CMA Study Group

Do very many test takers make it to the essay? I was just wondering how close you really are if you make it to the essay... I did this in the fall but came up short with a 330. Today I was able to take the essay but was not as confident in my mcq's.

Ralph - 

I took the Part 1 exam last week and have a question about that as well.

I thought you were not supposed to be allowed to do the essay portion UNLESS you passed the first part, which would mean a score of at least 76% correct. Otherwise it can quickly become mathematically impossble to pass even if you you could get all of the available essay points.    

Are you indicating you DID make it to the essay portion in the Fall and still received a score of 330?

Doug, that is correct. And I thought I really did well on my essay in the fall. I thought I got around 18% to 20% correct. I find the mc questions to be very difficult on the actual exam. I used gleim and I am worried about this result.

I was using the IMA's study guide, online support and testing but switched to Gleim a couple of months ago based on some comments by other test takers. Must admit I think sticking the IMA's prep program would have been better based on the exam question I had on the test last week. A number of people appear to like or use the Hock CMA prep program.

I must admit some limitations in my understanding of how the IMA is handling the new program in terms of administration and grading.

Dear 

Are you referring IMA's study prep as Wiley CMA excel materials, ?


------------------------------
Suraj Rana.

Dubai Chapter
UAE
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 02-20-2011 01:14 PM
From: Douglas Wayne Redden
Subject: Re: Getting to the essay

I was using the IMA's study guide, online support and testing but switched to Gleim a couple of months ago based on some comments by other test takers. Must admit I think sticking the IMA's prep program would have been better based on the exam question I had on the test last week. A number of people appear to like or use the Hock CMA prep program.

I must admit some limitations in my understanding of how the IMA is handling the new program in terms of administration and grading.

A minimum of 50% marks are required in Mc's to get to the essay part. The logic is if you can score the maximum in essay part i.e. 25% of total weightage of the exam, you can pass the exam.

 

Just wanna ask what topics are being generally being asked in esssay part, in 2nd part - cma exam in this window. Iam appearing for my 2nd part on 28th.

I cleared first part in last June window.

What is the grade weighting between MCs and Essays? 75% and 25%?

But if the weight is 75% MC and 25% essay, then mathematically doesn't really add up. If you get 50% correct in the MC portion, 0.5 * 0.75 = 38% and assuming you get 100% correct in the essay portion, 1 * .25 = 25%; adding up the % = 63%, which is about 310 to 320 out of 500.

Norman - i agree and am puzzled by the IMA appraoch. By my calcs, you need to get at least 59% of the MCs correct, then get 100% on the essay to pass the test. It seems IMA would set the MC bar higher than 50% or 59%.

I am glad that someone is asking this question. I was just thinking about the same thing a few days ago. On the website it says "You MUST answer at least 50% of the multiple-choice questions correctly to be eligible to take the essay section." I hope someone can get clarification on why the magic number is only 50%.

I called IMA and the CS Rep said that if you pass the MCQ part with at least 50% AND let's say you get a perfect score on the essay part, then you would pass the exam. 

Got it. But I think it's mathematiclaly impossible if the scoring split is 75% MC and 25% essay. Thanks.

Where does it say that scoring is split 75% MC and 25% essay?

If 360/500 means 72% and you need to get at least 50% on the MC, 100% to just pass then the split would be 55% MC, 45% Essay. I doubt that this is accurate, IMA probably uses some crazy weighted average approach that takes into account exam and question difficulty ... who knows... they should really be more clear on this issue ! And it would be nice if the computer told you your raw score on the MC portion after the exam, it would be nice to know.

correction to above: ...(50% on the MC, 100% on the essay...)

100% agree on providing some immediate feedabck from the MC portion. I don't think IMA, to date, has managed testing expectations and communications as well as could be.

I believe that weightage for each question in MC's is not equal. The marks depend on the difficulty of the question. Because of this scenario, when somebody gets 50% questions correct, then IMA grades the answers on the difficulty quotient and award marks.

And it seems IMA doesn't want to reveal the grading system in detail to the exam takers.

