Big changes are coming to the Certified Professional Accountant Exam next year! Are you ready for the new exam? It's important to keep up to date on the latest changes on the exam and what topics will be covered. So why is it changing? First and foremost, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants wants to ensure that material covered in the exam mirrors industry skills and practices. The new exam will facilitate faster score reporting. The test will continue to be offered 8 months out of the year.

Many of the changes were made because of the globalization of accounting and international business expansion. International ethics and standards will come more into focus and you will need to know the key differences between the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and the U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).

The 2011 exam will also have a new structure. The Financial Accounting and Reporting (FAR), Auditing and Attestation (AUD), and Regulation (REG) sections will now be 60% multiple choice and 40% simulations. The REG section will cover business law and structure- how to form a business (and how to tax it). Property and individual taxes will also be more heavily tested than in previous exams. New content introduced to these sections includes engagement and acceptance, internal control, accounting and review services. Professional responsibilities and ethics are now covered in the AUD section.

The Business Environment and Concepts (BEC) section is getting a major overhaul. It will be three hours long (adding a half-hour to the current format) and cover corporate governance, internal control, executive compensation, risk assessment and more. Operations Management and Economics will be more heavily tested including micro, macro, and globalization while less emphasis will be put on IT. The BEC will be the only section that has written communications in it from now on and it will not have any simulations.

There are also smaller technical changes that will improve your CPA exam experience. During the simulations you can hold the cursor over different sections and tabs and an info text bar will pop up so that you don't have to click through several pages to find the information you are looking for. The test now features a search function within the research part and will highlight the words you are looking for. The calculator will have a running tape, so now you don't have to write everything down! You can just look at the history of the numbers you have punched in.

On average, it takes people 300-400 hours of prep to pass the CPA exam. CPA exam review courses can help you learn the important things, rather than just memorizing useless information, by breaking the CPA exam down into easy to understand concepts. Find a CPA exam review course today, and succeed in your goal to pass the CPA exam.