How the CPA Exam is scored

Why a scaled score, and not a percentage

AICPA scores the Exam using Item Response Theory (IRT), a statistical model that accounts for the difficulty of the specific questions you were given — not just how many you got right. Two candidates who each answer, say, 75% of their questions correctly will not necessarily receive the same scaled score, because their question sets weren't identical in difficulty. That's precisely why AICPA states the score is “not curved”: it isn't graded relative to other test-takers either. It's a scaled measure of demonstrated proficiency against the Exam's content specifications.

A consequence worth internalizing early: your raw percentage of correct answers on practice questions — here or anywhere else — is not your CPA score and cannot be converted into one with any real precision. No legitimate study tool can tell you your actual scaled score before you sit the real Exam.

MCQ and TBS both count toward your score

Multiple-choice questions and task-based simulations are both scored and both count toward your final score in every section, though the exact split differs by section: 50/50 or 60/40 (MCQ/TBS). ISC is the one exception, weighting MCQ more heavily than the rest. See each section's own page for its exact testlet and scoring breakdown.