2026 Term 4 – How to Choose Your CA Subjects Efficiently

Alex Chen
8月9日
讀畢需時 7 分鐘

Enrolment for 2026 Term 4 officially opened on Tuesday, 4 August 2026.

For most subjects, enrolment remains open for around one to two months. Ethics is the exception, with only around two weeks available for enrolment.

Before enrolling, you need to apply for provisional membership first. In practice, we have seen some students receive approval in around three days, but CA ANZ officially states that the process can take up to 20 business days.

So if you are planning to start in Term 4, apply as early as possible. Otherwise, if your membership is not approved in time, you may have to wait until the following term.

If you are starting CA in 2026 Term 4, with the right subject combination, the earliest possible completion is around 2028 Term 2. This is mainly because of prerequisite requirements and the way CA ANZ schedules different subjects throughout the year.

That is already a fairly fast pace.

For most students working full-time, being able to pass every subject on the first attempt is already very efficient. Below, we will also give some examples of how you can structure your subjects to finish as early as possible.

Our subject selection guidance for both new and existing students is divided into three parts:

Three key principles for choosing subjects
Overview of subjects available in 2026 Term 4
How new students starting in 2026 Term 4 can plan their subjects

1. Three Key Principles for Choosing Subjects

Principle 1: Not every subject is offered every term

Most CA subjects are not available every term. Some are only offered once a year.

So you cannot simply choose whatever subject you want at any time. Your study plan needs to take CA ANZ's official subject timetable into account.

Principle 2: Complete prerequisite subjects early

Some subjects have prerequisite requirements. Combined with the fact that not every subject is available every term, completing prerequisite subjects early becomes very important, especially for compulsory subjects.

The main prerequisite requirements are:

AA – Audit & Analytics: FAR is the prerequisite
SBP – Strategy and Business Performance: RTA is the prerequisite
ICAP: All compulsory subjects must be completed first. Electives are not included in this requirement.
Ethics and Sustainability: This is a co-requisite, meaning you can study Ethics at the same time as other subjects.

This is why FAR and RTA should normally be completed relatively early in your CA study plan.

Principle 3: Mix harder and easier subjects

Studying multiple subjects in one term is absolutely possible.

The key is to combine subjects with different levels of difficulty rather than putting several demanding subjects together in the same term.

A good study plan is not simply about taking fewer subjects. It is about choosing the right combination.

2. Overview of 2026 Term 4 Subjects

Ethics and Sustainability – ES

Ethics and Sustainability mainly focuses on the five ethical principles and the five threats to ethical principles.

The cases also include sustainability-related issues, which reflects the increasing importance of sustainability in the accounting profession.

Assessment is completed through the scheduled workshop.

Part of the assessment focuses on Communication & Collaboration, while another part involves a Group Presentation.

As long as you prepare properly and participate in the workshop, passing the subject is generally not difficult.

Students enrolled in any of our full courses also receive our Ethics explanation and study materials for the relevant term.

Risk, Technology and Artificial Intelligence – RTA

RTA can broadly be divided into two major areas.

The first area is risk management.

The overall framework is relatively straightforward:

Risk Identification – identifying risks
Risk Analysis – analysing risks
Risk Response – determining how the organisation should respond

The second area covers technology and technology-related risks.

This includes areas such as:

Cybersecurity risk
Artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies
Basic statistics and their application
T-tests and F-tests
Correlation analysis

The assessment consists of two assignments, with the second assignment being more important.

Our RTA students have maintained a 100% first-attempt pass rate, with many high scores, including top-performing results nationally.

After completing our classes, students generally do not need to spend additional time reading through the textbook in detail.

Taxation – TAX (Australia & New Zealand)

Tax is essentially a law subject rather than a pure accounting subject.

Because of this, the textbook sometimes uses fairly complicated wording to explain concepts that are actually quite straightforward.

The subject covers the overall tax system, different types of taxes and different taxpayers.

Major examinable areas include:

Income Tax
GST
FBT
Other key areas of Australian or New Zealand taxation

There are two assessments.

OA1 is a written assignment of around 1,000 words.

OA2 is a 2.5-hour final exam.

The final exam is the key assessment.

