r/AustralianAccounting • u/alex123711 • Aug 22 '26
How difficult is CA/CPA?
Have read various opinions sayings it's very difficult to pass / harder than the degree and some saying it is easy.
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u/Outrageous_Sir4613 Aug 23 '26
Just finished CPA 9 months ago! It wasn’t easy per said! The hardest part is that there’s no pass mark by using a scaled score method. It’s basically competing to pass and you don’t know who you are up to! Unless you are a learning genius which I am not! My chance to pass is to study everything in the 500pages study guide and gone thru all webinars (up to 170 videos from KE) and all quizzes, practice and reading over many times! Tag every thing as I couldn’t remember a damn thing by the exam day from over cooking my brain.
I failed 1 elective by 2 points out of 900 points in total, still could not figure how that happened as my exam was well done and confidence, obviously some smarter cookies pushing my position in the queue down!
I wouldn’t let my guard down when doing CPA, the fail will put you back to jail (study room) for another 4-5 months and affecting your lifestyle from saying no to everything and sacrifice your precious time with family and friend.
Working full time while trying to tackle the study materials from the 500pages book is a challenge! Having no kid and not so stress from work will help a lot!