CMA Exam Essay Questions: Complete Guide to Ace this Section

Many aspiring CMAs with international background dread the essay part of the exam. The writing aspect of the exam can be daunting for many people. Preparation is key to reducing anxiety about the essay section. I’m going to help you with some CMA exam essay tips in this post.

Don’t get thrown off by the CMA essay questions. You can review and prepare yourself for this part of the exam when you know what to expect. What exactly are the examiners testing on, how are the essays graded, and how can you get a good score?

(The video below contains only high-level information; therefore, please read the full post for all the details you need to know.)

Exam Structure

You are given 4 hours to complete the entire CMA exam. If you are done with the multiple-choice questions (MCQs) in less than 3 hours, then you can have the remaining time to work on the essay portion. If you use up the 3 full hours on the multiple-choice questions though, you will have stop and move on to essay questions.

For candidates whose English is not the first language, I strongly encourage that you practice going through CMA Exam MCQs as quickly as you can so you can allot more time for the essay portion of the exam.

Please note that you will be asked to complete the CMA exam essay questions only if you get at least 50% correct in multiple-choice questions. If you do not score 50% or higher on the MCQs, your exam will end and you will need to sign up to sit for the exam again.

The CMA exam has two parts:

• Part 1: Financial Planning, Performance, and Analytics (2019 title)
• Part 2: Strategic Financial Management

Each part contains 100 multiple-choice questions (MCQs) and two essay scenarios.

CMA Exam Essay Format

There are two essays topics, each consisting of a number of questions. You may be asked to complete a business memo or to work on a quantitative analysis.

You’ll add your answers to the essay questions using a simple word processor that is similar to Notepad. For those essays that require a computational answer, you should create simple tables and show calculations within the word processor space provided. It is a good idea to get familiar with the testing environment before the exam day. If you’re familiar with typing in word processor tools like Notepad, it will be important to practice before exam day.

The best exam-mimicking practice can be found in Gleim CMA Review. Their platform allows for complete emersion in the Prometric CMA exam environment so there are no surprises on exam day. CMA candidates email me daily about acing the essays, and you’ll be well on your way to successfully completing the essay questions if you use the Gleim Premium CMA Review System.

Note: If you are a retaker, you may want to know that the CMA exam has discontinued the use of the spreadsheet tool in the essay portion of the exam as of January 2013.

CMA Essay Scenario Screen

When you reach the essay section of each part of the CMA exam, you may open the essay scenario. The essay scenario includes all the information you need to answer the question correctly. Consequently, you’ll find that the essay scenario screen will open to the left of the screen that is displaying the answer box. I highly recommend keeping your essay scenario screen open at all times so you are sure not to miss any critical information as you answer the questions. Most exam prep courses will show you screenshots and possibly videos of this so that you know what to expect. The essay scenario screen looks like Notepad, or a similar word processing program, and it will have several features to make it easier to complete your essays.

The CMA essay scenario screen functions include: 

• Zoom – Using the “+” and “-” buttons, you can make the text bigger or smaller, as needed
• Navigate – You can use “>”  or “<“ to help you navigate throughout the pages of the essay scenario
• Scroll – The gray scrollbar on the right side of the screen will help you scroll up and down the page
• Grab – To “grab” the page, click and hold the left mouse button, then drag the page in any direction
• View page thumbnails – Use the green button with the double rectangle icon (top left) to see all pages as thumbnails
• View table of contents – Use the green button with the “bookshelf” icon (top right) to view the Essay Scenario as a table of contents

Because you don’t want to waste precious time trying to learn how to use the various CMA exam functions, your actual exam day is the worst possible time to become acclimated with them. So, be sure to use my advice from the prior section about finding a CMA review course that emulates the CMA exam.

How Should You Answer CMA Essay Questions

To answer the CMA essay questions, you will be required to write a response, or to complete a calculation related to the scenario that the exam provides you. It’s important that you read the question very carefully so you can understand the requirements and adhere to them properly. If you’re doing a calculation, it’s essential you show your work. You can get more partial credit for the more information you provide related to the topic, but only if you show your work!

