Four exam sections, a Becker subscription, and a study window that shrinks every time work runs late. CPA candidates know the drill: you need thousands of practice questions across FAR, AUD, REG, and BAR, but your review course can only give you so many reps on the specific topics you keep getting wrong. Once you've cycled through every Becker or Wiley MCQ on lease accounting twice, you're recognizing answer patterns instead of reasoning through the standard. What if you could turn any chapter into fresh practice questions in 30 seconds?
This guide covers why practice questions are the most effective CPA study method, how to generate them from your own review materials, what good CPA exam questions look like across all four sections, and where AI-generated questions fit alongside Becker, Wiley, and Roger.
Why Practice Questions Are the Most Effective CPA Study Method
CPA exam first-time pass rates hover between 45% and 55% per section. The difference between candidates who pass and those who don't isn't study time — it's study method. The AICPA Blueprints are built around application: scenarios where you classify a lease, determine the correct tax treatment, or identify the right audit opinion. Definitions alone won't get you there.
Review courses include 4,000 to 8,000 MCQs for a reason. Volume matters. But once you've seen every question in your bank twice, you start recognizing the distractor patterns rather than genuinely reasoning through the accounting standard or tax rule. That's recognition, not retrieval — and the exam tests retrieval.
The active recall research is clear: retrieving information from memory produces significantly better retention than passive review, especially for application-based exams. Fresh questions on the same material force you to reason through the concept again rather than pattern-match to a familiar answer.
The gap isn't whether you should do practice questions — every CPA candidate knows that. The gap is getting enough fresh questions on your weakest topics after you've exhausted the review course bank.
How to Turn CPA Review Materials Into Practice Quizzes
Upload one topic at a time — a single FAR chapter on leases, not the entire textbook. Focused input produces focused questions.
Step 1: Upload One Topic at a Time
Drag and drop a single CPA review chapter or accounting PDF into Digestly. Keep it focused: one FAR module on government accounting, one REG chapter on property transactions, one AUD section on audit evidence. Mixing topics in a single upload dilutes question quality.
Step 2: Generate Notes
Hit "Generate Notes." Digestly processes the PDF into structured study notes — extracting rules, standards, thresholds, exceptions, and key formulas from the chapter.
Step 3: Switch to the Quiz Tab
Navigate to the Quiz tab and generate a practice quiz. For CPA prep, quizzes are the priority over flashcards because the exam is MCQ and task-based simulation — you need to practice selecting the right answer from scenarios, not isolated term recall.
Step 4: Take the Practice Quiz
Answer each question without referencing your notes or the textbook. The point is to expose gaps, not confirm what you already know. Pay attention to which questions make you hesitate — that's where your weak spots are.
Step 5: Review What You Missed
For every question you got wrong, go back to the source material and understand the specific rule, threshold, or exception behind the correct answer. CPA questions always hinge on a precise detail — a percentage limit, a classification criterion, a reporting requirement.
Repeat per topic. Organize uploads by exam section and subtopic so your practice stays targeted.
Try it free with your weakest CPA topic →
What Good CPA Practice Questions Look Like
Every CPA exam question puts you in a scenario and asks what you'd do — classify, calculate, determine, identify, select. The exam tests application, not definitions. Here are examples across all four sections:
| Section | Example Question | Why It's Useful |
|---|---|---|
| FAR — Leases | 5-year lease, $50K annual payments, 6% rate, no purchase option. Classification under ASC 842? | Tests lease classification criteria + present value calculation |
| FAR — Government | City receives 800K spent by year-end. Revenue recognized? | Tests modified accrual vs accrual for government grants |
| AUD — Evidence | Count team not tagging inventory during observation. Auditor response? | Tests audit procedure knowledge in fieldwork scenarios |
| AUD — Reports | Material GAAP departure, management refuses to correct, current period only. Opinion type? | Tests report modification logic and opinion thresholds |
| REG — Individual Tax | Rental property sold after 3 years, $40K accumulated depreciation. Gain characterization? | Tests §1231/1245/1250 recapture rules |
| REG — Business Law | Supplier assigns contract without consent. When is assignment valid? | Tests contract assignment and delegation rules |
| BAR — Data Analytics | AR aging 90+ day bucket jumped 8% to 22%. Assertion at risk + procedure? | Tests analytical procedure interpretation |
| BAR — Tax Compliance | C corp with $500K prior-year NOL. Max offset and carryback rules? | Tests post-TCJA NOL rules (80% limit, no carryback) |
Notice the pattern: every question requires you to apply a standard, rule, or procedure to a specific fact pattern. If you can answer "what is ASC 842?" but can't classify a lease given specific terms, you're not ready for the exam. Practice questions that mirror this application format are what build exam readiness.
Becker, Wiley, and Roger vs. AI-Generated Questions: When to Use Each
This is not an either/or choice. They serve different purposes.
