The short answer
On CPA Review PH, Advanced Financial Accounting and Reporting (AFAR) gets less practice than any other CPALE subject, relative to its place on the exam. AFAR is one of the six graded subjects, a full 70-item session on Day 3. That is 70 of the board exam's 450 questions, or 15.6%. Our reviewees give it about 9% of their practice.
The figures below cover only practice done while the reviewee could open every subject. Each share therefore reflects what reviewees chose to practice, not an access limit. Our platform's own defaults also played a part, and they are listed in the section on how we measured this.
| Subject | Share of exam questions | Share of practice answers | Share of practice time |
|---|---|---|---|
| FAR | 15.6% | 21.1% | 21.8% |
| MAS | 15.6% | 20.7% | 21.8% |
| RFBT | 22.2% | 18.6% | 17.3% |
| Taxation | 15.6% | 15.5% | 14.9% |
| Auditing | 15.6% | 14.8% | 13.9% |
| AFAR | 15.6% | 9.3% | 10.3% |
The gap is about more than volume. Only 56% of these reviewees ever answered an AFAR question on our platform, against 69% for FAR and 71% for MAS. That count includes practice done when not every subject was open, for example on a single-subject plan.
The data covers 402 reviewees who each answered at least 20 practice questions on CPA Review PH between January and October 2026, a total of nearly 98,000 answers. The method is in the section below on how we measured this.
Two ways AFAR gets crowded out
1. Few reviewees pick AFAR as their focus subject
When they sign up, reviewees can pick a focus subject, and 193 of the 402 named one:
| Focus subject | Reviewees | Share |
|---|---|---|
| MAS | 52 | 27% |
| FAR | 51 | 26% |
| Taxation | 29 | 15% |
| RFBT | 27 | 14% |
| Auditing | 17 | 9% |
| AFAR | 17 | 9% |
AFAR ties with Auditing as the least-picked subject.
The choice carries weight. With all six subjects open, a reviewee spent on average 60% of their practice on the focus subject they picked at signup. Part of that was our own design: during this period, new practice sessions started on the focus subject by default.
2. AFAR also loses out among the other subjects
You might expect reviewees to spread the rest of their practice across the other subjects in line with exam weight. We looked at reviewees who did at least 20 practice answers outside their focus subject (68 to 87 per subject, depending on focus):
- Close to exam weight: Taxation (18.4% vs 18.7%).
- Two to three points under: Auditing and RFBT.
- Well above: MAS and FAR. FAR gets 27.4%, against about 18.7%.
- Far below: AFAR gets 11.9%, against about 18.7%.
- Skipped entirely: of the 87 reviewees whose focus was not AFAR, 41% (36) never practiced AFAR at any point on our platform, including practice done when not every subject was open. That compares with 43% for Taxation and 29% for FAR.
AFAR is rarely the main subject, and together with Taxation it is the most often skipped among the rest.
Why this matters for schools
AFAR does not shrink on the board exam because reviewees study it less. It is still a full session, with the same 70 questions as FAR, MAS, Auditing and Taxation. A reviewee who leaves it for last arrives on Day 3 having practiced it least.
Shares of practice describe what reviewees choose to work on. They do not measure how well anyone knows AFAR. The pattern is still worth checking in your own program, because it is easy to miss: a class can look busy and well prepared overall while one subject gets much less practice.
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What deans and faculty can do
- Track practice volume by subject, not just scores. A mock exam score tells you how students did on the items they attempted. A count of practice by subject shows what they are avoiding.
- Set a floor for each subject in proportion to the exam. If students do 100 practice questions a week, about 16 should be AFAR and about 22 should be RFBT.
- Watch the "focus subject" effect in your own review program. On our platform, the subject a reviewee picked at signup took 60% of their practice even with all six subjects open. Some of that came from our own default at the time, which started practice on that subject, so a program without that default may see less. Either way, make sure AFAR is not always the subject left for later.
- Schedule AFAR work early. It comes last on the exam calendar, which makes it easy to postpone in the study calendar too.
For what AFAR covers and how to study it, see our AFAR syllabus and table of specifications and how to pass AFAR.
How we measured this
- Source: practice activity on CPA Review PH, January to October 2026. These are reviewees who chose to use our platform, not a random sample of all CPALE takers, so the results describe our reviewees and not every reviewee in the country.
- Only unrestricted practice:
- We counted only practice done while the reviewee could open all six subjects, either during the free trial or on an all-subject plan. That covers 89% of all practice on the platform.
- After the trial, free accounts can practice only their focus subject. Single-subject plans cover only that subject, and exam-day plans only that day's two subjects. All of that practice is excluded from the shares, so it cannot pull any subject's share down.
- The "ever practiced" figures are the exception. They count practice at any time, including on paid plans.
- Who counts: reviewees with at least 20 practice answers in that period. Each reviewee's own subject shares were calculated first, then averaged, so a few very active users cannot dominate the result.
- Time: practice time uses the recorded time per question, capped at 10 minutes, so a question left open counts for at most 10 minutes. The median is 34 seconds.
- Stability check: we split reviewees into two random halves. AFAR's share of answers was 9.3% in both.
- What it does not measure: accuracy or knowledge. This analysis counts what reviewees chose to practice, not whether they answered correctly.
- Our own platform's role:
- During this period, new practice sessions started on the reviewee's focus subject by default. Since late October 2026, they start on a mix of all subjects weighted like the board exam.
- Our practice menu lists subjects in exam-day order, so AFAR comes last and FAR second to last. In the signup picker, subjects are grouped by exam day, with FAR and AFAR together under Day 3.
- FAR is one of the two most-practiced subjects, so menu position does not explain the gap on its own. We cannot rule out that it contributes.
- Privacy: results are national and aggregated. No school, region or individual can be identified, and no school-level figures are published.
We plan to update this analysis after each exam cycle. Schools interested in a closer look at their own students' preparation, with student consent, can reach us through our partners page.