EA Part 1 practice questions with answers

How to review this Part 1 sample

After each answer, write down why the correct choice fits the supplied facts and why your alternative fails. Identify the taxpayer, filing status and qualifying facts before calculating. Separate taxable receipts, proceeds and adjusted basis. Work out whether the rule changes taxable income or tax. The sample is intentionally small and does not cover every topic in the official outline.

Part 1: what to distinguish while studying

Use the content outline to check coverage, then allocate extra practice to the errors you can explain. The distinctions below are study guidance, not measured candidate failure rates or an official study-hour prescription.

Exam format and tested tax year

Each part contains 100 multiple-choice questions in 3.5 hours: 85 scored and 15 experimental. The IRS lists 500 as the passing scaled score on a 200-800 scale; it is not a raw percentage. For the 2026 cycle, use law through December 31, 2025 and calendar year 2025 unless the question says otherwise. Verify the active bulletin before booking.

What this individual-tax sample can tell you

Use these ten questions to check how you classify a tax item and use the supplied facts. The sample includes income, basis, payments, deductions and filing concepts. It is deliberately small, so a topic missing from the sample is not absent from the Part 1 syllabus. Keep the official domain chart as your coverage reference and treat this page as a diagnostic exercise within that larger preparation.

Answer without opening the explanation, then record whether you knew the rule or guessed. A correct guess and a confidently wrong rule are different review signals. Neither should disappear into the same total score. After reading the feedback, explain the decisive fact in your own words before moving to another question. This is particularly useful when two choices contain familiar tax terms but describe different quantities.

Why the tempting alternatives do not fit

A distractor often uses a real number from the question in the wrong role. Gross proceeds may be offered as gain, the decedent’s original cost as inherited basis, or withholding as final tax. Check what the question asks you to calculate before deciding which number is relevant. Where the sample explicitly supplies an assumption, use it rather than adding an unstated exception.

The table is a review aid for several recurring distinctions in this sample. Use it after attempting the questions. If you can repeat the correct answer but cannot reject the alternative, solve a new version with different amounts. A transfer check should preserve the rule while removing your ability to recognize the previous numerical answer.

Choose the next drill from the error you made

If you used the wrong basis, compare acquisition methods before doing more sale calculations. If you confused tax with payments, draw a short bridge from total tax to withholding and the resulting balance. If you missed an eligibility condition, write that condition next to the fact that satisfies or fails it. These are different repairs; another random ten-question set may not address the misunderstanding.

Once the rule is clear, solve a changed-fact case without notes and then mix it with other topics. Use the separate 20-question PDF if a printable exercise suits your review, or continue in the service for broader practice. The online and PDF counts describe separate resources and are not a claim that every question is unique across them. No result on this sample is an official score or assurance of passing.