When providing a written response, it’s important that you are as detailed as possible. You want to be concise and not use flowery language, but you also need to be detailed and accurate. So, mention anything that might be relevant to the topic you are writing about to help you score more points. Brainstorm and then work through your first draft so that your answer is totally complete, then you can go back and proofread your answer, as time allows. Because this process could take a while, especially if English is not your first language, it’s important to get through the MCQs in an efficient manner. Remember, if you finish up the MCQs early, you can bank that extra time for use in the essay portion of the exam.

CMA Exam Essay Grading System

CMA exam questions account for the following percentage of your overall score:

• MCQs: 75%
• Essays: 25%

The essays are graded by trained subject matter experts using an approved scoring rubric to ensure objectivity and consistency. In contrast, the MCQs are graded by a computer.

So, why does the CMA exam contain essay questions?

This part of the exam is meant to test your:

1. Knowledge of the exam content
2. Ability to apply concepts in real business situations
3. Ability to write clearly and logically

1. Knowledge of Exam Content

Becoming proficient with the CMA exam content is a critical step to pass both the multiple-choice questions and the essay part of the exam. Besides reading and watching video lectures, you should spend sufficient time answering practice questions and essays. In contrast to reading and watching lectures, answering practice questions helps you apply the concepts you learned. Answering practice questions is about more than just memorizing facts. Therefore, it is most important that you learn the material in such a way that you can apply it to practical scenarios that you might face on the job.

In the Wiley CMA Exam Review Learning System, there are 140 practice essay questions with model answers.

In the Gleim CMA Course, there are hundreds of essay scenarios with detailed answer explanations. Plus, you’ll have a chance to practice typing in the answers in a simulated exam environment on your computer. This is a great way to familiarize yourself firsthand with what it will be like on the actual exam.

2. Ability to Apply Concepts in Real Business Situations

Knowing the CMA content-specific facts does not mean you know when and how to apply them. When you are faced with an essay question, you should:

• Read each word in the question carefully to understand what the examiner is asking
• Identify the major concepts being tested
• Identify keywords that can be used in your responses

I like to use a mind map to brainstorm as many relevant keywords as possible because the inclusion of the correct keywords can easily help you score points.

Ability To Write Clearly and Logically

The CMA exam does not test your technical writing skills. Therefore, you should focus on simple and clear writing and leave out the flowery, complicated words. This is not the time to show off how many SAT words you remember.

Rather, they are looking for your ability to express yourself clearly and logically, as it relates to the CMA material asked in the essay questions. You can find the three general principles of effective business writing below. This will help you know how to best answer CMA essay questions on exam day.

How to Best Answer CMA Exam Essay Questions

Use of Standard English

Knowing how to use proper, standard English will be essential. Use this breakdown to learn what that means for the CMA essay questions.

(i) Correct Spelling

All words should be properly checked to avoid spelling errors and typos. Colloquial sayings, slang, and text-message words should not be used.

For acronyms, they should be fully spelled out when they are first introduced in the essay. For example, ABC should be spelled out as “Activity-Based Costing (ABC)” first and then the term ABC can be used in the rest of your response.

(ii) Proper Punctuation

Avoid writing words in capital letters and exclamation marks because exaggeration is rarely used in business writing.

Organization

The piece of writing should have a clear beginning, middle, and end.

(i) Beginning Paragraph

The beginning should be introductory in nature and directly address the question. You can simply rewrite the question and include a summary of what you’ll discuss throughout your answer. Don’t copy directly from the question though because copying-and-pasting is generally not a good idea.

(ii) Middle (Main) Paragraph

The middle paragraph is where you present CMA content-specific facts and ideas. You can choose to add a couple more paragraphs if you need to expand the ideas, such as adding examples to support your rationale.

Please note that the essays are graded positively and that partial credits are given: you get a point if the idea matches (or partially matches) with the one on the scoring rubric. This means that you should include as many points as possible as long as they are relevant.

 (iii) Ending Paragraph

The last paragraph should be a short conclusion, typically with a couple of sentences summarizing the ideas presented in the middle paragraph.