Review course strengths:
- Validated question banks mapped to the AICPA Blueprints
- Task-based simulations — document review, journal entry, reconciliation, and research
- Adaptive learning and performance tracking by topic
- Detailed explanations citing ASC, IRC, and AU-C sections
- Simulated exam environment with accurate timing and question distribution
Where AI-generated questions from your materials fill a gap:
- Extra reps on weak subtopics after you've exhausted every review course question on that topic
- Fresh angles on material you've already seen twice — prevents pattern recognition without genuine reasoning
- Study from supplemental materials: professor PDFs, firm training documents, AICPA practice exams
- Rapid gap identification before investing hours in a full module — upload a chapter, take a quick quiz, and see if you actually know the material or just think you do
The practical approach: Becker, Wiley, or Roger as your primary review course. Do the full question bank. When you score below 70% on a subtopic, upload that chapter to Digestly and generate supplemental practice questions. One source gives you validated breadth. The other gives you targeted depth on your specific weak areas.
What AI-Generated Questions Can't Do (Yet)
Honesty matters more than a sales pitch when you're preparing for a professional licensure exam.
Task-based simulations: The CPA exam includes interactive TBS — document review simulations with multiple exhibits, journal entry problems, reconciliation worksheets, and authoritative literature research tasks. AI can generate MCQ-style scenario questions, but it can't produce the interactive multi-tab simulations that make up a significant portion of each exam section.
Precise calculation scaffolding: AI-generated questions involving numbers sometimes don't reconcile cleanly. A present value calculation or a depreciation schedule might have rounding inconsistencies or amounts that don't tie out perfectly. Always verify the math against your textbook when a calculation feels off.
Authoritative literature references: The concepts behind AI-generated questions are generally correct, but the questions won't cite exact ASC paragraph numbers, specific IRC sections, or AU-C references. For questions where the precise citation matters, cross-reference with your review course materials.
Difficulty calibration: Review course questions are psychometrically validated against actual CPA exam difficulty. AI-generated questions from your notes may be significantly easier or harder than what you'll see on exam day. They haven't been calibrated against a reference standard.
The workaround: Use AI-generated questions for MCQ content review and gap identification. Use your review course for TBS practice, simulated exams, and difficulty-calibrated assessment. No single source covers everything.
Try it free — supplement your CPA prep →
Organizing Your CPA Study by Exam Section
Each CPA exam section has distinct characteristics that affect how you should study and where supplemental questions help most.
FAR — The broadest section. Financial reporting, government accounting, and nonprofit accounting all live here. Government and nonprofit are the most commonly failed areas because candidates underweight them. Drill these subtopics separately with dedicated question sets.
AUD — Conceptual and procedure-heavy. The highest-weight areas are audit evidence, report modifications, and internal control evaluation. The material feels repetitive until an exam question asks you to distinguish between a qualified opinion and an adverse opinion given a specific fact pattern. Application-focused practice is essential.
REG — Tax rules are precise and exception-heavy. Individual taxation, entity taxation, and property transactions carry the highest weight. This is the section where raw question volume helps most — every additional practice question on §1231 gains or partnership basis adjustments makes the rules stick a little more.
BAR — The newest section, replacing BEC in 2024. Covers data analytics, information systems, tax compliance, and federal taxation for entities. Because it's new, review course question banks have less depth here than for the established sections. Supplemental question generation from your study materials is especially valuable for BAR.
Upload by section and subtopic. Track your scores per subtopic. Below 70%? Generate more questions from that chapter.
For the science behind why spacing your review across these topics works, see the spaced repetition guide.
A Study Schedule That Works for CPA Candidates
Most CPA candidates work full-time while studying. Here's a per-section schedule built for 8 weeks per exam section:
Weeks 1-4: Content review + immediate MCQs per module. Read or watch the lecture for one module, then immediately do the associated MCQs from your review course. For any subtopic where you score below 70%, upload that chapter to Digestly and generate supplemental quizzes. Address weaknesses now, not later.
Weeks 5-6: Full question bank pass. Work through 40-60 MCQs per day from your review course. Generate fresh quizzes on persistently weak chapters — topics where you're still scoring below 70% after the first pass.
Week 7: TBS + targeted MCQ review. Focus on task-based simulations from your review course. Supplement with targeted MCQ review on your weakest remaining subtopics. Practice under simulated exam conditions — timed, no breaks, no notes.
Week 8: Full-length practice exam + light review. Take a complete practice exam from your review course. Light review only in the final 2 days. Trust your preparation.
Between sections: Take 2-3 days off. Burnout kills more CPA study plans than lack of knowledge.
For more exam-day strategies, see how to study faster for exams.
Stop Rereading Your Textbook. Start Answering Questions.
The CPA exam tests whether you can apply ASC 842, determine correct tax treatment, identify the right audit opinion, and interpret data analytics — not what you recognize on a page. Every hour spent rereading a chapter is an hour not spent in active practice.
Convert chapters into questions. Answer them. Review what you missed. Repeat. That's the cycle that builds the applied knowledge the CPA exam actually measures.
Upload your CPA review chapter — free, no credit card →
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