).  The applicant can register directly with the Prometric testing center to schedule their exam times.

Exam Format
The CPA examination is broken down into four sections.  Each part is graded on a scale of 1 to 100 and the minimum passing score is 75.

The fours sections of the exam are:

For more detailed exam content information, click here.

Studying for the CPA exam is hard work.  Below is a list of resources to help make this process easier.  The resources in this list are not an endorsement.

CPA Candidate Bulletin

CPA Initial Application

Ohio Course Evaluation Worksheet 

Uniform CPA Examination

National Association of State Boards of Accountancy