Clarity

While you should spend time writing all the related points you can possibly think of, present it in a clear and logical manner. It is very important to:

• Read the question carefully to make sure you understand what is being asked
• Double- check that your ideas do not contradict themselves

How to Practice for the CMA Essay Questions

If you want to do your best on these essay questions, it’s essential you study and practice. We’ve talked about the study portion, and about what to expect on the essay portion of the exam, but let’s talk about how you can practice for it when you don’t know exactly what your essay questions will be. First, a great CMA review study course is a good place to start. I’ll give you my recommendations for that in a bit.

Secondly, you want to practice with essay test questions or mock exam questions. A quality review course will contain these and they give you the hands-on practice you need. If English isn’t your first language, or if you struggle with written answers and essays, you may also want to practice writing in general or brush up on your grammar and spelling.

Finally, another great way to practice for the CMA essay questions is to practice writing mini-essays on the CMA exam material. Try answering and writing just the way you would if you were taking the exam.

Readers’ CMA Exam Essay Questions

Let’s take a look at some questions from readers that might help you.

Question #1

If a question asks about a calculation, do I need to be formal and write it out as words or can you just type out the numbers?  For example, if I ask for depreciation expense for one month of an asset with a 1,200 dollar cost and a 12-month life can I just write “$100” or “you divide 1,200 by 12 month to get 100 dollar per month which is your depreciation expense”?

Answer: You do need to show your work, but rather than saying “you divide 1,200 by 12 months to get 100 dollars per month” you could show “$1,200/12 months = $100 per month in depreciation”. This way, you will more likely get partial credit in case you use the right formula but just missed a number.

Question #2

I am practicing the essay questions, but there are no excel capabilities or even a table creation function that make tabular presentations possible. Do you have any suggestion on how to address this? Even underlining the numbers to indicate summation is not possible.

Answer: The examiners have taken away the spreadsheet function in recent years. Since the reader is a Gleim customer, I’ve asked the Gleim Team who has kindly provided the following answer:

There are no excel or table formatting tools in the essays on the exam or in the Gleim materials.

I have a few suggestions. First, practice with the Gleim essays because it will get them use to that.

Second, we have a video in the first study unit of our course in the supplemental videos section. This video is a how to on the essays. It could be very useful as it discusses formatting and how to answer them.

Third and final, the key is to make sure that the answers are clear and organized and labeled well, but it doesn’t need to be formatted any special way as long as the grader can determine what you are answering and what your answer is.”

Question #3

How realistic are the Gleim CMA essay questions? I’m asking because some are really long and have tons of calculations. Are the Gleim CMA questions harder than what I’ll see on the actual CMA exam?

Answer: In my experience, yes. Gleim CMA makes sure that you can actually apply the concepts that you’ve learned. Therefore, the Gleim questions may be more complex because they have to ensure you know how to answer questions on all the topics and derivatives thereof. I appreciate the Gleim questions are pretty difficult. If you’re like me, you may good a great feeling when you do well on the Gleim questions because that’s almost a sure sign that you understand the concept and can nail those questions on the exam.

Learning Tools

As briefly mentioned above, there are two sets of learning tools that can help you practice your essay writing skills.

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1. Sample CMA Exam Questions from Wiley CMA

Wiley CMA dedicates a whole chapter to essay exam study tips, examples of essay question answers, and practice essay questions and answers.

I encourage you to learn all about Wiley CMA.

2. Gleim CMA Review Mega Test Bank & Complete Course

Gleim CMA includes an online CMA test bank and provides sample CMA exam essay questions for every topic.

They also show you the format your answers (e.g., how to write out the calculations) in the answer explanations.

You can get it through the integrated review product — Gleim CMA Review System, or purchase it separately.

If you can’t decide between the two, you can use our Gleim CMA vs. Wiley CMA analysis to help inform your decision.

For Your Further Reading

Don’t miss my mega-post on the ultimate CMA exam prep guide, with 50 actionable tips to help you nail the exam!

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