The CPA review for free course is a cheap alternative to the expensive CPA study materials that are on the market today, but is it enough to pass the exam?
This course offers a ton of different study tools for CPA candidates who can’t afford other courses, but it is very limited.
Let’s take a look at what’s offered and if it has enough information and materials to prepare you for the CPA exam.
CPA Review Course For Free Information
What’s Included in CPA Review for Free?
CPA Exam Multiple-Choice Questions
Well as you can expect, not a lot. Basically, the only thing that is included in the course is a set of multiple-choice questions. The free test bank only includes 1,000 past CPA exam questions. This is hardly enough to actually prepare you for the exam, but what do you want? It’s free.
The CPA exam simulator is nice and looks similar to the AICPA exam, but it’s not exact. It also doesn’t have a ton of practice questions in it. There are a lot of harder questions that challenge your understanding of topics, but not enough to really drive home the concepts.
CPA Exam Study Tips and Information
The website has a section that includes study tips and exam information for new candidates and seasoned Certified Public Accountants, but there isn’t anything on there that I haven’t already talked about on my CPA blog. 🙂
It’s still a great resource if you want another perspective on the subject.
CPA Exam Forum
The free CPA review website has also extended into a CPA exam prep forum that allows candidates to talk with others who are going through the same struggles and study processes that they are. This forum doesn’t seem to be particularly active as most of the threads have not been updated in months, but you could try to ask a question in there if you wanted to. You’d definitely get a faster response to your question by simply emailing me, however!
Other Study Materials
That’s it. There are none. There are no books, audio lectures, video lectures, or any other review materials. Basically, all this prep course offers is a set of free multiple-choice questions that you will most likely not need if you purchase a real CPA review course.
Benefits
Totally FREE
Obviously, the biggest benefit of this set of materials is that it’s completely free. All you have to do is sign up and you will have access to 1,000 CPA practice exam questions.
Very Easy
It’s easy to sign up for. All you have to do is go to their free CPA exam questions page and enter your name, email, and password. Boom! You are signed up for it. No credit card. No payment. No nothing.
Custom Quizzes
The multiple-choice questions can be selected by topics and categories, so you can make custom quizzes out of the limited number of questions that they offer. This is a good feature because it means you don’t have to keep answers questions on topics you already know.
Drawbacks
No Additional Resources
All this course has is a test bank. That’s it. There’s no books or lectures or any other types of materials in it.
No Test Analytics
There’s no analytics to show what you got right and what you got wrong on your quizzes. This makes it difficult to really gauge your understanding of the topics when you can’t go back and look at your problem areas.
Limited Questions
There are only 1,000 questions offered for free. That’s not nearly enough to practice for the exam. More likely than not, you will go through these one or two times and start memorizing the questions and answers. You’ll be able to read the question and state the answer from memory. This doesn’t help you at all on the exam. You need to have enough questions that you can use them to study concepts and not memorize them.
Recommendation
Obviously, this isn’t meant to be a full CPA review course. It’s free. It won’t include everything that a full course would include. Thus, I would say that you still need to get a real course.
This free resource is great to have a little extra question, but if you bought a real course like Becker CPA Review, you probably won’t need any more questions.
It’s a free resource, so I can’t really say you shouldn’t sign up for it, but in my opinion, it’s kind of a waste of time. I’d get a full course and simply use that. Here’s a list of the most popular courses that I would recommend.