It’s likely that you’ve had plenty of previous experience with multiple choice tests, and that you’re familiar with the strategies for dealing with difficult questions. So the fact that half of the CPA Exam is multiple choice can be a source of comfort. But managing your time during this portion is essential.
That’s because the multiple-choice portion precedes the task-based simulations, and that part of the exam can be very time consuming. In our SkillBuilder tutorial video on multiple choice questions, a Becker expert guides you through the best time management practices to complete the five testlets that constitute the four-hour exam.
You’ll find out how much time, on average, you should spend on each testlet. All told, you’ll need an average of one minute to complete each multiple choice question. Of course some questions, such as the more calculation-intensive ones, will take longer, and you’ll need to take that into account when handling the less-intensive questions.
Setting the Pace
To help you get a sense of whether you’re maintaining the proper pace, the tutorial takes you through the features included in Becker’s practice MCQs. There’s a clock, for example, that displays how much time you’ve spent on the question you’re working on, the total running time, and how many questions you’ve answered correctly. So when you’re going through your MCQs, you’ll be able to calculate how quickly you’re moving through the questions and whether you’re keeping the right pace in the multiple choice portion.
One of the more helpful aspects of the simulated exam is the ability to establish a time budget. The Exam Time Remaining countdown clock in the upper left lets you know if you’re keeping pace, or if it’s time to take your best guess and move on (the tutorial also explains why taking your best guess is a good strategy in general).
Additional Tools
In the tutorial, you’ll also see some of the tools built into the Becker’s software, and how you can use those tools to help prepare for the exam itself.
The Mark Question tool allows you to include specific questions you’ve flagged in future practice sessions. This could come in handy if you simply guessed a correct answer and need to refer to the question later for additional practice.
The See Lecture button on the top left of the screen opens a link to the interactive e-book. From there, you can quickly find the relevant page, or you can watch the video content from that page of the lecture. As the tutorial makes clear, if you find that you’re coming upon the same reference page numbers again and again, it's an indication that you may need to spend more time studying a particular area.
For the concepts you find most troublesome, the Academic Support tool—found on the upper right of the practice MCQs screen—is an email response system that provides answers to your questions within two business days.
Compared to the complexities of the task-based simulations, the multiple-choice portion may seem less stressful. But maintaining the proper pacing in this portion will go a long way toward making sure you have enough time for the simulations. Using the tools at your disposal in Becker’s practice exams can help develop your time management skills.
Remember, Becker CPA Review has a bank of more than 1,100 multiple choice questions including those written by subject matter experts and ones previously provided by the AICPA, so you can practice as much as you want.
You can watch the CPA SkillBuilder video tutorial on multiple choice questions and time management here.
