CPA exam scoring can be confusing if you are not familiar with the methods of the AICPA, NASBA or Prometric. It is recommended that you spend some time finding out how the CPA exam scoring works. This will help you plan your studying and understand where you need to focus.
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The Passing Score Requirements
There are 4 sections in the CPA exam and you have to score a minimum of 75 on each to pass. Each section has a maximum possible score of 99. While this seems simple, the score is often misinterpreted.
The first point to note with this is that the score is not a raw score. If there are 50 questions and you answer 28 correctly, your raw score will be 28. The number of correct answers that you have will only provide the basis of the final score calculation.
This is also not a percentage. If you have a raw score of 28 out of 50, you will have a pass percentage of 58%. The problem is that the CPA exam score is not a percentage which means that if you have a score of 80, you are not getting 80%.
Weighted Combination Of Scaled Scores
Your final score is actually calculated using a weighted sum of the scaled scores of each section. To better understand your score, you need to know what portion of the section is used and the weight that is allocated to each. The first section is the AUD and the MCQs and TBSs will each get 50%.
With the BEC, the weighting will be 50% for MCQs, 35% for TBS and 15% for written communication. For the FAR section, the MCQs will have 50% and the TBS will get 50%. The same weighting will be used for the REG section.
To determine the scaled score, you need to remember that some questions are more difficult than others in the exam. The scaled value of each section will be determined using a statistical formula that converts the raw score into a different value. The use of this formula will make it impossible to calculate your score for a section of the exam.
The formula used to create your score will use a number of factors including the relative difficulty of the question and whether you have answered it correctly.
Is The Scoring Automated?
Each section other than the written communication task will be automatically scored. With the written communication task, the majority will be scored by a grading software package. This grading is closely monitored by a human scorer.
The score release process will have a number of checks in place to ensure that everything is correct. If a candidate is just short of a passing score, the written communication task will be re-graded by a human.
The scoring for the CPA exam is different from many other exams you will take. The score is calculated using a formula based on the difficulty of the question and whether you get it right. This makes it harder for you to determine what your score is on any section of the test.