How the AUD section works

The exam at a glance

To become a CPA you must pass four sections of the Uniform CPA Examination: all three Core sections and one Discipline section of your choice. Each section is four hours long (Uniform CPA Examination Blueprints, introduction; NASBA, CPA Exam Candidate Guide).

Kind	Sections	Who takes it
Core	Auditing and Attestation (AUD), Financial Accounting and Reporting (FAR), Taxation and Regulation (REG)	Every candidate takes all three
Discipline	Business Analysis and Reporting (BAR), Information Systems and Controls (ISC), Tax Compliance and Planning (TCP)	Every candidate chooses one

You may take the sections in any order. You must score at least 75 on each, within the credit period your state board sets (NASBA, Candidate Guide). Credit periods, eligibility, fees and licensing requirements all vary by jurisdiction; check your own board's rules through NASBA rather than relying on any general summary.

What AUD tests

AUD tests what a newly licensed CPA needs to plan, perform and report on three families of engagements (Blueprints, AUD section introduction):

• Audits: financial statement audits, compliance audits, audits of internal control integrated with a financial statement audit, audits of entities that receive federal awards, and audits of employee benefit plans subject to ERISA. The auditee may be an issuer (PCAOB standards apply), a nonissuer (the AICPA Auditing Standards Board's standards apply) or a governmental entity (GAO's Government Auditing Standards and the OMB's Uniform Guidance apply).
• Attestation engagements: examinations (assertion-based and direct), reviews and agreed-upon procedures under the AICPA's attestation standards.
• Accounting and review services: preparation, compilation and review engagements under the AICPA's SSARSs.

Three threads run through the whole section: data and technology (how data flows through systems, whether source data is complete and accurate, and using data analytics in risk assessment and testing), professional skepticism and judgment, and applied research with excerpts of the standards.

The four content areas

Area	Content	Weight
I	Ethics, Professional Responsibilities and General Principles	15–25%
II	Assessing Risk and Developing a Planned Response	25–35%
III	Performing Further Procedures and Obtaining Evidence	30–40%
IV	Forming Conclusions and Reporting	10–20%

Areas II and III together are well over half the section, so most of this course lives there. The blueprint also allocates skill levels: Remembering and Understanding 30–40%, Application 30–40%, Analysis 15–25% and Evaluation 5–15%. AUD is the only section that tests Evaluation, the use of judgment to draw conclusions, and the blueprint places Analysis and Evaluation tasks in Areas II and III (Blueprints, AUD Summary Blueprint and section introduction).

This course follows the blueprint's areas unit by unit:

Course unit	Blueprint area
Ethics and independence; Engagements, documentation and quality	Area I
Planning, internal control and materiality; Risk assessment, fraud and the work of others	Area II
Evidence, data, sampling and analytics; Accounts, special matters and completing the audit	Area III
Audit reports; Other engagements and government audits	Area IV

Testlets, question types and time

Every section has five testlets. In AUD (AICPA, Learn what to study for the CPA Exam):

Testlet	Contents
1	39 multiple-choice questions (MCQs)
2	39 MCQs
3	2 task-based simulations (TBSs)
4	3 TBSs
5	2 TBSs

That is 78 MCQs and 7 TBSs in four hours. MCQs and TBSs each count for 50% of your AUD score (Blueprints, introduction; AICPA, Learn more about CPA Exam scoring).

• An MCQ is a single question with four options and one best answer.
• A TBS is a condensed case: exhibits such as memos, schedules, confirmations or email threads, followed by several tasks. Some ask you to complete a schedule or enter amounts; the blueprint also calls for applied research, reviewing and using excerpts of source materials such as the auditing, attestation and SSARS standards (Blueprints, AUD section introduction).

Navigation. Within a testlet you may answer in any order and change answers. Once you submit a testlet you cannot go back to it (AICPA, FAQ). One clock runs across the whole section, so the time you spend on the MCQs is time you no longer have for the simulations.

Pretest questions. Every exam includes some pretest MCQs or TBSs that the AICPA is trying out. They look like the others and do not count toward your score (AICPA, FAQ). Treat every question as if it counts.

Tools. The exam software includes a spreadsheet application that is similar to, but not identical with, Excel, and an on-screen calculator (AICPA, FAQ). NASBA's guide asks candidates to rely on the formulas in spreadsheet cells, not on the status bar.

Test day

These points come from NASBA's Candidate Guide (November 2026):

• You schedule through Prometric after you receive a Notice to Schedule (NTS). Its validity period is set by your board. Core sections such as AUD can be scheduled year-round; Discipline sections only in the first month of each quarter (NASBA, CPA Exam FAQ).
• After you enter your launch code, you have 5 minutes to get through the introductory screens. If you exceed it, the session ends and cannot be restarted.
• The appointment is your four hours of testing plus 30 minutes for login, the closing survey and the standardized break. Those 30 minutes are not extra testing time.
• You are offered a standardized 15-minute break after the first TBS testlet (testlet 3). If you take it, the clock stops. You may also take a break after any other testlet, but the clock keeps running.