Even if you receive full marks for OA1, you will still fail the subject if you score below 50% in the final exam.

Our historical pass rate for Australian Tax is around 95%, while our New Zealand Tax pass rate has been close to 100%.

After completing our classes, students generally do not need to rely heavily on the textbook, which makes the subject much more manageable.

For New Zealand students who are planning to work in Australia in the future, Australian Tax may also be worth considering.

Audit & Analytics – AA

AA stands for Audit & Analytics.

The central idea of the entire subject is actually quite simple:

How do we perform an audit of financial statements?

Analytics is a relatively new addition to the subject, and we expect it to have some presence in the final exam.

The most important skills in AA are:

Understanding common audit procedures
Understanding why those procedures are performed
Applying them correctly to the scenario given in the exam

AA is mainly about understanding and application.

You do not need to memorise auditing standards word for word.

The final exam mainly consists of written-response questions. Unlike some subjects where there may be several reasonable ways to answer, audit questions usually have fairly specific points that the examiner is looking for.

So apart from reading comprehension and written communication, the biggest challenge is making sure your answer actually addresses the required audit point.

If you miss the key point, writing another paragraph usually will not earn additional marks.

The assessment consists of one assignment and one final exam.

Again, the final exam is the key assessment.

If your final exam mark is below 50%, you fail the subject regardless of how well you performed in the earlier assessment.

This rule also applies to other CA subjects with a hurdle requirement.

Main change from AR to AA

The previous AR – Audit and Risk subject has now changed to AA – Audit & Analytics.

The main addition is the Analytics component, which is likely to be reflected in the final exam.

ICAP

ICAP can be one of the biggest challenges for many Chinese-background students.

Interestingly, students who have no major difficulty with subjects that appear more technical, such as FAR or Tax, sometimes find ICAP much harder.

The reason is that ICAP places much greater emphasis on:

Reading comprehension
Understanding exactly what the question is asking
Written communication
Identifying the key issue hidden in the scenario
Applying common sense

There are three OAs.

The first two are workshop-based assessments.

In practical terms, however, the final 2.5-hour exam is the assessment that really determines whether you pass the subject.

The exam may draw on some basic knowledge from other CA subjects, such as:

However, it generally only requires relatively basic knowledge from those subjects.

The bigger challenge is whether you can read between the lines, understand what the examiner is actually looking for, and answer directly to the point.

In ICAP, knowing more accounting rules does not necessarily mean you will score higher.

Understanding the question is often more important.

Data Analytics and Insights – DAI

CA electives generally have one major final assessment, which usually includes a presentation component.

DAI focuses on Data Analytics.

The textbook introduces a range of data analytics theories. In our view, many of these theoretical sections are not particularly useful either for practical work or for the final assessment.

The more useful part of the subject is the practical use of Power BI.

The major assessment is roughly divided into:

80% written responses and practical work, including Power BI
20% recorded presentation, usually around three minutes

For the presentation, you essentially take the Power BI charts created in the first part and connect them into a clear story.

In simple terms: you look at the charts and explain what the data is telling you.

Apart from Power BI, the assessment may also require you to:

Analyse written information together with data
Interpret business results
Perform some Excel-based analysis
Complete tasks such as regression analysis

Our students have performed very strongly across CA electives, with many high scores.

We also teach the practical Power BI component rather than simply covering the theory.

3. How Should a New Student Starting in 2026 Term 4 Choose Subjects?

As discussed earlier, if you start in 2026 Term 4, the key is to complete prerequisite subjects such as RTA and FAR early, while also balancing harder and easier subjects.

For simplicity:

2026 Term 4 = 426
2027 Term 1 = 127
2027 Term 2 = 227
and so on

Below are two possible study plans.

Option 1 – Faster Start

426: ES + Tax + RTA

Do not automatically assume that three subjects in one term is too much.

This combination already takes workload into account. Of the three, Tax is the main subject that is likely to require significant study time.

127: FAR

227: SBP

427: AA

228: ICAP(ICAP is not offered in 128)

Electives can be added between these subjects depending on CA ANZ's official timetable.

The timing of electives is relatively flexible.

Option 2 – More Conservative

426: ES + RTA