On June 2, 2026, the ACFE retired the exam format that had defined the CFE credential for over two decades. Out went the four separate sections (Fraud Prevention and Deterrence, Financial Transactions and Fraud Schemes, Investigation, and Law). In came three: Fraud Schemes and Financial Crimes, Fraud Investigations and Legal Issues, and Fraud Prevention and Deterrence, rebuilt from a fresh Job Task Analysis of what practicing fraud examiners actually do. If you're studying from an older guide, a chunk of what you're memorizing no longer maps to how the exam is organized. This practice test is built around the current three-section structure.
The exam is comprised of three separately timed sections, each drawing from a distinct slice of the fraud examination body of knowledge:
Fraud Schemes and Financial Crimes (120 questions, 2.5 hours). This is where accounting fundamentals meet fraud typology. Expect questions on asset misappropriation schemes, corruption and bribery, financial statement fraud, and how these schemes surface across industries from banking to healthcare to insurance. Candidates coming from an audit or accounting background usually find this section the most familiar, though the sheer range of scheme variants (skimming versus larceny, shell company billing versus pass-through vendor fraud) trips up people who studied definitions without studying the distinguishing details.
Fraud Investigations and Legal Issues (120 questions, 2.5 hours). This section blends investigative technique with legal framework: interviewing methods, evidence-gathering rules, digital and financial tracing, report writing, and how criminal and civil proceedings differ across common law and civil law systems. It also covers the rules for expert testimony. This is the section where candidates without a law enforcement or legal background tend to underperform, since it requires holding both investigative procedure and jurisdiction-specific legal concepts in your head at once.
Fraud Prevention and Deterrence (70 questions, 1.5 hours). The shortest section but not the easiest. It covers why people commit fraud (the fraud triangle and its more recent critiques), corporate governance structures, fraud risk assessment methodology, building a fraud prevention program, and professional ethics. Candidates who treat this as "soft" material and skim it are often the ones who come back for a fourth attempt.
The CFE candidate pool is more mixed than most professional certifications. You'll find internal auditors and CPAs adding an anti-fraud specialization, law enforcement and government investigators moving into the private sector, compliance officers at banks and insurers who need the credential for regulatory credibility, and criminology or accounting graduates using it as an entry credential into the field. Because the exam draws from accounting, law, investigation, and criminology simultaneously, almost every candidate has at least one section that plays to a weak spot. Auditors tend to struggle more with the legal terminology in section two; investigators and law enforcement candidates often need extra time on financial statement analysis in section one For additional practice, take our free ISC2 CC practice exam test.
A few structural facts should shape how you use any CFE practice material:
The exam is closed book and closed notes. You cannot reference the Fraud Examiners Manual or any outside material during testing, which is a meaningful shift from how some older prep guides describe the exam.
Each section is a separate timed appointment that must be completed in a single sitting. You can space the three sections out, but once you start one, you finish it in that session.
Questions are a mix of multiple-choice and True/False, and the exam rewards precise recall over general familiarity. A candidate who "sort of" remembers a concept will get tripped up by True/False items designed to test the specific boundary conditions of a rule.
You need 75% correct in each section individually. A strong score in Fraud Schemes does not offset a weak score in Fraud Prevention and Deterrence. This is the single most important thing to plan around: practice tests should be scored and reviewed section by section, not as one combined score.
Candidates get up to five attempts per section, with no waiting period for the first three retakes and a mandatory 30-day wait before the fourth and fifth. Failing five times on any single section ends that eligibility cycle and voids all prior results, so the practice-then-retake approach has a ceiling.
Because passing is measured per section, run your practice the same way. Don't mix questions from all three areas into one undifferentiated quiz and call it prep. Work Fraud Schemes and Financial Crimes as its own block until you're consistently clearing 80% or higher (a buffer above the 75% cutoff matters, since exam anxiety tends to cost a few points), then move to Investigations and Legal Issues, then Prevention and Deterrence. Time yourself against the limits, roughly 75 seconds per question in the two larger sections and closer to 77 seconds per question in the shorter one, so pacing pressure feels familiar before exam day rather than on it.
Pay particular attention to True/False items during practice. They're a smaller share of most people's mental image of "multiple choice testing," but the CFE exam uses them to check whether you actually know where a rule's exception kicks in, not just whether you recognize the rule.
Three patterns show up repeatedly among candidates who fail a section and have to retake it:
Treating the exam as if it were still open-book. Some older study routines assumed you could reference materials during testing. Under the current format that habit doesn't transfer, and candidates who built their study plan around "I'll look it up during the exam" run out of time.
Underinvesting in Fraud Prevention and Deterrence. At 70 questions, it feels like the lightweight section. But the ethics and governance material is dense and easy to memorize imprecisely, which is exactly the setup for True/False questions that punish imprecision.
Confusing scheme categories in section one. Asset misappropriation has many sub-schemes with overlapping characteristics (larceny versus skimming, for instance, differ mainly in whether the funds were recorded before being stolen). Candidates who study scheme names without studying the specific mechanics behind each one mix them up under time pressure.
Study each section against its own domain weighting rather than spreading effort evenly. Section one and section two each carry roughly 39% of the total questions, while section three carries about 22%, so your study hours should roughly mirror that split rather than being divided into three equal blocks. If your background is accounting or audit, deliberately overweight time on the legal and investigative procedure content in section two, since that's the material least likely to overlap with your existing professional knowledge. If your background is investigative or legal, do the reverse for section one's accounting and financial statement fraud content. Because the exam is closed book, build your practice sessions without reference material open in another tab, even when it's tempting during early study passes.
Work through the Official CFE practice questions below organized by section, review every miss against the specific rule or scheme it tested (not just whether you got it right), and retake each section's practice set until you're clearing 80% or better before you schedule the appointment. If you're unsure whether your background leaves a gap in one of the three domains, start with a full diagnostic pass across all three sections before committing your remaining study time.
Last updated on Oct, 12 2026
