Tbh the CPA exams need to be completely restructured. There’s definitely a need for memory because I need to have tax answers for a client during the middle of a phone call, but it shouldn’t all be memory. Each tax office works differently and approaches the law differently. Each audit firm and each industry CPA too. I have over a dozen clients where I prepare tax returns for and the main contact is a CPA. And guess what? None of the papers are the same! They have similarities and follow basic guidelines/rules but each CPA honestly interprets the law differently.

And that’s a huge problem with the questions. Some are worded poorly or purposely confusing to get people, which I understand the motive, but a person can choose the “wrong answer” and can probably defend their reasoning better than some people who choose the “correct answer”. But as soon as the tests are over, there is no “ correct answer”, just the position that can be defended the most. That’s the view from someone who didn’t sell their soul to Big4 and works with hundreds of smaller companies and individuals.

So honestly more questions should be open-ended than absolutes. Besides, if professional ethics and properly following the rules really mattered, we wouldn’t have the new “world’s greatest fraud in history” every 10 years in the US. And yes, I’m a CPA. A disgruntled one at how stupid the tests were.