college guide 2016-17 Sept. 2016 | Page 24

T he New C PA Exam AICPA Announces Next Version of CPA Exam Testing to Begin April 1, 2017 C hanges are coming! The American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) announced details on the next version of the Uniform CPA Examination that will be launched on April 1, 2017. The next version of the Exam is based on a practice analysis, an extensive research project overseen by the AICPA Board of Examiners, which included input from key stakeholders across the accounting profession. Increased assessment of higher-order cognitive skills that include, but are not limited to, critical thinking, problem solving and analytical ability. So, what’s changing? Just look here: New Exam blueprints containing approximately 600 representative tasks across all four Exam sections will replace the Content Specification Outline (CSO) and Skill Specification Outline (SSO). These blueprints are more robust than the CSO and SSO, identifying content knowledge linked directly to representative tasks performed by newly licensed CPAs. 22 2 0 1 6 - 1 7 C o l l e g e S t u d e n t ’s G u i d e t o A c c o u n t i n g F i r m s i n M a s s a c h u s e t t s content_collegeguide_0912.indd 22 9/12/16 4:56 PM