Certified Public Accountant 1st Exam Participation Rate 84.8%... 1.8% Decrease Compared to Previous Year

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Jung-yoon] A total of 13,063 candidates took the first round of the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) exam this year.

The Financial Supervisory Service announced on the 28th that out of 15,413 applicants nationwide for the 57th CPA first exam held yesterday at 29 test centers, 13,063 candidates attended, resulting in an attendance rate of 84.8%.

The number of test takers increased by 12.1% compared to the previous year, but the attendance rate temporarily dropped by 1.8 percentage points to 84.8%. The competition ratio, calculated based on the expected number of successful candidates (approximately 2,200) relative to the number of test takers, rose to 5.9 to 1, up from 5.3 to 1 last year.

By region, Daejeon recorded the highest attendance rate. Out of 646 applicants, 565 showed up at the test center. Seoul, which had the largest number of applicants with 12,181, saw 10,306 candidates attend, corresponding to 84.6% attendance.

This year’s exam saw a significant increase in confirmed COVID-19 cases and self-quarantined candidates compared to last year’s 1 confirmed case and 4 self-quarantined individuals. This year, 93 confirmed cases and 20 self-quarantined candidates took the exam. The Financial Supervisory Service collaborated with the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency and local governments to set up separate test centers and deployed nursing professionals to conduct the exam.

The Financial Supervisory Service posted the provisional answer key immediately after the exam and plans to announce the successful candidates on April 8 after receiving objections to the answer key, finalizing the answers, and completing the grading process.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.