How many questions are on the CMA exam?

Each part of the CMA exam has 100 multiple choice questions plus two longer written items, so a full part runs 102 questions. The multiple choice section counts for 75 percent of your score and the written section for 25 percent. In 2026 the IMA is replacing the traditional essays with case based questions; from the September and October 2026 window on, case based questions are the standard written format for English exams. Because there are two parts, you face 200 multiple choice questions and four written items across the full credential.

What is a passing score on the CMA exam?

Each CMA part is scored on a scaled range of 0 to 500, and 360 is the minimum passing scaled score. That scaled number is not a raw percentage, so you cannot map it directly to a count of correct answers. You also need to answer at least about half of the multiple choice questions correctly to move on to the written section, and the written answers are only graded if you clear that bar. You must pass both Part 1 and Part 2 to earn the CMA.

What are the two parts of the CMA exam?

The CMA has two parts. Part 1 is Financial Planning, Performance, and Analytics, covering external financial reporting, planning and budgeting, performance management, cost management, internal controls, and technology and analytics. Part 2 is Strategic Financial Management, covering financial statement analysis, corporate finance, business decision analysis, enterprise risk management, capital investment decisions, and professional ethics. You can sit the parts in either order, and each is a separate four hour exam.

How long is the CMA exam?

Each CMA part is a four hour exam: three hours for the 100 multiple choice questions, then one hour for the two written items. The written section unlocks once you finish the multiple choice section or once three hours have passed, whichever comes first. Time you do not use on the multiple choice section does not roll into the written hour beyond that structure, so pacing the multiple choice questions is a big part of preparation. Across both parts that is eight hours of testing total.

How hard is the CMA exam?

The CMA is demanding, with global pass rates for each part often reported around 45 percent. The difficulty is less about trick questions and more about breadth and application: you have to use financial concepts under time pressure, not just recall definitions. Part 2 tends to feel heavier for many candidates because of the finance and business decision analysis content. Consistent practice on application style questions, drawn from your own review material, is what separates a comfortable pass from a retake.

Can you retake the CMA exam?

Yes. If you do not pass a part, you can register again in a later testing window, and there is no lifetime cap on attempts as long as your three year program entry stays active. The CMA runs in three testing windows a year: January and February, May and June, and September and October. You may sit a given part once per window. Use the gap between attempts to drill the specific content areas that pulled your score down rather than re-reading everything.

Is this an official CMA practice test?

No. PDFQuiz is an independent study tool and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the IMA, the Institute of Management Accountants. This tool generates practice questions from the review material you upload so you can rehearse recall and application between full practice exams, and it does not reproduce official CMA questions. Use it alongside a current CMA review course and the IMA content specifications, not as a replacement for them.

CMA exam practice questions

CMA Exam Practice Questions and Practice Test From Your Own Review Notes and PDFs

Upload your CMA review notes, textbook chapters or your own summaries and the AI writes unlimited practice questions with an answer key and explanations in seconds. Drill the exact Part 1 and Part 2 content you are studying instead of grinding a question bank you have already worked through twice.

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In short: to build CMA exam practice questions, upload your review notes, textbook chapters or your own summaries, and the AI writes exam style multiple choice questions with an answer key and explanations in seconds. The CMA has two parts, each with 100 multiple choice questions and two written items, scored 0 to 500 with 360 to pass. Generate focused sets from your own material so you can drill Part 1 cost management one day and Part 2 corporate finance the next, right up to your testing window.

Last updated July 2026

Exam format: 2 parts, 100 MCQ + 2 written each
Passing score: 360 of 500
Practice questions: Unlimited

What a CMA practice question generator does

Drill your own review notes, not a bank you have memorized

The CMA rewards application, not recall, and by your second pass through a commercial question bank you start remembering the answer letter instead of the reasoning. You read a variance analysis or a cost of capital question and you recall the option, not the method. This tool flips the source. You upload what you are actually studying, your review notes, a chapter PDF or your own summaries, and the AI question generator from notes writes brand new items from that text. Weak answers point straight back at the content area you need to review, and a fresh practice set is always one upload away.

Works with any review course notes

Upload your CMA review notes, a chapter PDF, a topic outline or handwritten pages you photographed. If the file explains a Part 1 or Part 2 topic, the generator can build questions on it.

Content area by content area drills

Studying one part at a time? Upload just those notes, then narrow to a single topic, like performance management or capital investment decisions, when your scores in that area are soft.

Fresh questions every session

Generate a new set every time so you are testing knowledge, not recognition. Repeated retrieval on unseen application questions is what pushes a borderline scaled score above 360.

CMA content areas and how to practice each one

The CMA splits across two parts, each with six content areas. The exam weights below come from the current IMA content specifications and tell you where to spend your practice time.

