February 2005 -- Many CMA/CFM candidates make the mistake of registering for an exam part before starting to study for that part. They believe that the 120-day deadline for taking the exam will motivate them to prepare for and pass the exam within that timeframe. And so they proceed under the expectation that "register-prepare-pass" will be the sequence in which events unfold.

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Unfortunately, if you register before you prepare, the sequence of events is more likely to be "register-procrastinate-cram-fail." Most people who lack the motivation to study in the absence of a deadline are still not sufficiently motivated to study regularly when a deadline looms. And even highly motivated individuals can run into unanticipated illnesses, family problems, and work situations that will create added pressure if the "clock is ticking."

So my advice is to pursue a different sequence of events from the start, specifically "prepare-register-pass." In other words, don't register for the exam until after you've begun to prepare. There is no benefit in starting the countdown too soon. By waiting until your preparation is well underway, you will greatly reduce your chances of being forced to take the exam before you are fully prepared, which would likely lead to failure and the additional cost of taking the exam again.

If you are limited in the days or times when you can take the exam, contact your local Prometric Testing Center to determine how much lead time you'll need to be able to get the time slot of your choice. Add 2 weeks to that lead time, then register that far in advance of your desired date.

The LOS

The single most important resource to rely on when preparing for the CMA/CFM exams is the ICMA's Learning Outcome Statements (LOS) document. It is essential that you become familiar with the LOS because it contains the authoritative descriptions of what you must know and be able to do in order to pass the exams.

The LOS is freely available in electronic format at the IMA's website. For candidates grandfathered under the "old" exam format, the document is at

http://www.imanet.org/ima/docs/1500/1459.pdf

For candidates who must take the exams in the "new" format, the LOS document is at

http://www.imanet.org/ima/docs/2200/2128.pdf

Test-Taking Tactics

• When taking an actual exam, use the keyboard instead of the mouse to answer questions and to navigate from question to question. This will save you several minutes over the course of the exam – minutes which most exam-takers can use to attain a higher score. And if you are using practice software to prepare for the exam, get into the habit of using the keyboard now.
  
  
• Many exam questions are lengthy and contain a lot of extraneous data. For long questions, I recommend jumping ahead to read the actual question first (what exactly are you being asked for?) and then read the answer choices to see what kind of answer you're expected to give. Only then should you go back and read all the facts. This approach will help you distinguish between relevant and irrelevant data, again saving you precious minutes on the actual exam.
  
  
• If you're not sure how to arrive at the right answer to a computational question (or you fear that deriving the right answer will take a lot of time), you may find it easier to identify the wrong answers, isolating the correct one through a process of elimination. This is especially true when there's a simple verification calculation that you can do to identify obviously wrong answers. For example, if you're asked to determine the breakeven units in a multi-product situation and you forget how to derive the correct answer, you can compute the profit for each of the answers given to see if it is breakeven or not. Just remember when using this approach that any answer which does not satisfy the constraints and conditions in the question should be eliminated immediately.
  
  
• In the actual exam, you don't get much scratch paper to use for computational work. So write small and write neatly. Also label your scratch work with the question number. That way you won't waste time searching for the computational work you've already done if you return to a question later.

See also: IMA Recognizes Top Performers on the CMA and CFM Exams

BRUCE POUNDER is President of Leveraged Logic, a professional service firm that provides education and consulting services to accounting and finance professionals. Bruce recently earned the Johnson & Johnson Gold Medal for attaining the highest score in the world on the CFM examinations, and the Procter & Gamble Silver Medal for attaining the second highest score on the CMA examinations