Becoming an Enrolled Agent is a significant achievement for tax professionals seeking to specialize in tax compliance, representation, and personal tax preparation. The EA exam, with its multiple parts and rigorous content, tests candidates’ knowledge of tax law and their ability to apply it effectively. If Part 1 is the first encounter many candidates have with the EA exam, the low pass rate is likely the outcome of candidates being insufficiently prepared. These candidates either underestimated the difficulty of the exam or the amount of study time necessary to learn all the material.

When you get it, you can review Prometric’s additional information about understanding your score report. If you failed the EA exam, you’ll receive immediate notification of your result as well as additional information about your performance. You’ll get a score ranging from 40 to 104 so you can see how close you were ea exam pass rate to passing. A 103 means you were really close to passing, while a 70 indicates that there was a good amount of information you didn’t know. You must apply for enrollment within one year of the date you passed the third examination part. The scoring methodology was determined by the IRS following a scoring study.

EA Exam Part 2

It knows the question you’re on, the related tax code, and more. After passing the third examination part, you must apply for enrollment within one year. Over 10,000 questions across exam domains with the ability to attack weak subject areas, review practice exams, and view detailed explanations. Each part has 100 multiple choice questions with 4 hours of allocated time per section. If you think of tax law as a lot of rules, exceptions to the rules, and exceptions to the exceptions, then you can expect a lot of the EA exam to focus on exceptions. For this reason, the EA exam doesn’t really have trick questions per se.

After all, most candidates find the Part 3 EA subjects to be the easiest to master. All of the Enrolled Agent exam questions provide four options from which you must choose your answer. You must always choose the one answer option that is the best. Once you’ve obtained your PTIN, go online and register for your exam. You do not have to take all 3 parts of the exam on the same day or consecutively.

How to become an Enrolled Agent

As a result, I can help you effectively prepare for the EA exam. Or, get the answers to many common EA exam FAQs from our Enrolled Agent Blog. Finally, most candidates start with Part 1, and when some fail, they cease their pursuit of the EA designation. This question type provides a sentence or two of information and ends with an incomplete sentence.

If you rush through the question stem, you may miss something important and have to read the stem again (which takes time) or answer incorrectly. For these reasons, you should go slowly enough through the question stem so that you can understand what it’s saying and accurately infer the purpose of the question the first time. If you want to successfully pass the Enrolled Agent exam Part 2, you must prepare properly. Following these EA exam study tips will help you do just that.

Enrolled agent passing score

The EA exam dedicates a bit more attention to limits, phase-outs, and income brackets. It delves very deeply into this subject matter by touching upon individual and business tax along with matters of representation. Writing down the details of your weak areas helps you achieve clarity, deepen your understanding, and improve your retention. Reading your notes again also gives you more explanations of your weak areas and, sometimes, even a very useful fresh perspective on them. Additionally, the Enrolled Agent testing fee is non-refundable and non-transferable. If you don’t have a Social Security number, you must fill out and mail Form W-12 Opens in new window.

However, the exam mixes the 15 experimental and 85-scored questions together, and you won’t be able to distinguish between the two. So, to pass Part 2, you must give every exam question your all. It is important to begin thinking about your study plan early in the process. Once you sit down with a calendar and cross out all of the days you aren’t able to study, you’ll find yourself with less time to study than you expected. The EA exam testing window lasts from May 1 through February of the following year. The EA exam isn’t available in March or April because this time is set aside each year by the IRS to update the EA exam.