CPA Task-Based Simulations: What They Are and How to Practise Them
Half your score, and the half almost nobody studies properly. AUD combines scaled MCQ and simulation scores at 50% each; individual items do not have a fixed MCQ-equivalent value.
Half of your CPA Exam score comes from task-based simulations. In every section except ISC, the split is 50% multiple choice and 50% TBS; ISC is 60/40.
Almost nobody studies that way. Multiple choice questions are quick, produce an immediate right or wrong, and make a study session feel productive. Simulations are slow, awkward and mildly unpleasant, so they get postponed to the last two weeks, by which point there is no time to fix what they reveal.
That mismatch is one of the most consistent, most correctable causes of a score in the sixties. Here is what simulations actually are, how they are built, and how to practise them so they stop being the part of the exam you hope goes well.
The arithmetic nobody does
| Section | MCQs | TBSs | Score weighting |
|---|---|---|---|
| FAR | 50 | 7 | 50 / 50 |
| BAR | 50 | 7 | 50 / 50 |
| TCP | 68 | 7 | 50 / 50 |
| REG | 72 | 8 | 50 / 50 |
| AUD | 78 | 7 | 50 / 50 |
| ISC | 82 | 6 | 60 / 40 |
The weightings apply to the MCQ and TBS components, not equal marks per item. The score depends on performance, item difficulty and scaling, so item counts cannot be converted into a fixed number of MCQs per simulation.
Note also that no section has fewer MCQs than FAR, the hardest section, which means its seven simulations carry an unusually concentrated share of the marks in the exam candidates are most likely to fail.
What a simulation actually is
A TBS gives you a set of exhibits and asks you to produce something. The exhibits might be a trial balance, a set of invoices, a memo, an email chain, a bank statement, a lease agreement or an extract from a client's accounting policy. The task might be to complete a schedule, post journal entries, mark statements as true or false, select a treatment from a dropdown, or apply an excerpt of the standards that comes with the exhibits.
The important structural point is that the exhibits contain more information than you need, deliberately. Part of what is being tested is whether you can identify which facts matter. This is not true of a multiple choice question, where every word in the stem is usually load-bearing, and it is why candidates who are strong on MCQs can still struggle here.
The types you will meet
| Type | What you do | Where it shows up |
|---|---|---|
| Numeric entry and schedules | Compute figures and enter them into a form or schedule | Everywhere, and the most common type in FAR, REG and TCP |
| Journal entries | Select accounts and enter debits and credits from source documents | FAR and BAR mostly |
| Document review simulation | Read a draft document against supporting evidence and decide which passages need changing | AUD in particular, and the type candidates find slowest |
| Option list and dropdown | Choose the correct treatment, assertion or conclusion for each row of a table | All sections |
| Applied research | Read an excerpt of the standards or the Code supplied with the exhibits and apply it to the facts | All six sections, inside other tasks rather than as a task of its own |
Applied research deserves a note because most study material still describes the version that was retired. There is no searchable authoritative literature in the exam and has not been since the exam was rebuilt in January 2024. The 2026 Blueprints describe research in every section as reviewing and using excerpts of source materials: the paragraph you need arrives as an exhibit, already selected.
That makes it harder, not easier. The old task paid for knowing where to look; this one hands you the paragraph and asks whether it governs the facts in front of you, which is the part candidates are actually weak at. Practise it by reading excerpts you have not memorised and deciding what they require, not by drilling citations.
What you get on screen
During the exam you have a spreadsheet, a four-function on-screen calculator and a highlighter for marking excerpts inside the exhibits.
The spreadsheet is under-used. For anything with more than two steps, a lease amortisation schedule, a basis computation, a deferred tax roll-forward, working in the spreadsheet rather than on paper or in your head is faster and leaves an audit trail you can check. Candidates who have never opened it before exam day do not think to use it under pressure.
How to practise them
Five rules, in rough order of how much difference they make.
Start in week one
Not week nine. A simulation attempted early is a diagnostic: it tells you which parts of a topic you can actually operate rather than merely recognise, and it does so while there is still time to act on the answer. Attempt one simulation for every topic as you finish it, however badly it goes.
The version of this that fails is "I will do simulations once I know the material." You will never feel that you know the material, and the simulations will teach you what knowing it actually requires.
Read the requirement before the exhibits
Simulations present the exhibits first, which invites you to read everything and then discover what you were looking for. Reverse it. Find out what is being asked, then go into the exhibits hunting for specific facts.
On a document review simulation this is the difference between a manageable task and an unmanageable one, because it turns a full read of every attachment into a targeted search.
Practise under a clock from the start
Untimed simulation practice measures whether you could get there eventually. The exam measures whether you get there in about eighteen minutes.
Rough per-simulation budgets, allowing sensible time for the multiple choice testlets:
| Section | Time left for TBS | Per simulation |
|---|---|---|
| FAR | ~2 hours 5 minutes | ~18 minutes |
| REG | ~2 hours 5 minutes | ~15 minutes |
| AUD | ~2 hours 10 minutes | ~18 minutes |
If a simulation is going badly at double its budget, leave it, answer what you can and move on. One abandoned simulation is survivable; two unfinished ones because you overran on the first are usually not.
Never leave a field blank
There is no penalty for a wrong answer. A blank field scores zero with certainty; a considered guess scores zero or better. Simulations are frequently graded in parts, so filling in the six fields you are confident about on a ten-field schedule is worth real marks even if the other four are wrong.
This sounds obvious and is very commonly ignored under time pressure, when candidates abandon a whole simulation because one figure defeated them.
Review simulations differently from MCQs
With a multiple choice question, the useful question is "why is the right answer right?" With a simulation, it is "at which step did my answer diverge?"
Simulations chain: a wrong opening basis produces a wrong gain, a wrong deduction and a wrong tax, and scoring yourself as having got the simulation wrong tells you nothing. Find the first wrong number. That is the only thing you actually need to fix, and it is often a single misunderstanding producing four errors.
The simulation half is where sections are won
Two candidates with identical knowledge can be twenty points apart on simulations alone, because simulations test something multiple choice does not: whether you can operate the knowledge under a clock, from messy inputs, without being told what the options are.
That skill is trainable, but only by doing the thing. There is no reading equivalent.
Where to practise this
Prepito is built around the simulation component of the exam: timed simulations alongside practice questions, full explanations for every step rather than just the final answer, and mistake review that shows you which errors keep repeating. All six CPA course options are covered in English: FAR, AUD, REG, BAR, ISC and TCP.
CPA questions and written explanations are in English. Prepito’s interface is available in English and Arabic, and the AI tutor can respond in either language.
For where simulations sit inside each section's blueprint, see the FAR, AUD and REG study guides, or the CPA programme.
Sources: AICPA guidance on CPA Exam scoring for the MCQ and TBS weightings, AICPA CPA Exam Blueprints for question counts. Question and simulation counts are set by the AICPA and revised periodically; confirm the current Blueprint for your testing window. Time budgets here are planning guidance, not official allocations.
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An entity reports revenues of $8,400,000, cost of goods sold of $5,100,000, selling expenses of $960,000, a loss on sale of equipment of $140,000, interest expense of $310,000, and a loss from discontinued operations of $700,000 before tax. What is income from continuing operations before tax?