 

 

 

 

 

I wonder what percentage of people don't make it to the essay questions. I would think that percentage has to be small.

Pass rate is about 45% between both exams. Getting to the essay section implies that you know the material enough and my guess would be that once you're there you will pass. I would estimate 80% of the people who get there pass the exam. If this is the case, then about 44% of people do not make it to the essay questions.

If we change the numbers and say that only 60% of people who make it to the essay pass, then this would mean that 25% of people who take the exam do not make it to the essay questions.

I think 25% is probably the lowest you can go, I don't see any less than 60% of people who made it as far as the essay failing.

Consider this guys, In october i made it to the essay, and thought i really did well on the essays, full completion and very confident in may answers, and I received only a 330 score result in december.  I took it a couple weeks ago and same thing, so we will see. I think a lot of people who make it to essay still fail. I think the weightages and area performance are not disclosed and this can cause big swings up and down once in the essay....or do you guys think i am really close to passing this thing? we need some people to weigh in on not making it to essay (real numbers)..........................

Damn, I'll let you guys know my #'s in 6 weeks !! They mail the scores right, no way to get it online ?

Arthur, I believe you can retrieve your score online (without any details) at the same time they mail the results. I believe you will receive some type of email notification.

I really doubt that those that make it to the essay questions have a significantly better chance of passing. I think this 50% number is just some type of minimum bar. How could someone really pass if they only answer 50% correct and 50% incorrect on the MC. Although I hope I am wrong because I also recently took the exam and made it to the essay questions.

By the way Ralph, you scored 330 and did good on your essay questions. Did you not finish all the MCQ? It seems this is the biggest obstacle that I faced with this exam is being able to quicky respond to questions. I think I guessed on about 8-9 or so since time was running out. 

Does anyone from IMA check these boards? Maybe someone can answer our questions. I did call the CS rep as you see in one of my previous posts, but I don't think the answer she gave me is entirely correct.

Mark, both times I had to guess, flat out guess on at least 10-14 questions.  The time aspect is the most difficult part of the exam. I don't see my time improving either.....

Hi Ralph. That is a common theme with everyone, myself included, that take the exams. When i see a question that is a full page, I usually just skip over it. I know that it will take me 5 minutes just to read the question before I can even attempt to answer it.

Haha, I had one question that was a whole page, it was one of the ones that I marked (I marked 20 total). Then when I went back I didn't even bother reading it, just chose c and went to the next question.

I wrote my cma part 2 exam on 28th Feb. last week. I too got some lengthy questions, intelligent guess was the best option. However I think I did quite well in MCQ's, expecting around 70-75% correct.

Lets hope i get through and hope the same for everbody here.

 

 

Same here. some questions doesn't allow you to use your best judgement or "intelligent guess", since determination of the answer requires multiple calculations. And I agree that it would take 5 mins or more even just to understand the question. The MCQs are way more difficult in the actual exam as compared to the IMA MCQ practice questions.  

Just took the exam three weeks ago. Am I the only one who felt completely confused by the way they set up the essay questions( as in 8 questions with questions inside the questions) Oh and how about the fact that not all the questions were on the same page. No, you had to page forward 4-5 screens before you could get to the end of just the first question. And 1 hour to do both the questions PLEASE!!!!. This new format they have developed for the essay portion is entirely too long and not very user friendly. I am curious to get other recent test takers feedback. Thanks

PS: CMALS stinks,try some of the others.

Joseph,

I was also a little confused on the essay questions. I didn't even understand what they were asking for in one of the questions. The information was very vague. I actually think they should drop the essay questions for several reasons. First, as you pointed out, they are not straightfoward and secondly, we have to wait several weeks just to get the exam scores.

I appeared for CMA - 2nd part exam on 28th Feb. Just wanna does IMA publish restults only at the end of 6 weeks or it can be earlier also.

It all depends how these essays are graded... I think they could provide a little leniency in grading whereas multiple choice would be a set computer calculation.

Also, I don't know... my essay questions were pretty basic (Part I)... First one was on Internal Controls. Second one was ABC. Pretty straight-forward. Maybe I just got lucky.

Oh well, Can't wait for scores to get released !