Exam in 30 days. Aggressive but doable. This plan shows exactly what to cover, what to cut, and how each day looks.
30 days × 5h = 150 total hours, about 107% of typical CPA REG prep. All published topics fit. A first-attempt candidate can pass at this pace with discipline — a retaker can use it as a proper rebuild.
Typical CPA REG prep runs ~140 hours over ~12 weeks at ~12 hours per week. This cram window gives you 150 total hours (30 days × 5 h/day). The plan below allocates ~75% to coverage and ~25% to review + at least one full mock — that ratio shifts later as the window tightens.
CPA REG has 5 topic areas. With a 30-day window we keep the highest-weight + load-bearing topics and explicitly drop the rest. The cuts below are deliberate — you only pick those topics back up if you finish higher-priority material ahead of schedule.
Every published CPA REG topic fits inside a 30-day window at this hours/day level. Tight, but no triage required. Lower-weight topics get fewer hours but stay on the schedule.
What a real 30-day CPA REG cram plan actually looks like. Heavier topics get more time. Review starts at ~55% of the window. Final stretch is mock-driven. Adjust the start date below to align with your exam.
A visual preview of how exclam.ai compresses 5 CPA REG topics into 30 days. Update the start date so the exam date aligns with your sitting.
Cover Ethics, Professional Responsibilities, and Federal Tax Procedures (10–20%), Business Law (15–25%) in this week — paired because their individual weights are light or the intensive pace requires combining adjacent syllabus sections. Read each objective, flashcard the key formulas, and run one quiz across the group before moving on.
Cover Federal Taxation of Property Transactions (5–15%), Federal Taxation of Individuals (22–32%) in this week — paired because their individual weights are light or the intensive pace requires combining adjacent syllabus sections. Read each objective, flashcard the key formulas, and run one quiz across the group before moving on.
Cover Federal Taxation of Entities end-to-end. Build flashcards covering every learning objective and quiz yourself before moving to the next module.
Weak-topic drilling. exclam.ai surfaces topics where you underperformed during coverage and re-quizzes them. Daily FSRS flashcard reps across all 5 topics to prevent decay. Start doing timed question batches focused on the heaviest-weight sections.
Full-length CPA REG practice exams under timed conditions. Target one mock every 3–5 days. Same-day error review: for every question you miss, re-derive the solution from scratch. Taper in the final 3 days — light flashcards only.
Cram advice is dramatically different for first-attempt candidates and retakers. The plan above is the same; the playbook is not.
REG is one of the more crammable CPA sections IF you have a tax background. From zero, 30 days is the floor.
Individual + Entity taxation first. Get those to 80% MCQ accuracy before touching law or property transactions.
Use your vendor's tax form walkthroughs heavily — Schedule C, Schedule E, K-1, 1120-S. The forms are the testable scaffolding.
Save Ethics + Business Law for the final week. Both are recall-heavy and recency helps.
Don't skip Property Transactions — depreciation MACRS rules and §1231 / §1245 / §1250 distinctions are TBS staples.
Patterns that show up specifically when CPA REG candidates compress the timeline. Worth scanning before you start your week.
REG is 60–70% tax. Cramming the law portion at the expense of tax is a recurring failure mode — tax is the bulk of the points.
Individual + Entity taxation = 45–65% combined. These two areas should get 60%+ of cram time.
Business law (15–25%) feels easier and crammers over-invest. Law is mostly straight recall; tax requires application — flip the ratio.
Property transactions (depreciation, gain/loss recognition, basis) is the highest-yield TBS topic and a common cram weakness.
REG MCQs and TBSs require specific tax-form knowledge — Schedule C, Schedule E, K-1, 1120 vs 1120S. Crammers who avoid forms typically fail Entity Tax TBSs.
Different window, different math, different cut list. Pick the duration that matches your real exam date.
With 1+ years of tax practice experience, a 14–21 day cram is realistic. The exam tests technical depth but most of the patterns are familiar.
45+ days. REG without tax exposure is essentially learning tax from scratch — there's no shortcut for 60%+ of the content.
Verify which tax year your sitting tests — TCJA expiration provisions, standard deduction amounts, and credit phase-outs all shift annually. Your vendor will publish exam-year-specific updates.
Topic names and weight bands are paraphrased from the public 2026 AICPA REG Blueprint (public). Verify the current outline before your sitting.
2026 AICPA REG Blueprint (public)Upload your CPA REG materials, plug in your exam date, and exclam.ai builds the compressed plan automatically. Free to start.