CIMA Qualification Examination

The CIMA Qualification Exam can be scheduled and taken at specific testing centers throughout the U.S. and throughout the world. There are no specific windows to take the qualification exam, but candidates must wait 30 days between attempts. The table below reflects pass rates between September 1, 2009 and the end of the most recent quarter. The cumulative pass rate measures the percentage of individual candidates who have passed the Qualification Examination since inception. 

CIMA Certification Examination

The CIMA Certification Exam is conducted during specific testing windows during the course of the year. The table below reflects pass rates from the most recent testing window, along with a cumulative pass rate, which measures the percentage of candidates who passed the examination after one or more attempts. The cumulative pass rate is not confined to a single exam period, but rather measures the percentage of individual candidates who have passed the Certification Examination since inception. 

Developing and Scoring the Examinations

Developing a reliable and defensible exam begins with a job analysis. A job analysis requires a study of the activities performed and the skills needed by a typical candidate seeking CIMA certification. Questions are then developed to test those skills the job analysis defined. These questions originate with volunteer designation holders who use guidelines to assign questions by topic and classify them by educational objectives. IMCA maintains a bank of questions that have been written, categorized, reviewed and tested for performance. The percentage of questions selected for any one category is determined by the job analysis and a new job analysis is conducted approximately every five years to identify major changes in the work activities covered by the certification. 

The scoring methodology used to set the pass/fail determination for the Certification Exams is the Modified Angoff method, which is applied during a Passing Point Study by a panel of experts in the field. The experts evaluate each question on the examination to determine how many correct answers are necessary to demonstrate the knowledge and skills required to pass this examination portion. A candidate’s ability to pass the examination depends on the knowledge and skill demonstrated, not on the performance of other candidates.

The level of difficulty for the exams is evaluated so that candidates are treated equitably regardless of which questions appear.