Long-term Studying for the CMA Exam

Gavin is one of our CMA Exam bloggers. He shares his story every Friday.

One of the hardest parts of studying for the CMA test is making study plans. It might be a little confusing at first that the tests are broken down into testing windows every other 2 months, but it can actually be used to your advantage if you plan properly according to your schedule.

Studying for CMA Exam: Is It a Marathon?

I started my planning in August and decided to take both tests in the first testing window of 2015. This would give me 6 months before I took part 1 and another month before I took part 2 at the end of February. I figured I would spend the month before each part focusing really hard on each part, and in the 5 months I had free, I would grasp a solid base of both parts. This is an interesting strategy but can be very useful if you know you won’t be able to take the test for a while.

Each week I would follow the Gleim review system plans and go through one or two study units by doing the following:

• Doing an initial multiple-choice quiz
• Going through the audio-visual slides and taking notes on what I found the most difficult, leaving room for more details later
• Did the True/False questions and add to my notes
• Add to my notes even more with information to the detailed outlines, and make notecards for important vocab or formulas
• Then test what I knew with another multiple-choice quiz

Over the 5 months, I followed this process for all the study units in part 1 and part 2 and grasped a general knowledge of all the information. This allowed me to know what I needed to focus on in the month before each part of the test. Again, this is just one suggestion for planning long-term study that has helped me thus far.

Note from Stephanie

I used a similar plan when studying for my CPA exam (I was also taking multiple parts at the same time). It worked pretty well for me, too!