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CMA Exam Advice from Hari, Winner of Priscilla S Payne Award

Priscilla S Payne Award winnerI am honored to have Hari, a Priscilla S Payne award winner from our very own community, to share his CMA exam journey with us.

(in case you aren’t aware, this award is given to THE candidate who achieves the highest score as a student in each testing period.)

* * *

I  am writing down my experience of passing the CMA exam and winning the Priscilla S Payne award. I hope this is useful.

  • Currently pursuing: PhD in Management Accounting at Michigan State University.
  • Educational Qualification: Chartered Accountant (CA), BCom (Mulund College of Commerce, University of Mumbai)
  • Professional experience: Co-Founder and Head of Academic Affairs at Raising a Mathematician Foundation, Visiting faculty at Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), Faculty and Mentor at Enkays Classes (Kalyan, Maharashtra, India)

How I Began the CMA Journey

I met Lisa Beaudoin, Head of Educational Partnerships, IMA at the Puerto Rico Mid year Management Section meeting of American Accounting Association in Jan 2017 where she mentioned to me about the doctoral scholarships for students interested in pursuing CMA.

I thought about it for a week and decided to enroll for the same in Jan 2017. I took both the sections in Feb (Part 1: 13th Feb and Part 2: 27th Feb). For me the objective of taking this certification is to partner with IMA to bridge the gap between academic research and practice. IMA will provide me with networking opportunities and I hope to collaborate with companies on research.

As soon as I finished my exams I was confident that I did well on my exams but I didn’t expect to win the Priscilla S Payne award, which is given to a student who has scored maximum marks in an exam window. I am happy to receive this award because it is only given to one student globally.

Although it may come across that I studied for a month but I was instructing courses on Management Accounting for CA Final and Inter students in India for 8 years before I came to US for pursuing PhD. Hence, my preparation for the exams shouldn’t be considered as one month but consider it as many years of hard work. Hence, I won’t focus on what I did for the exam but will share my experience on how to prepare for such exams as a student as well as an instructor.

Who is Hariharan?

I have completed Chartered Accountancy (CA) from India in 2008 and have been passionately instructing students studying in schools as well as colleges.

As a student I always focused on understanding the concepts and didn’t study to pass the exams. This is a good long term strategy to succeed academically. It requires lot of patience and work ethic and sometimes one may question whether it is worth the efforts because the outcome can only be observed over the period of time and results are not always immediate.

I can say with confidence that completing CA has helped me tremendously to achieve success in my CMA exam.

I have observed that majority of the students try to study from the past exams, put less efforts, take shortcuts to pass the exam but this is a disaster as one may not be able to apply what one has studied.

Students find the material difficult to comprehend because it builds on previous material and it is very important to identify at what stage one is finding the content difficult to comprehend and go back and work hard on that particular topic.

For example: A student may find absorption costing difficult to understand but if it is primarily because of lack of understanding of overhead allocation, it is very important to study the topic on overhead allocation before proceeding further.

CMA Exam Specific Strategy

I used the Wiley material and it was nicely structured. The CMA exam has 100 multiple choice questions (MCQs) to be answered in 3 hours followed by essay questions to be answered in 1 hour.

While preparing I allowed myself one minute to answer a MCQ and will make a separate word file for noting the questions which I didn’t get right. This gave me a question bank that I used for review.

Also, I had made notes of every topic that I find difficulty in or topics which were new to me (SOX, Internal controls- these were US specific). I could save at least 15 minutes from my MCQs and carry forward to essay questions. For MCQs we need to practice so that we can reduce our time of answering and that is equally important along with accuracy.

Summary

1) Focus on concepts. Don’t just solve MCQs or problems it won’t help you. Problem solving is ancillary to conceptual understanding.

2) Practice not just to get accuracy but also to achieve efficiency.

3) Work hard. There is no substitute for hard work.

I want to conclude with a quote I believe in “Amateur works hard till he gets it right but a professional works hard till he can’t get it wrong”

Thanks,
Hari

Note from Stephanie

We “met” Hari when he shared his good news of passing the exam, but we didn’t know he is the award winner until a reader identified him. So excited when Hari accepted my invitation to write this guest post.

I highlighted two sentences above because these are the perfect answers to the many questions I got from readers, that is:

1. Do I get a good job / instant salary increase / promotion / a ticket to move to the US once I pass the CMA exam?

From Hari: “It requires lot of patience and work ethic and sometimes one may question whether it is worth the efforts because the outcome can only be observed over the period of time and results are not always immediate.”

Can’t agree more with this. Please see the certification as a longer-term investment.

2. How do I know if the same questions will appear in the exam / I heard this set of practice questions do not match those in the real exam. Should I go for another provider?

From Hari: “Focus on concepts. Don’t just solve MCQs or problems it won’t help you. Problem solving is ancillary to conceptual understanding.”

Some candidates aim to cover all practice questions because they want to increase the chance of seeing the same questions in the actual exam. They miss the point.

The purpose of going through the multiple choice questions is to put the theory in practice. By applying the concepts in various scenarios in the form of different questions, you can feel how the concepts come to life in a real work place.

I hope this sharing is helpful to you. If you have any questions, please drop a note below. I’ll see if Hari can spend some time answering your questions in the next few days or so.

About the Author Stephanie Ng

I am the author of How to Pass The CPA Exam (published by Wiley) and the publisher of this and several accounting professional exam prep sites.

