Monday, April 18, 2011

CPA Review Courses - Which One Should You Purchase?

The following factors will help you find the ideal CPA exam review course to help guarantee success.

1) Course Materials

Every course will cover the same sections likely to appear in the exam, but instructors use their own methods. The best courses use experienced teachers who can teach difficult ideas while making sure students grasp them. Also, a great instructor will spend more time on key theories and skim the more self-explanatory ones to ensure lectures are more effective. Top CPA review courses normally make sample lessons available for free so you can see how the course is planned out. Another way to assess the quality of a review course is by visiting CPA exam preparation forums as well as product review sites to see what other people are saying about the standard of individual review courses.

It is therefore worth considering how the course material is delivered prior to deciding which course to sign up to.

Also, when shopping around for a review course, be sure to note any expiry dates for the course materials. Some questions and simulation software will become disabled at a certain time after activation. As well, some courses have materials which are accessible to students for a set periods before they become inaccessible. The access expiry is usually only relevant when you access online materials, but the material maybe become obsolete as subjects can change. If you buy the type that with access expiration, make sure that you will have enough time to understand the materials before it expires.

2) Practice Questions

Having studied the course materials, the student normally receives practice questions to help absorb the knowledge into their memory as well as apply the concepts they have learned to actual case scenarios.

Each of the CPA review courses take different approaches with practice questions. Many courses aim to cover every possible question likely to turn up in the CPA exam. While this may be a safe route to take, it can also be extremely time-consuming. It is not uncommon for students to run out of time and not succeed in covering some of the key questions. This severely impacts on their exam preparation and ability to succeed.

Other courses take different approaches and keep practice questions to a minimum. This normally results in students not receiving ideal preparation. It is not ideal.

The ideal CPA review course will concentrate on the most likely questions to come up in the CPA exam. This is possible through checking past papers to identify questions that appear the most frequently. This will ensure the highest rate of return for the student's study time by enabling the student to focus on areas that will probably matter the most.

3) Student Support

Many CPA review courses provide different levels of customer service. If you usually make use of telephone support, it is critical you check the course offers this service before signing up. On the other end of the spectrum are courses with minimal support, and somewhere in between are courses that allow students to email queries to the instructors. Other courses provide message boards and forums to enable students to interact with tutors and with each other. Before buying a review course, ensure it provides the right level of support you need.

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