A 2027 change to plan around. The exam moves to a new delivery platform in July 2027. There will be no testing from July 1 to July 11, 2027; testing resumes on July 12, and the AICPA will adjust the score release schedule for 12 months after the launch (AICPA, CPA Exam UI changes; NASBA, CPA Exam FAQ).

Scoring and score release

• Each section is reported on a 0–99 scale, and 75 is the minimum passing score. A score is not a percentage of questions answered correctly, and scores are not curved (AICPA, Learn more about CPA Exam scoring; NASBA, Score Information).
• Scaled scores take into account both whether each question was answered correctly and its relative difficulty.
• Core section scores are released on a rolling basis against target dates that depend on when the AICPA receives your exam data from Prometric. Target dates are not guaranteed, and some boards need an extra day to post scores (AICPA, Find out when you'll get your CPA Exam score; NASBA, Candidate Guide).
• If you do not pass, you receive a Candidate Performance Report comparing your performance by content area and question type with candidates who just passed (scores of 75–80). It does not change your score, but it is an excellent study guide for a retake (NASBA, Candidate Guide and Score Information).

Which standards are tested: the new-pronouncement policy

The AICPA's CPA Exam Policy on New Pronouncements says a change in an accounting or auditing pronouncement becomes eligible for testing in the later of (1) the first calendar quarter beginning after the pronouncement's earliest mandatory effective date or (2) the first calendar quarter beginning six months after it was issued. Once a change is testable, the superseded content is removed (AICPA, Learn what to study).

Worked examples for AUD (the eligibility dates apply the policy to each standard's effective date, except QC 1000, whose date the Board of Examiners set directly):

Standard	Earliest mandatory effective date	Eligible for testing
SQMS No. 1 and No. 2, SAS No. 146 (quality management)	December 15, 2025	January 1, 2026
SAS No. 149 (group audits; new AU-C 600)	Periods ending on or after December 15, 2026	January 1, 2027
PCAOB QC 1000 (quality control)	December 15, 2026	January 1, 2027 for provisions not affected by the PCAOB's September 2026 amendments (Board of Examiners decision)
SAS No. 150 (external confirmations; new AU-C 505)	Periods ending on or after December 15, 2028	Not before 2029

Sources: AU-C compilation current as of August 2026 (AU-C 220.10, AU-C 600.14 and the SAS No. 150 effective date); AICPA, Testing of QC 1000. For QC 1000, the Board of Examiners announced a planned departure from the usual policy: the provisions approved in 2024 and not affected by the PCAOB's September 9, 2026 amendments become testable on January 1, 2027, and the amendments become testable in the first calendar quarter beginning six months after the SEC approves them.

Two practical consequences. First, if you test in 2027, study the SAS No. 149 group audit rules (this course teaches them and notes what changed). Second, ignore SAS No. 150 for now: this course teaches the current AU-C 505 and mentions SAS No. 150 only as an upcoming change.

The 2027 Blueprints (approved September 16, 2026) keep AUD's design, question counts, area weights and skill allocation. The AICPA says the AUD revisions are not intended to change the nature or scope of the content; they revise examples in four Area III tasks, including adding evidence generated using technology such as artificial intelligence (AICPA, Summary of revisions effective January 1, 2027).

Read every question for entity and engagement type

The blueprint warns that when requirements differ, a question will name the entity type ("an audit of an issuer", "an audit of a nonissuer") and the engagement type ("review engagement", "examination of pro forma financial information", "compilation engagement"). It also uses auditor, accountant and practitioner deliberately (Blueprints, AUD section assumptions):

Word in the question	Usually signals
Auditor	An audit (AU-C, PCAOB AS, or GAGAS with the AU-C)
Accountant	A preparation, compilation or review engagement under the SSARSs
Practitioner	An attestation engagement under the SSAEs (AT-C)
Issuer	PCAOB standards, SEC rules and Sarbanes-Oxley
Nonissuer	AICPA auditing standards (AU-C)

A habit that pays off on every question: before reading the options, underline (on your noteboard) the entity type and engagement type. Many wrong options are right answers under the other set of standards.

How to use this course

1. Work through the units in order; Area II depends on Area I, and reporting makes sense only after evidence.
2. After each lesson, do its practice questions and read every explanation, including for the questions you got right.
3. Take the AICPA's free sample test to learn the software. It is shorter than the real exam, unscored, allows up to two hours and its content is current as of July 1, 2023, so use it for the interface, not to judge readiness (AICPA, Practice for the CPA Exam with Sample Tests).
4. Take this course's full-length practice exam under timed conditions, then return to the lessons for every area where you were weaker.

Check yourself

1. How many MCQs and TBSs does AUD contain, and how are they split across the five testlets?
2. Which content area carries the most weight, and what range is it?
3. What is the passing score, and is it a percentage?
4. Under the AICPA's policy, when does a standard effective for periods ending on or after December 15, 2026 become testable?
5. A question says "an audit of a nonissuer". Which body's auditing standards apply?
6. What happens to the exam clock during the standardized break, and during a break after testlet 1?
7. Why is SAS No. 150 not on your 2027 exam?