日商簿記1級 第174回試験の出題予想

Summary

The video is a CPA Learning livestream reviewing the June 173rd Nissho Bookkeeping Level 1 exam and predicting topics for the November 174th exam. The instructor emphasized that these are forecasts, not guarantees: candidates should use them to guide their revision while preparing across the syllabus.

Review of the 173rd Exam

• The exam felt difficult, particularly the consolidated-accounting question in commercial bookkeeping and some industrial-bookkeeping calculations.
• Despite that, the pass rate was about 20%. The instructor suggested that the exam’s scope was manageable enough for candidates to earn points by working carefully through the parts they could solve.
• The central lesson was that understanding the accounting logic matters more than memorizing procedures. A difficult-looking question may still be solvable if candidates understand what it asks and how the accounting pieces connect.

Predictions for the 174th Exam

These are areas the instructor recommends prioritizing—not predictions that any topic is certain to appear.

Commercial Bookkeeping and Accounting

• Revenue recognition: It was not prominent in the previous exam and remains an important area to review.
• Loans and fixed assets: Review the relevant individual topics. Impairment accounting for fixed assets featured heavily in the previous exam, so the instructor considered an identical emphasis less likely to recur immediately.
• Retirement benefits: Despite appearing recently, this remains important. Candidates should not assume it will be omitted from the next exam.
• Securities and net assets: Be ready to handle shareholders’ equity and, in particular, prepare a statement of changes in equity.
• Interim financial statements: The instructor thought these could be candidates for a question, given the appearance of smaller or less prominent topics in recent exams.
• Organizational restructuring: This has not appeared recently, so it may be due for attention. The instructor suggested preparing for a conventional merger scenario involving a company issuing its own shares.
• Jointly controlled companies: Also identified as a possible target.

Consolidated Accounting

• Prepare for consolidation questions involving step acquisitions and partial disposals; additional acquisitions may also be relevant.
• Review overseas subsidiaries and consolidated tax effects.
• For partial disposals, understand how the capital adjustment is calculated and how tax effects affect the calculation.
• Review the elimination of upstream unrealized profit in inventory.

Less Frequent or Uncertain Areas

The instructor also discussed topics such as overseas subsidiaries and cash flow statements, which can be demanding but do not appear as often. He advised against relying too heavily on historical intervals between appearances. A major cash-flow calculation may be relatively infrequent, but basic theory—such as classifying cash flows as operating, investing, or financing—deserves some preparation.

How much time to devote to infrequent areas should depend on each candidate’s progress and remaining study time.

Industrial Bookkeeping and Cost Accounting

• Review comprehensive costing, including process- or group-based situations and joint or by-product issues.
• Standard costing remains important even though it appeared in the previous exam. Review the relevant calculations and related entries or variance analysis.
• Prepare for departmental costing, including revised allocation bases and multiple allocation criteria, as well as individual-costing fundamentals.
• In management accounting, prioritize:
  • Operational decision-making and capital-investment decisions, including the time value of money.
  • ABC and life-cycle costing, along with other strategic cost-accounting topics.
  • Detailed analysis of budget-versus-actual results.

Study Guidance

The instructor cited the Chamber of Commerce’s published explanation of examiners’ intentions. His takeaway was that the Level 1 exam tests whether candidates can apply financial and management accounting knowledge, not merely reproduce memorized rules.

He highlighted five study principles:

1. Study consistently. Regular effort is essential for a broad syllabus.
2. Build a solid foundation. Advanced and applied questions depend on being able to solve standard problems.
3. Understand rather than memorize. Use lectures to understand why treatments differ and why a calculation works.
4. Study comprehensively. Predictions can be wrong, so do not neglect the rest of the syllabus.
5. Do not give up. The instructor emphasized persistence through difficult periods.

He added a sixth principle: study for your future. Preparing for Level 1 develops broad financial- and management-accounting knowledge that can support work in accounting, consolidated reporting, or corporate planning.

Practice Recommendations

• Continue lectures and review example problems together, so earlier topics are not forgotten while progressing through the course.
• Build fluency with standard procedures first—especially in industrial bookkeeping—then return to the concepts to deepen understanding.
• Use past exams and practice questions to develop adaptability. When an answer is wrong, ask what understanding would have been needed to solve it rather than simply memorizing the correct answer.
• In difficult consolidation questions, identify the starting point (the individual financial statements) and the goal (the consolidated statements). Consolidation adjustments are the bridge between them.
• The instructor suggested that more intensive past-exam practice can begin around two months before the exam, while foundational revision should continue.

Course and Event Information

• CPA Learning announced a past-exam preparation course with answer explanations and videos for exams from the 158th through the 173rd. The exam questions themselves can be obtained from the Chamber of Commerce website.
• An online group practice session using the 165th exam was planned for September 20; the exact arrangements were still to be announced.
• A study consultation session was announced for September 1.
• In response to a question about revised lease standards, the instructor said the November exam would not yet require the new standards. CPA Learning planned to prepare updated materials for a later exam cycle.

Speakers and Sources

• Main speaker: The CPA Learning bookkeeping instructor, identified in the subtitles as Noborikawa. The name is inconsistently rendered in the auto-generated subtitles.
• Audience participants: Viewers contributed questions and comments through the livestream chat. Their names are not consistently transcribed, so the subtitles do not provide a reliable complete list.
• Sources discussed or shown: The Chamber of Commerce website and its published explanations of examiners’ intentions; CPA Learning’s website and past-exam materials.
• Introductory promotional voiceover: Promoted CPA-related education, free accounting and bookkeeping learning resources, career support, and professional networking services associated with CPA Excellent Partners and CPA Learning.