You should NOT try to pass the CPA Exam alone.
It will be more work and more stress than necessary if you try to figure this out all on your own.
Just like starting a new business startup, there is NO reason to recreate the wheel when it comes to studying for the CPA Exam.
These are the four types of people/resources you want in your life when you are on your journey to passing the CPA Exam.
4 Essential CPA Exam Support Resources You Need To Pass:
Resource #1: CPA Review Course Support
If you have a question on a CPA practice question then your CPA review course should provide support to explain the answer.
Before reaching out, make sure to lay out exactly what you have done, what source documents you have read or watched, and explain precisely what your question is to make it easy on their support team.
What Can’t CPA Review Course Support Do For You?
CPA Review Course Support is NOT your tutor.
They don’t have time to teach you basic accounting.
They are there to clarify the content provided in the CPA review course and explain it differently than what is in the course itself.
Sadly most of the big-box CPA Review Courses offer very SLOW response times to your questions.
Resource #2: CPA Exam Mentor
This is someone in your life that you know or is available to mentor you on the best practices for passing the CPA exam.
You want an effective CPA mentor who has successfully passed the exam and ideally has experience helping other people pass as well.
He/she also needs to have an intimate understanding of how your CPA review course works and to be able to provide you with tailored advice based on your situation.
What Can’t A CPA Exam Mentor Do For You?
A CPA exam mentor is NOT a tutor.
They are just there to teach you how to study, how to make the right decisions, and what mistakes to avoid making that could waste your time, money and hurt your scores.
They are giving you their experience passing the CPA exam so that you can avoid trial and error.
Resource #3: Accountability Partner
This is someone who isn’t necessarily an accountant and is part of your life on a weekly/daily process.
An AP is going to be there to check in on you, assess your mental mindset towards the CPA exam, hold you accountable for completing your study goals, and most importantly going to be the people you get to celebrate with when you hit your study goals and pass the CPA exam.
An AP is your lifeline to avoiding CPA exam depression.
What Can’t An Accountability Partner Do For You?
An Accountability Partner is not your mentor.
Typically you aren’t going to have someone who has already passed the CPA exam in your life at an intimate level on a daily basis.
If so that’s great! Two for one!
But if you are like most people then your AP is going to be a non-accountant friend or family member.
Resource #4: CPA Exam Tutor
This is someone who you hire to teach you technical accounting.
Typically, a tutor is really only needed for specific sections that you don’t have much expertise in.
Tutors are typically awfully expensive and should be used sparingly considering how good of a job most CPA review courses are at teaching you EXACTLY what you need to know to pass the CPA exam.
What Shouldn’t A CPA Exam Tutor Do For You?
A CPA Exam Tutor is not a mentor and is much more hands-on than your CPA review course’s technical support.
They charge too much to teach you the CPA exam basics like how to schedule an exam, how to study, or how to use your CPA review course that a CPA exam mentor can provide to you.
CPA Exam Tutors are perfect for outsourcing research of topics that you don’t understand and your CPA review courses technical support can’t or won’t help you with.
Next Steps
When you have these four resources backing you up then it becomes easy to become an unstoppable CPA exam passing force.
Missing any of these pieces of your CPA Exam support system?