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Leave a Comment:

20 comments
Devi says March 30, 2018

Hi

Congratulations… That’s great

I did Bachelors of Engineering ( ECE ), MBA( Finance & Marketing ) and partly qualified( ICWAI ) in India.

Then I moved to United States after marriage… then I persuade Enrolled agent (EA) and I’m currently working as a Master tax advisor in a Tax firm.
But my heart is in the accounting and finance. After all the research from your most informative site, I was stuck at whether to choose CPA or CMA.

My aim is to work in a corporate sector being knowledgeable in all streams of managerial administration i.e departments accounting, taxes and finance. With EA I’m confident with taxes, now I would like to brush my Finance and accounting skills with the US Specifications.

Please give me a suggestion! If possible few pro’s and con’s of CPA and CMA
Will be looking forward to hearing from you.
You doing a great job Stephanie appreciate it.

Thank you.

Reply
    Stephanie Ng says May 10, 2018

    Hi Devi,
    Sorry to reply late, but sure we cover both CPA and CMA and yours is a great question.
    My gut feeling is that CPA is more suitable for you long term as long as you can fulfill the increasingly complicated education and experience requirements.

    Please start with this page:
    https://ipassthecmaexam.com/cpa-vs-cma/

    And there will be links depending on which path you’d like to explore. Thanks! Stephanie

    Reply
Ajay Mosa says February 4, 2018

I Have passed My 12th. What to do next to study CMA??

Reply
Kumara Swamy G says November 10, 2017

Hi Ravi,

Congratulations..

I am a semi qualified CA and working as an Assistant Manager in an MNC but not satisfied with the current job as I have no proper qualification to show off, for various reasons.

I came across CMA and since I can finish the course in just 6 months (of course with lots of affords), i want to choose and study it.

Could you please clarify that how similar the subject is when compared to our CA final syllabus.
If it is similar, I can spend some time to clear it without much affords when compared to a non CA candidate.

Please let me know if my perspective is correct?

Reply
    Adithan says November 10, 2017

    Hi Kumara Swamy,

    I presume hari isn’t quite active in this thread, but this is my perspective for your quesiton.

    CMA is quite similar to SFM & AMA paper of CA – Final.

    The issue is conceptual clarity isn’t tested in CA papers. Their focus is largely on memory.

    But, CMA exam is largely tested on concepts and application of such concepts.

    Also, as such you will find it easier since you would have some knowledge on the topics of CMA.
    It does require a lot of efforts for both Non-CA and CA candidates.

    But it is quite possible to clear it in less than 6 months (like Hari) if you plan and prepare well.

    All the best 🙂

    Reply
      Stephanie Ng says November 11, 2017

      Thanks for the sharing Adithan! Stephanie

      Reply
vasna says November 7, 2017

hey hari
Congratulations!!!

Is it wiley cma bank test is sufficient to pass the CMA exam . Is there any adiitional test bank we need. if we need such question bank where can we find it.

Reply
    Stephanie Ng says November 8, 2017

    Hi Vasna,
    You can check out Wiley CMA product here:
    https://ipassthecmaexam.com/wiley-cma-review/
    The page is on Wiley CMA Review but you can just get the test bank in case you have been using other review materials.
    Cheers,
    Stephanie

    Reply
      Vasna says November 9, 2017

      Hey Stephanie
      Thank you . But my question whether you need additional test bank to practise . I feel the test bank given by Wiley is not sufficient . So I have to try another test bank .

      Reply
        Stephanie Ng says November 11, 2017

        Hi Vasna, if so I suggest Gleim test bank. It’s by far the most comprehensive (and toughest) set.

        Reply
SAJID says November 1, 2017

Thank you for the information.

Reply
Sajid says October 28, 2017

Hi Hari, what was your total score?

Reply
    Adithan says October 28, 2017

    Hari cleared with a score of 460 & 440 if my memory serves me correct 🙂

    Reply
Harshada says October 23, 2017

Hello.
I was wondering if I could get contact number of any of the individual who has already completed the course of CMA.
I wanted to ask someone personally how useful the course would be.
So please if you could provide me his/her details it would be very helpful.
Thankyou

Reply
    Stephanie Ng says October 24, 2017

    Hi Harshada,
    I cannot disclose their contact details. But you can stop by the IMA chapters in your area and there should be lots of people who pass the CMA exam. Good luck! Stephanie

    Reply
      Vinodh Raju.G says November 14, 2017

      Hello good morning mam,
      This is Vinodh I am a CMA Aspirant……so pls can you help me ……. regarding for the certification?

      Reply
        Stephanie Ng says November 20, 2017

        Hi Vinodh, happy to help if you can be more specific. Regards, Stephanie

        Reply
Adithan. says October 16, 2017

Hey Hari !!

We have spoken quite a while before, but congrats again.

Keep going 🙂

Reply
    Stephanie Ng says October 18, 2017

    Yes Adithan, are you the one who identifies Hari as the Priscilla S Payne awardee at the time? 🙂
    My thanks to you as well — without that I wouldn’t have realized and wouldn’t have invited Hari to share.

    Reply
      Adithan says October 19, 2017

      Yes Stephanie, I did ask him to check out if he had won since he got a really good score. 🙂

      And thanks to you too Stephanie, you are maintaining a wonderful and informative site which helps students & also, you’re following a hands-on approach in helping those in need.
      Thanks again 🙂

      Reply
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