📖
Study App
The full curriculum as five field guides — read each region, quiz yourself chapter by chapter, flip through every figure as flashcards, and search the complete figure vault.
Start studying →
⚔️
Trap Hunt
Practice the entire question bank against the nine trap species the test-makers use — thresholds, exceptions, form swaps, timing and more. Tracks which traps still catch you.
Hunt traps →
🏙️
1040 City
Learn the Form 1040 by exploring it as a city — every district is a domain, every building a rule, with the curriculum built into the map.
Enter the city →
🎯
Practice & Progress
Drill the live question bank by domain or trap type, browse topic modules with notes and flashcards, and track your accuracy over time — new content appears here automatically.
Start practicing →
🧩
Case Clinic
Twelve full client returns to work end to end. Read the facts, solve the whole case as if the client were across the desk, then reveal the model solution. Learn by doing.
Open the clinic →
The SEE at a Glance
Source: official PSI Candidate Information Bulletin (June 24, 2026). PSI administers the exam as of the 2026-27 window; details can change, so verify before booking at test-takers.psigov.us/irs.
100 questionsper part: 85 scored + 15 unscored experimental, mixed in unmarked
3.5 hoursper part (~1.5 min/question), on-screen timer, closed book, on-screen calculator only
500 to passscaled score on PSI's 200-800 scale; a pass shows no number, a fail shows your score + diagnostics
$317 per partpaid when scheduling; card only, generally non-refundable inside 48 hours
Jul 1, 2026 - Feb 28, 2027testing window; no testing in March and April while the exam is updated to the new tax year
4 attempts / 3 yearsup to 4 tries per part per window; a passed part stays valid for 3 years
The three parts
Take them in any order. Our plan: Part 1 → Part 3 → Part 2. Every part in the 2026-27 window tests 2025 tax law.
| Part 1 — Individuals (this site) | |
|---|---|
| 1. Preliminary Work and Taxpayer Data | 14 |
| 2. Income and Assets | 17 |
| 3. Deductions and Credits | 17 |
| 4. Taxation | 15 |
| 5. Advising the Individual Taxpayer | 11 |
| 6. Specialized Returns for Individuals | 11 |
| Part 2 — Businesses | |
|---|---|
| 1. Business Entities and Considerations | 30 |
| 2. Business Tax Preparation | 37 |
| 3. Specialized Returns and Taxpayers (incl. rentals, farms, trusts, exempt orgs) | 18 |
| Part 3 — Representation, Practices and Procedures | |
|---|---|
| 1. Practices and Procedures | 26 |
| 2. Representation before the IRS | 25 |
| 3. Specific Areas of Representation | 20 |
| 4. Filing Process | 14 |
How questions are asked
- Direct question: "Which of the following entities must file Form 709?"
- Incomplete sentence: "Supplemental wages include payments for:"
- All of the following EXCEPT: spot the one that does not belong.
Single best answer. PSI's own example: if a deadline fell on a holiday and the technically-precise "April 16" is not offered, "April 15" is the credited answer. When two options feel right, pick the one that is right in the GENERAL case. Our Trap Hunt trains exactly this instinct.
Test-day logistics
- Where: PSI test centers or remote online testing. Remote: electronic whiteboard instead of scratch paper, and military ID is not accepted.
- ID: valid, unexpired, government-issued photo ID with signature; the name must exactly match your registration (bring an original certified document if it changed).
- Timing: arrive 30 minutes early; arriving 30+ minutes late forfeits the fee. Reschedule or cancel at least 48 hours ahead to keep your fee; same-part retakes must wait 24 hours.
- Results: pass/fail appears on screen immediately; the score report arrives by email and in your PSI account.
- After all three parts: apply for enrollment with Form 23 and pass the IRS suitability check.
Test-Day Tactics
How to take this exam, as distinct from what to study. Distilled from exam-strategy literature and cognition research, tuned to the SEE's format. The single most useful fact: Part 1's pass rate runs near 58% while Parts 2 and 3 run near 70%, so the exam you are studying for on this site is the one that punishes casual preparation most.
Pacing: the two-pass method
- The budget: 210 minutes for 100 questions is 2 minutes each. Aim the FIRST pass at about 90 seconds per question; answer everything (no penalty for guessing), flag anything that fights back, and bank the surplus.
- Checkpoints: question 50 by 80-90 minutes. Ahead of that pace, relax; behind it, flag faster.
- The second pass spends your banked 30-40 minutes only on flagged questions, now with a calmer brain and sometimes with hints leaked by later questions.
Reading discipline
- Read the call of the question first. On long fact patterns, read the last sentence (what is actually being asked) before the story, so you know which facts matter as you read.
- Mark the pivot words: EXCEPT, NOT, MOST, LEAST, ALWAYS, NEVER. A wrong answer to a right question is the cheapest point the exam takes from you.
- Single best answer: PSI's own guidance says when the technically-perfect answer is not offered, credit goes to the general-case answer. When two options feel right, choose the one that is right in the ordinary case, not the exotic one.
Elimination before computation
- Arithmetic pruning: one remembered constant (a floor, a cap, a phase-out) often makes two options mathematically impossible before you compute anything.
- Run the trap scan: the nine species this site drills (threshold, absolute, exception, exclusion, formswap, status, character, current, timing) are a checklist. Ask which trap this question is TRYING to spring, and the distractors start glowing.
- Torn between two? Re-read the stem word by word against each survivor. The exam usually hides one disqualifying word (a date, a filing status, the word "personal").
Changing answers: what the research actually says
The "never change your first answer" rule is a myth. Controlled studies of real exams (the "first-instinct fallacy," Kruger et al., 2005) find that deliberate answer changes go wrong-to-right far more often than right-to-wrong; the reverse just stings more and so is remembered more. The working rule: change an answer whenever you can NAME the reason (misread word, recalled rule, new elimination); never churn from pure anxiety.
The tax mindset
- This is a tax exam, not an accounting exam. Where book and tax diverge (prepaid income taxed on receipt, cash-basis deduction timing), the exam lives in the divergence. If your answer feels like financial accounting, look again.
- Wherewithal-to-pay is a master key. Gain capped at boot received explains 1031 exchanges and generalizes to corporate formations and reorganizations. One principle, many unfamiliar-looking questions.
Head management
- Scoring is scaled. You are running against the candidate pool, not perfection. A brutal question is brutal for everyone, and 15 of the 100 questions are unscored experiments; the monster you just met may not even count.
- Settle for less than 100%. Every exam plants a few obscurities. Give them your best guess, flag, and refuse to let question 23 bleed into questions 24 through 100.
- No post-mortems. Pass/fail appears on screen when you submit. Whatever it says, the next part deserves a clean head; the last part is history.
- The night before: logistics beat studying. Confirm the appointment and ID name-match, plan to arrive 30 minutes early (30 minutes late forfeits the fee), and if guilt insists on studying, review the Figure Vault briefly and stop.