Avoid These 5 Mistakes While Preparing for your CMA Exam
Achieving your goal of passing US CMA will require grit and loads of courage. Even though the US CMA exam is challenging and demands a lot of hard work, all the global exposure, opportunities, and credibility you get once you complete your certification is worth it. In your amazing journey toward becoming an US CMA professional, you might face some ups and downs, so it is finer that we learn a few things from others’ mistakes.
In order to start your US CMA Journey on the right foot, here is the list of five mistakes you can steer clear of.
Contents
Mistakes to Avoid While Preparing for your US CMA.
Not Having a Proper Study Plan.
Choosing the Wrong Coaching Support
Forgetting the Revision of the US CMA Syllabus.
Mistakes to Avoid While Preparing for your US CMA
Not Having a Proper Study Plan
As a US CMA candidate, your main goal will be to clear your Part I and Part II in a single attempt. For this to happen, you need to have a study plan that is tailored and targeted toward reaching your US CMA certification goal.
Before you get started with shaping out your US CMA study Plan, ask yourself these
- How much time can I assign to study in a week?
- When is my deadline to complete both Part I and Part II?
- Your estimated score in both Parts?
- Can I study on my own or Do I need to opt for online classes?
- Do I have proper US CMA preparation support?
Your answers to the above questions will form the base for your US CMA study plan. Time is one factor that most students preparing for CMA overlook, which costs them a lot.
Preparing your study plan 20-30 days before the exam is one of the biggest mistakes a US CMA candidate has to avoid.
Students should make sure that they have their study plan ready at least three to four months in advance. For example, if a candidate is going to take their test in May- June exam window, they should have their study plan prepared well in advance by January. Building a long-term study plan helps you in systematic learning and prevents any hurry just before your test.
Making a study plan improves your productivity. An effective study plan reduces your burden right before the exam by dividing all the chapters evenly throughout the months before the exam and leaving time for you to revise before the test. With proper organization of your study plan, it will be a piece of cake to avoid any procrastination and also you can be confident enough to score well on your test.
One more thing is that the study plan should be prepared in detail and you have to divide and mention what you need to study on which day. For example, Part I has 15 chapters in total, so you can study one chapter a week and see that you are done with all the 30 chapters of Part I and Part II so you will have approximately 15- 20 days before the exams for revision before your exam day.
Most students have a plan for their studies, but it may be difficult to maintain that plan in the event of an unforeseen circumstance. It is important to have an alternate or backup plan that can bring your study schedule back on track if something goes wrong.
Choosing the Wrong Coaching Support
Preparing for the CMA exam alone can be challenging and boring. That’s why you need a good US CMA coaching program that will help you prepare for the exam through relevant case studies, gamified notes, mock tests and exams, and interactive class delivery modes.
Choosing a good US CMA Coaching Institution is advised whether it is for online or offline classes. Sometimes preparing on their own, most students procrastinate and do not take their study plan seriously. But joining an institution will keep you alert.
Another advantage of choosing a US CMA coaching institution is that, If you opt for self-study, most of your doubt will remain uncleared and you will have to spend a lot of time in research instead, by choosing a CMA coaching institution you will have experienced faculty clear your doubts and even help with tips for solving MCQ’s in shortcut. This helps you save a lot of time which you could rather focus on exam preparation.
As per our research, most students opting for self-study consume an average of one year to finish per part and on the contrary, students taking the exam through coaching with an institute complete in an average of three to four months.
It is best that you select CMA classes that use the most up-to-date study materials. You should ensure that the courses have small class sizes and that each student receives individual attention. You should also check to verify if the coaching institute offers regular mock exams.
Tips to Choose the Best Coaching institution
- Never choose any US CMA coaching institution just based on their marketing advertisements and tactics. To avoid being conned by top placement and best training promises, US CMA candidates should make that they take the trial session or demo videos of the lectures before joint the institution, it gives an overall picture of the quality of coaching.
- Another important factor to be considered is whether you can follow to teaching style and pace of the faculty. Each student’s wavelength for understanding and learning will be different, so you should make sure which teaching methods suit you.
Not Taking Mock Tests
Not taking up any mock tests or simulation tests after completing each section and chapter or before the test is a grave mistake you can make while taking up the US CMA exam. Mock tests play a very crucial part in improving your overall score and confidence.
Mock tests are basically replicated tests or simulations focused on your main exam. Mock tests give you a glimpse of the framing of questions in real tests. Taking up regular mock tests will help in assessing the perfection levels of the candidates.
The best strategy for acing your US CMA will be taking mock tests weekly once you complete studying a particular section or chapter. By taking a weekly and regular mock test, it will be easy to judge how versed you are with that topic. If you are not satisfied with your score, you can revisit the topic and revise it.
This way you can improve your time management skill after each section.
Forgetting the Revision of the US CMA Syllabus
Revision is basically the second or third attempt at studying a particular chapter or section, when you just start preparing for US CMA exams, it might be your first attempt you are reading the material.
Just sticking with your study plan and finishing chapter by chapter might not help you get the best score, the reason being unless and until you revisit, revise your earlier chapters and observe how all chapters are interconnected, you might forget what you learned earlier.
Revision helps you ruminate all the concepts of each chapter in detail. It helps you recall all the details and increase your confidence while taking the test.
Time Management ⏰
Just as importantly, time management is a solely crucial thing when it comes to US CMA preparation or while taking the US CMA exam. As we already discussed the importance of making a proper study plan to manage your US CMA course duration time, so let’s now dive into common mistakes students make while taking the US CMA exam:
Not considering the time of US CMA exam;
The US CMA exam duration is 4 hours, with 3 hours allocated towards MCQ-type questions and one hour towards essay-type questions.
A common mistake US CMA candidates make while solving MCQ-type questions is that students get stuck on a difficult problem and waste a lot of time on a single question resulting in them with very little to no time to solve the remaining ones. This is the main reason you need to split your time wisely between the MCQ-type question and essay-type questions.
If you don’t solve the MCQ-type questions in the first three hours and stretch them into the 4th hour, you might not score well in the second section. So, to avoid this, candidates must make sure to stick to the time and answer the questions as off.
Considering US CMA has no negative marking in either of the sections, it is best that candidates answer all the 100 MCQ-type questions irrespective of whether the answer being right or wrong. This helps you with improving your score.
