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Your goal is to pass each part of the CMA exam the first time you sit for it. This will require you to develop CMA study strategy tailored to meet your needs.
Ask yourself:
Be realistic about what you can expect from yourself and make a plan that you can keep. Everyone is able to study for a different amount of time each week, so really think about your schedule when making your CMA study plan.
We’re going to walk through the process of making study plans using two different criteria—
NOTE: While it is likely you will have both limited hours per week to study and a deadline, the reality is that one of these two factors will be less important. If you have an absolutely firm deadline, you might need to make more sacrifices in your schedule to fit in the needed study hours. If the amount of time you can spend studying is set in stone, you may have to adjust your deadline to fit with your needed study time.
Passing the CMA exam is not an easy task, so you’re going to need to spend enough time studying for each part of the exam. While it can be hard to find time to study, becoming a CMA will make your investment worth it.
You will need to make sacrifices in order to find time to study for the CMA exam. Some candidates find it best to make several small sacrifices (e.g., waking up an hour early, studying during your lunch break, or watching a bit less television). Other candidates prefer to make one large sacrifice (e.g., working fewer hours a week or taking a summer off of school).
The most important thing is to be honest with yourself—don’t plan on sacrificing something essential. Finding time to study is only worthwhile if you actually stick to your plan. Studying for the exam will be a marathon, not a sprint, so look over your weekly activities critically and make the time to study for the CMA exam.
Determine how familiar with the CMA material you are and your study needs based on the answers to the questions provided above.
Get a calendar (digital or physical) and mark your deadline on the calendar.
Working backwards from your deadline, mark off any days you will be unable to study.
Think about obligations you may have, holiday plans, or events that you have to attend.
Count the number of weeks from the time your studies will start to your deadline.
Divide the number of weeks by the number of hours you’ll need to study for (see the chart below) to get the number of hours you need to study per week.
Weeks where you have 3 or more days marked off should be counted as half weeks for this calculation.
NOTE: Determining your half weeks is not a one-size-fits-all rule. If you only study on Saturday and Sunday and even one of those days are marked off, it might count as a half week. On the other hand, in that same scenario, you could mark off every weekday and still have most of your study hours available. Use your best judgement when determining half weeks.
|
Average time spent studying per part of the CMA exam |
|
|---|---|
|
CMA Part 1 |
150 hours |
|
CMA Part 2 |
110 hours |
Plan to begin your final review the week before your CMA exam.
Based on your calculations, set benchmarks on your calendar. You should have a benchmark every week to check your progress against.
EXAMPLE: If you’re studying for 15 hours a week and your first three weeks are full weeks, you should be at least 30% done with your studies by the end of the third week. Write down “30% done” for the final day of that week and check your progress when you get there. The last week of final review is included in the average hours chart.
Write down important exam deadlines on your calendar.
As you make your way through your studies, mark your progress off on the calendar.
If you start to fall behind (missing 2 benchmarks in a row), you may need to adjust the remainder of your study plan. Do not abandon your study plan if you begin to miss benchmarks!
Readjusting your study plan involves the same steps as creating a new study plan, just using your remaining time.
As your exam day approaches, look at your recent benchmarks to determine whether you’ll be prepared prior to your CMA exam.
If you’re behind, you can still reschedule your CMA exam if you meet the requirements (at least 3 days before your testing date and rescheduling to a date within the same testing window).
When determining your schedule for the CMA exam, do not plan to cram the days just before your test. Cramming for the CMA exam does not have a good success rate, you’ll need time to process and practice applying the concepts after learning them.
Creating an hour-based CMA study plan is very similar to creating a plan based on a deadline. Rather than deciding how many hours per week you need to study based on your testing date, you’ll decide your testing date based on the amount of time you per week you are able to study.
NOTE: You will want to select a testing date and schedule it as a part of this process. This will give you a deadline to work towards and help cement your exam prep as a priority.
To select a testing date you will need to:
Use a calendar to mark off the days over the next few months that you won’t be able to study.
Based on the amount of hours you can study in a week, count out how many weeks it will take to reach the amount of study hours you’ll need.
Weeks where you have days that account for half of your hours or more marked off should be calculated as a half week.
Select a testing date for the CMA exam.
You’ll want to select a testing date near the beginning of a testing window so you have plenty of time to reschedule if needed. Remember, you can only reschedule your CMA exam within the same window, and you have to reschedule it early to avoid paying fees.
For more detailed guidance on how to select a CMA testing date, visit our guide.
After you have selected a testing date, you can use step 5 through 9 from the deadline based approach to flesh out your study plan.
These CMA study strategies are essential no matter what stage of your studies you’re in or what topics you’re studying.
Whether you’re studying for the multiple-choice questions on the CMA exam or trying to test your knowledge of a certain topic area while studying, MCQs are going to play a big role in your exam prep. Learn how to best learn from these essential exam-prep tools.
When you hear the word “essay,” you might imagine pages and pages of text, but that’s not the case with CMA essays. You can actually respond to these essay questions with short statements or bulleted lists, and when answering a computational question, you don’t even have to use sentences at all. You can just show your calculations and make sure to clearly state what the answer is.
Studying for Part 1 of the CMA exam takes an average of 150 hours.
Studying for Part 2 of the CMA exam takes an average of 110 hours.
Use a large test bank and randomize the answer choice order so you’re engaged with the concepts and not answering by rote.
Take 30 minute, 20-question quizzes as the foundation of your CMA exam studies. Use these quizzes to focus on your weak area, but don’t ignore topics you are familiar with.