Many accountants studying for the CPA (Certified Public Accountant) exam make use of a CPA review course to help prepare. With various different courses on the market today, it can be difficult to select the best one. Below are some things you need to consider when choosing a CPA exam review course.

1) Course Materials

Although all courses cover similar accounting ideas, every lecturer explains things in their own way. Also, a great teacher will place more emphasis on key concepts and briefly touch self-explanatory ones to ensure lessons are more relevant. Leading CPA review courses usually make sample lectures freely available so you can see how the course is laid out. A further way to understand the quality of a review course is by visiting CPA exam preparation discussion boards and product review sites to see what other people are saying about the standard of individual courses.

Also, when shopping around for a review course, make note of any expiration dates for the course materials. The access expiry is usually only relevant when you access materials on the net, but the material maybe become obsolete as topics may change. If you opt for a course with no access expiration, you need to ensure you make use of the material before it becomes obsolete.

2) Practice Questions

Practice questions offer an alternative way to make sure students know the key ideas and are able to retain them. They help make it easy to retain through use of practical real world examples.

Most courses aim to cover every conceivable question likely to come up in the CPA exam. It is not uncommon for students to run out of time and not succeed in covering some of the key questions. Other courses take a different approach and restrict sample questions to provide a basic overview of all topics. This normally results in students not having adequate preparation. Again, this situation is far from ideal also.

The best CPA review course will contain relevant practice questions. This can be done by checking past papers to identify questions that appear the most frequently. This method ensures students use their time effectively and have a high probability of revising questions most likely to appear in an exam.

3) Student Support

Many CPA review courses provide different levels of student support. If you tend to be a question-asker and prefer speaking to teachers over the phone, then choose a review course that has that kind of service. Before buying a review course, ensure it provides the right level of support you need.

4) Frequency of Updates

Due to changes in accounting-related legislature amongst other things, CPA exam study materials need to be updated on a regular basis. The update frequency of course materials can impact on whether or not you are successful as courses that do not update quickly may teach antiquated methods.

Bear in mind it is possible that one section results in failure if the 2008 Uniform pass rate is considered - the average pass rate was between 47.49% and 49.10%. The cost of failure the first time is normally due to opting for a lower quality review course or lack of effort from the student.

Find out which CPA review course is the most highly recommended amongst the many CPA exam review courses on the market today.