EA Exam

[oceanlovin'ea]

A friend is getting ready to take the EA exam. Since everything has changed since I took the exam, what are you using now for study purposes?

Linda

[Lion]

Naea

NAEA has their own course, web based maybe, instructor led but using the Gleim materials. Try NAEA.org

[thomtax]

I used the Arthur EA exam prep course. It's been a few years, but I liked the approach they took.

[Black Bart]

Gleim Publications

I also used Gleim books to get mine in '06 (final year of four-part tests) and thought it was very good.

[geekgirldany]

I agree that Gleim is very good.

[oceanlovin'ea]

any other products

She thought Gleim was a little expensive for her right now. Any other suggestions?

Thanks

[Lion]

Hrb

I passed all four parts (old test) the first time after taking the H&R Block course. I imagine their texts are still super. I don't know if "outsiders" can take Block courses any more. And, your instructor might vary.

[lbe]

wiseguide.com

Try Wiseguides, Inc. at www.wiseguides.com I'm current using their material however I'm not sure how they compare on price.

[JG EA]

If you are looking for cheap Thomas Tax Seminars has a winter special. Looks like it is done the old fashioned way because you have to call to buy. I did it that way in yesteryear. Ordered a million pubs from the IRS and took several months reviewing a certain number of pages a day. Passed easy but I never studied harder for anything before that.

[OtisMozzetti]

Use The Tax Book, Deluxe Edition

I passed all three parts of the EA exam under the new regime at Prometric, and I served as instructor for an EA Preparation class with several of my students becoming EA's. One excellent reason to purchase the DELUXE EDITION of The Tax Book is to use that as test preparation study notes. Gleim materials were the best value, mainly for the book and CD used with Part 2 (business taxation) of the EA exams. EA exams, of course, could be passed solely with materials available for no charge from the IRS website. Whatever the candidate does, practice with multiple-choice questions is essential.

[erchess]

Testing Approach

When I took the EA Exam I felt that for most questions including a good many I would have not answered successfully had they been short answer questions, there was only one answer that was anything like reasonable. In other words anyone who sort of understood the question could easily rule out all but one of the answers. For example if the right answer was a small number the distractors might all be large numbers. Is the test still this way?

The reason I ask is that I have been told that the people who make out the CPA exam try to think of the most common slightly wrong approaches candidates might take and give as distractors the exact results yielded by these approaches.

I also understand that the test is no longer drawn entirely from the previous three years of tests with of course updates to relevant year law. When I took the test I remembered most of the questions although I noticed early on that the distracors were different so it would have done no good to memorize that the answer to a particular stem was "c". One person I know who took the SEE after I did said that he felt he had prepared for a test on Nuclear Physics and was given a test on Russian Literature.

[OtisMozzetti]

Multiple choice questions

In other words anyone who sort of understood the question could easily rule out all but one of the answers.
...
I also understand that the test is no longer drawn entirely from the previous three years of tests with of course updates to relevant year law....

They are of course not releasing the previous questions for public view any longer, so I have only my own recollection of the questions asked when I took all three parts at Prometric.

One of their favorite question types is "which of these is false?", followed by four convoluted perversions of some mumbo-jumbo tax rule where perhaps you don't exactly recall precisely what the tax rule said to begin with. Often, some careful thinking, along with use of the scrap paper, can narrow the likely choice down to one of two, with one of those two deemed the most likely correct answer. In the end, you will have many questions out of 100 where you are virtually sure you have the correct answer after you check it carefully, plus some certain number of two-way toss-ups or three-way toss-ups. You can easily compute out the expected value of your score, and if that is at least the cutoff score (my best quess about the cutoff is 72%), then you are likely to end up passing.

There also are some flat out "fact" questions, such as how many years or how many dollars is the maximum penalty for tax evasion.

[geekgirldany]

Yeah the Prometric test questions, some were really strange. Especially on the Ethics the questions were out right ridiculous. The Part 1 had more of the dollar amounts and limitation amounts on it. Some of the questions were exactly from previous years test. But not many.

[AJsTax]

Finished

Hi!
I just finished part 3 of the SEE today. I am so glad to have it all behind me. I took an online study class with Eva of Taxmama.com. She provided us with a lot of material and the study guides/cds from Fastax and Gleim. I liked the variety and extreme number of questions available on the Fastax cd, but he does have a few errors. Gleim was a little higher level of questions and I found them most usefull for part 3. I have to watch carefully in the sections on part one because Gleim was updated to 2008 numbers and the test is based on 2007. I now know that it is essential to use something that helps you study in the same style as the test is written.
Comments on the test? Parts one and two were what I expected, part three was kinda out there, even with contact from others that had taken it this year to steer me in the right direction.
Now I can put that behind me and concentrate on this year's numbers and get ready for another tax season. (my 13th as a paid preparer).
Hope every one has a great day and GO BUCKS!!
AJ

[nalawson]

Just passed in September 08

I just passed the final part in September and used wiseguides. I downloaded it to my computer and studied whenever I had some free time.