Taking the CMA Exam
Exam Administration
The exam is computer based, and is offered in Prometric Testing Centers around the world. Check Prometric’s website to locate the nearest test center to your location: www.prometric.com/ICMA
Testing Windows:
The CMA exams are offered during the following months:
Registration deadline: you should register for your exam early on because seats are usually limited. The earlier you schedule your exam the more options you will have. Seats are usually filled from the end of the testing window backwards because most candidate try to set their exam date as late in the testing window as possible. The deadline for registration for each testing window is as follows:
|
Testing window |
Registration deadline |
|
January – February |
15 February |
|
May – June |
15 June |
|
September – October |
15 October |
You can register for the exam through the IMA’s store on the following link:
Scheduling an Appointment for an Exam
Once you pay the examination fee for an exam part you will receive an authorization e-mail from the IMA. You need this e-mail to be able to schedule your exam with Prometric. To schedule your exam go to: www.prometric.com/ICMA
The authorization letter received from the IMA (in an e-mail) includes more details about how you can schedule your exam appointment.
Scheduling the exam is your responsibility. Exam fees will be forfeited in case you don’t schedule your exam.
Rescheduling or Cancellation of a Scheduled Appointment
Cancelling an exam appointment on Prometric does not mean you are eligible for a refund of the exam fees. The cancellation of an exam appointment enables you to reschedule the same exam within the same testing as long as there are available seats to reschedule the exam.
If you need to cancel/reschedule an exam appointment, you need to do that 72 hours before the appointment.
You can reschedule your exam free of charge 30 days before the exam date. To reschedule an exam less than 30 days before that exam and before 3 days of the exam date you need to pay a $50 rescheduling fee to Prometric. You cannot reschedule an exam less than 3 days before the exam date.
You cannot change the testing window of an exam. You need to contact the IMA if you have to do that.
Refund Policy
The CMA entrance fee is non-refundable.
The exam fee is refundable within 30 days from purchase date if you did not schedule your exam on Prometric.
The Day of the Exam
Plan ahead so that you arrive at the test center 30 minutes before your appointment. If you are more than 15 minutes late for your appointment you will not be admitted to the exam room, and you will have to re-register for the exam and pay the full cost.
Before your exam you will be required to sign the Prometric Log Book, and to provide fingerprints.
Bring the following items to the test center:
1- Identification (your passport or ID). The name on your identification should match the name on the authorization letter.
(International applicants: your passport is the best option because it includes your name in English. If you don’t have a form of identification the contains your name in English you will need to bring a notarized translation of your identification document along with the document itself).
2- Authorization letter
3- Approved calculator
You will be provided with paper and a pencil at the test center.
Examples of acceptable IDs:
Examples of unacceptable IDs:
Approved calculators
Small battery or solar powered electronic calculators are allowed
Limited to 6 functions: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, square root, and percentage
The calculator must not be programmable
Recommended models
Texas Instruments’ BA II Plus
HP 10bII+
HP 12c
HP 12c Platinum
Understanding the result of the exam
To pass the exam you need to score 360 points out of 500, which is equal to 70 out of 100, but this does not necessarily mean that you need to answer 70% of the questions correctly to pass. The exam result score is a scaled score, which means that the results take into consideration how easy or difficult the exam questions were. If the version of the exam you took was relatively easy you might need a higher percentage of correct answers to pass the exam, and if your version was relatively more difficult you might pass by answering less than 70% of the questions correctly.
CMA Awards
You are eligible for an award if you:
Exam Performance Report
If you fail an exam part you will receive a performance report approximately 14 days after exam results are published.
The performance report shows your performance on key topic are as: satisfactory, marginal or unsatisfactory.
You can take an exam part only one time during a testing window.
