The launched was announced this week by the American Institute of CPAs, National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) and Prometric, the testing organization. The AICPA is working on an improved user experience which is expected to launch next year.

"The CPA Exam now better reflects the knowledge and skills essential to today's profession," Michael Decker, the AICPA's VP of examinations, said in a prepared statement. "With an eye toward the future, we'll continue to work with stakeholders to ensure that the CPA Exam, along with the experience and education requirements, maintains the high bar for entry into the profession."

Among the most important changes are Exam Blueprints, which have replaced the Content Specification Outline and Skill Specification Outline as the primary source of content and skills on which candidates will be tested. Blueprints, available on the AICPA website, contain about 600 representative tasks across the Exam's four sections–Auditing and Attestation; Business Environment and Concepts; Financial Accounting and Reporting; and Regulation.

Testing time has increased from 14 hours to 16 hours, four hours for each section, with a 15-minute break offered during each section.

The 10-day extension of the testing window introduced in April 2016 will continue in the third and fourth quarters this year. The 10-day extension will not be available in the current April/May testing window to enable the AICPA to follow the standard-setting process and analyze results to set new passing scores process, scores will be released only once following the close of each testing window.

Detailed information on the CPA Exam is available online at www.aicpa.org/cpaexam and https://nasba.org/exams/the-next-version-of-the-cpa-exam/.