How the CPA Exam
is actually scored
Is 75 passing on the CPA Exam? Yes — on a 0–99 scale, for every section, and it is not a percentage of questions answered correctly. And no, the CPA Exam is not curved. The AICPA states that directly: scores are not curved, and yours does not move because of how other candidates did. What the exam does is scale — a different operation that adjusts for how hard the questions you were given were, so that 75 means the same thing on every test form. Passing is 75 on a 0–99 scale, and that number is not a percentage of questions answered correctly. Your total is a weighted combination of multiple-choice and simulation scaled scores: 50/50 for every section except ISC, which is 60/40.
Source: AICPA, “Learn more about CPA Exam scoring and pass rates” · checked 2026-08-15 · scoring, passing score and MCQ/TBS weighting
Scaled is not curved, and the difference is the whole question
These two words get used interchangeably in almost every discussion of CPA scoring, and they describe opposite things.
- A curve sets your result relative to other people. If everyone does badly, the standard moves. Your score depends on the cohort you happened to sit with.
- Scaling sets your result relative to the questions. Two candidates who answer differently hard question sets can reach the same reported number, because the harder set is worth more per correct answer. Your score does not depend on anyone else.
So the answer to “is it curved” is no, and the answer to “then why does my percentage correct not match my score” is scaling. Both answers are true at once, which is why the folklore is so durable: people notice the second thing and reach for the first word.
Worth stating because it is the most common thing written about this: at least one page currently ranking on this question says the exam is not graded on a curve and then, further down, says it is curved based on performance. Neither statement carries a source. Checked 2026-09-05.
Is 75 passing on the CPA Exam?
What score do you need to pass the CPA exam, in every section
Yes. The score you need to pass the CPA Exam is 75, reported on a scale that runs from 0 to 99, and the same standard applies to every section — AUD, FAR, REG, BAR, ISC and TCP. Three things about that number are worth being exact about, because each one is regularly got wrong:
- 75 is not 75% correct. The AICPA states that the reported score does not represent a percentage. You can answer well under three quarters of the questions and score 75, or answer more than that and not.
- 75 is not a rank. It is a fixed standard, not a cut-off that moves to let a set share of candidates through. That is the same fact as “not curved”, stated from the other side.
- 75 is the same in every section, even though the sections pass at very different rates — 42.12% for FAR against 77.65% for TCP in 2025. The standard is constant; the populations and the material are not.
CPA score 74: what a FAR score 74 actually means
A CPA score of 74 is a fail. There is no rounding, no near-miss category and no appeal that turns it into a pass — a FAR score of 74 is a reported scaled score one point below the standard, and the section has to be re-taken.
What a 74 does tell you is narrower and more useful than what candidates usually read into it. It is a small gap and you could not feel it. Almost nobody walks out of a 74 knowing they were at 74; the score being scaled rather than a percentage correct is exactly why the exam does not feel like a measurement while you are taking it.
What it does not tell you is how much more work a 75 needs. Because the mapping from answered items to scaled points is not published, nobody — us included — can honestly tell you that a 74 is “one more question” away. Anyone who puts a number on that is inferring it. What is safe to say is that a 74 is evidence of being close to the standard, which makes a full rebuild of your preparation the wrong response: the useful question after a 74 is which specific parts were weak, not whether to start over.
The two things worth doing with a 74, in order: separate coverage from pacing before you re-book, and re-estimate from evidence rather than from how the exam felt.
What to do in the 72 hours after a FAR fail → · Re-estimate from your practice record → · When the next scores are released →
What the score is made of
| Section | MCQ share | TBS share |
|---|---|---|
| AUD, FAR, REG, BAR, TCP | 50% | 50% |
| ISC | 60% | 40% |
For FAR that 50/50 split is the fact most study plans never act on. Half the score sits in seven simulations, and hours of reading do not buy minutes inside the exam. Work out your minutes per simulation →
The question the primary source does not answer
Whether task-based simulations carry partial credit is asked constantly and is not addressed on the AICPA’s scoring page. We have not found a primary source that settles it, so this page does not settle it either. What is published is that scaled scores account for whether a question was answered correctly and for the relative difficulty of each question — and that is as far as the evidence goes.
We would rather leave a question open than fill it with a confident guess, which is the same rule the rest of this site runs on: every figure carries its source and the date we checked it, and where we have not verified something we say so. How that applies to our own estimate →
What a score actually tells you
A reported score is a single scaled number, so it carries much less diagnostic information than candidates read into it. It does not tell you which content area let you down, and it does not separate a coverage problem from a pacing problem. Those need your own evidence.
- What share of attempts pass, by section — the base rate your result sits against.
- What a high-60s or low-70s score does and does not say.
- An estimate that moves on evidence rather than on how the exam felt.
Common questions
Is the CPA Exam curved?
No. The AICPA states plainly that scores are not curved: your score does not depend on how other candidates performed. The word people are reaching for is scaled, which is a different thing — see below.
What is the difference between a scaled score and a curve?
A curve moves your score based on how everyone else did. Scaling moves it based on the difficulty of the questions you were given, so that the same reported number means the same thing across different test forms. One compares you to other people; the other compares question sets to each other. Only the second is used.
How is the CPA Exam scored?
Your total is a weighted combination of scaled scores from the multiple-choice questions and the task-based simulations. The weighting is 50% MCQ and 50% TBS for every Core and Discipline section except ISC, which is 60% MCQ and 40% TBS.
What is a passing score on the CPA Exam?
75, on a scale of 0 to 99. The AICPA states that the reported score does not represent a percentage correct, so “I got about 75% of the questions right” and “I scored 75” are not the same statement.
Is there partial credit on task-based simulations?
The AICPA’s scoring page does not answer this, and we have not found a primary source that does. What it does say is that scaled scores account for whether a question was answered correctly and for the relative difficulty of each question. Anything more specific than that, from us or anyone else, is inference rather than a published fact.
What does a score of 74 mean?
It means the section was not passed. A 74 is not a near-miss you can appeal and it is not a rounding of 75; it is a reported scaled score below the standard. What it does tell you is that the gap is small and was not obvious to you during the exam.
What we are building for this
Exam Copilot is FAR practice, diagnosis and tutoring built around an evidence-based estimate rather than around a content library. When you miss a question, it opens by asking you one thing about the specific wrong choice you made, rather than pasting the explanation. You get the full walkthrough within a few exchanges either way — and if you would rather just have it, ask three times and it is yours.
It is not open yet — no question in the practice bank has been reviewed by a licensed CPA.
Source: NASBA, “CPA Examination” · checked 2026-08-15 · sections, administration and what a score report shows