How To Manage Your Time On The CPA Exam

Key Points:

• You can take

  • 48 mins per testlet

  • 1 min and 15 seconds per MCQ (on average)

Time management is a key aspect of the CPA exam. It doesn’t take a lot of work to prepare or understand but make sure you know the game plan before you go into the exam. Here’s mine.

Testlets:

There are 5 testlets on the exam. You have 4 hours to complete them. 

You can take a break in between any 2 testlets. But the clock will continue to run. Unless you take your break in between testlets 3 and 4. That will allow a 15 minute break that won’t reduce your test clock.

So now we just do some basic math. 

240 Minutes divided by 5 testlets= 48 minutes per testlet. 

48 minutes. That is your key number. Just know if you take over 48 minutes on a testlet you start eating into other testlet’s time.

And if you wanted to break it down even further. You can take the amount of MCQs, lets say 38 (REG) and calculate how long you can take on each MCQ. 

48/38= 1.26 minutes per question

You can spend an average of 1 minute and 15 seconds per question. 

I don’t think you should worry about this too much because some questions might take 10 seconds and others might take 3 minutes. 

Just make sure you are aware of your time per testlet. 48 minutes per testlet on each exam. Anything over that puts you behind schedule.