Part and content area	Exam weight	What it covers
Part 1: Planning, Budgeting and Forecasting	20%	Budgeting concepts, forecasting techniques, annual and project budgeting
Part 1: Performance Management	20%	Cost and variance measures, responsibility centers, performance measures
Part 1: External Financial Reporting Decisions	15%	Financial statements, recognition, measurement, valuation and disclosure
Part 1: Cost Management	15%	Costing systems, overhead, supply chain and business process improvement
Part 1: Internal Controls	15%	Governance, risk, internal control frameworks and systems controls
Part 1: Technology and Analytics	15%	Information systems, data governance, analytics tools and data visualization
Part 2: Business Decision Analysis	25%	Cost/volume/profit, marginal analysis, pricing and decision modeling
Part 2: Financial Statement Analysis	20%	Ratios, liquidity, leverage, profitability and special issues in analysis
Part 2: Corporate Finance	20%	Risk and return, financial instruments, cost of capital, working capital
Part 2: Professional Ethics	15%	Ethics for the individual and the organization, IMA statement of ethics
Part 2: Enterprise Risk Management	10%	Types of risk, risk identification, mitigation and enterprise risk frameworks
Part 2: Capital Investment Decisions	10%	Cash flow estimation, net present value, internal rate of return, payback

Both parts weight the multiple choice questions at 75 percent of your score and the written items at 25 percent. Since the heaviest areas are Business Decision Analysis in Part 2 and the paired Planning and Performance Management areas in Part 1, upload the notes for those first and generate longer sets there, then round out the lighter areas so nothing surprises you on test day.

Simple process

How to make CMA practice questions in 4 steps

1 Upload your material: Drop in your review notes, a chapter PDF, a topic outline or your own summaries. Scanned and handwritten pages are read with OCR.
2 Set the drill: Pick the question count and difficulty. Run a 20 question warm-up on one content area or a longer mixed set across a full part.
3 AI writes questions: The AI reads your content and writes exam style multiple choice questions with an answer key and explanations.
4 Review and repeat: Score the set, review the method behind every miss, then generate a fresh drill on just those weak content areas and go again.

Who uses this to prep for the CMA

Working accountants and analysts

You are studying around a full-time finance or accounting job. Upload the notes for one content area at a time and generate a quick set that checks whether the material stuck, then hit the same area tomorrow with different questions so your scaled score climbs.

Review course candidates

If you are working through a major CMA review course, its bank gets familiar fast. Turn your own condensed notes and the topics you keep missing into questions you have never seen, so every session tests reasoning instead of memory.

Retakers lifting one weak part

When Part 2 finance or business decision analysis pulled you under 360 last window, you do not need to redo everything. Upload just those notes, drill until the misses stop, and turn the content area that capped your score into one that clears it.

CMA exam practice questions, answered

How many questions are on the CMA exam?: Each part of the CMA exam has 100 multiple choice questions plus two longer written items, so a full part runs 102 questions. The multiple choice section counts for 75 percent of your score and the written section for 25 percent. In 2026 the IMA is replacing the traditional essays with case based questions; from the September and October 2026 window on, case based questions are the standard written format for English exams. Because there are two parts, you face 200 multiple choice questions and four written items across the full credential. If your notes are on paper, run them through an OCR tool like DocuOCR first so the text is selectable.
What is a passing score on the CMA exam?: Each CMA part is scored on a scaled range of 0 to 500, and 360 is the minimum passing scaled score. That scaled number is not a raw percentage, so you cannot map it directly to a count of correct answers. You also need to answer at least about half of the multiple choice questions correctly to move on to the written section, and the written answers are only graded if you clear that bar. You must pass both Part 1 and Part 2 to earn the CMA.
What are the two parts of the CMA exam?: The CMA has two parts. Part 1 is Financial Planning, Performance, and Analytics, covering external financial reporting, planning and budgeting, performance management, cost management, internal controls, and technology and analytics. Part 2 is Strategic Financial Management, covering financial statement analysis, corporate finance, business decision analysis, enterprise risk management, capital investment decisions, and professional ethics. You can sit the parts in either order, and each is a separate four hour exam.
How long is the CMA exam?: Each CMA part is a four hour exam: three hours for the 100 multiple choice questions, then one hour for the two written items. The written section unlocks once you finish the multiple choice section or once three hours have passed, whichever comes first. Time you do not use on the multiple choice section does not roll into the written hour beyond that structure, so pacing the multiple choice questions is a big part of preparation. Across both parts that is eight hours of testing total.
How hard is the CMA exam?: The CMA is demanding, with global pass rates for each part often reported around 45 percent. The difficulty is less about trick questions and more about breadth and application: you have to use financial concepts under time pressure, not just recall definitions. Part 2 tends to feel heavier for many candidates because of the finance and business decision analysis content. Consistent practice on application style questions, drawn from your own review material, is what separates a comfortable pass from a retake.
Can you retake the CMA exam?: Yes. If you do not pass a part, you can register again in a later testing window, and there is no lifetime cap on attempts as long as your three year program entry stays active. The CMA runs in three testing windows a year: January and February, May and June, and September and October. You may sit a given part once per window. Use the gap between attempts to drill the specific content areas that pulled your score down rather than re-reading everything.
Is this an official CMA practice test?: No. PDFQuiz is an independent study tool and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the IMA, the Institute of Management Accountants. This tool generates practice questions from the review material you upload so you can rehearse recall and application between full practice exams, and it does not reproduce official CMA questions. Use it alongside a current CMA review course and the IMA content specifications, not as a replacement for them.

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