(Posted June 2025)
When preparing to write the CPA Common Final Examination (CFE), students naturally aggregate opinions from many sources to help them in their journey. Here is some advice from a CFE marker who has marked both the actual CFE and for Densmore’s CFE Prep programs for several years.
Do I really need to support my calculations? I heard that you can pass without showing your work, so why should I explain my assumptions?
CFE markers have access to your spreadsheet submission and can look inside the cells to see the formula. If a required asks for a quantitative analysis and your end result matches the Board of Examiners (BOE) solution exactly, just having that correct answer is usually enough for a marker to understand that you correctly applied case facts to answer the request, so it is possible to get Competent on the CFE without showing any work.
However, if your answer does not match the BOE solution exactly (which happens most of the time), the marker needs to determine whether you reasonably addressed the request using their professional judgment. Did you incorporate enough case facts in your calculation? Was your interpretation of the case facts reasonable if it is different from the solution? Did the quantitative tool you use reasonably address the request even if it is not the best one the Board determined?
In these situations, your notes help the marker understand your thought process to determine the answers to these questions. This does not mean showing the formula you used since the marker can already see that by going inside the spreadsheet cell. Rather, if you have an interpretation that was not obvious in the case or used judgment in any way, explain why your interpretation is appropriate based on case facts.
With notes, it becomes easy for a marker to forgive typos (e.g., 123 became 321 partway through the calculation) and decide if you misread or misinterpreted case facts in a reasonable way given time constraints and exam stress. If the marker cannot figure out what you did or why (e.g., if you have no notes, or notes that are too brief for them to understand in the short time they go through your response), you would not be given credit for that part of your calculation.
The Densmore marker grids require you to support and show your calculations to score Competent to help you develop good case writing skills and to get you into the habit of supporting your quantitative analysis with relevant case facts.
If I don’t know how to answer a required, should I skip it to do better on other requireds?
It is normal to have requireds you don’t know how to answer on the CFE. The exam tests your critical thinking skills, so it is common to get a question that you cannot use a template format to answer, is open-ended with no clear answer, or asks about something you did not explicitly study. Remember that if a required is difficult for you, it is probably difficult for everyone else too, so it may be easier to score Competent than you realize. It would be a waste to forfeit your chance at getting any ranking by simply skipping that required. Moreover, just because you spend more time on another required, there is no guarantee that you will score Competent. Also, there is no benefit to getting Competent with Distinction instead of Competent if you reallocate time to other requireds .
Given that there are many candidate interpretations for these “weird” requireds, as a marker, I often reread the trigger in the case and ask myself, “Did the candidate reasonably address the request based on case facts?” I encourage you to do the same when encountering requireds you do not know how to answer.
Take 5 seconds to panic, then take a deep breath. Then, rely on your defensive writing skills to address the required (we address defensive writing in our CFE Prep courses, and in a blog from an honour roll candidate). Reread the trigger and try to answer it literally. Explain your interpretation based on case facts (and relevant technical guidance as appropriate). Show your marker how you believe you are answering the question asked and how you are using case facts to get there. Do not force your response to fit a certain template format since only analysis that addresses the request contributes to ranking.
How much do I really need to organize my response and fix typos?
Markers award rankings if they understand what you are trying to say, even if there are a lot of typos or ugly formatting. There is no need to have issues/analysis/conclusion headings for each required or to repeat case facts before you analyze them.
However, unlike Densmore marking for your practice cases, different markers may be responsible for marking different parts of your response. For example, your CFE Day 2 response is marked by two different teams – one for the common section, and another for your role requireds.
Organizing your response with headings (e.g., a few key words for the required you are addressing) helps ensure that markers do not miss any part of your response as they scan your entire response for discussion relevant to the requireds they are marking. Answering each required separately also helps a marker understand how you are addressing each specific case request. Otherwise, it may be difficult for them to understand whether you achieved enough depth if discussions for multiple requireds are combined together. For example, if you are analyzing an accounting issue and giving audit procedures, use a sub-heading “Audit procedures” to help the marker see that you are addressing another required.
It does not hurt to make it easy for your marker to give you marks by conveying your thoughts clearly or using bullets to separate ideas instead of a long run-on paragraph. However, there is no benefit to going out of your way to format a response nicely the way you would for a school report. There is also no problem with mixing up the order in which you answer requireds (e.g., if answering role requireds between common requireds) as long as you have headings identifying each required.
Overall
You want to make your response “marker friendly” so it is easy for the CFE marker to follow your analysis. Avoid leaving things to chance. Make sure the marker is able to understand your analysis by writing clearly, formatting your response with subheadings, and supporting your calculations. This will help ensure you receive the best possible ranking based on your analysis for on each required.