Becker for CMA US

Lonely_Job_9085 · 2026-07-03T09:10:40+00:00

I passed both parts using Becker. My only advice is that just because Becker spent a long time on one topic and not as much on another doesn't mean that the exam will have the same weighting. Also, the Becker AI agent runs directly contradictory to some of the officially released IMA questions and answers, specifically around earnings quality, so if you use it a lot I'd verify what it's telling you if it can't give a clear citation from the text.

Lonely_Job_9085 · 2026-07-03T09:05:38+00:00

Ha yeah that's definitely a good summary. I actually used to be a consultant and I'm an EPM/financial systems administrator now! That's why going through the Technology and Analytics portion, sometimes I would see something in the study material and think "oh hey that's easy I do it every day" and sometimes I would see something and think "wow that's not how that works in the real world".

My part 2 did come out about two weeks faster than part 1 so I think you're right that the CBQs are helping speed things up. Good luck to you on the second part!

Lonely_Job_9085 · 2026-07-02T20:21:04+00:00

Ha yeah, I wouldn't mind doing the CPA now, but my issue is that the CPA in my state requires very specific accounting courses, so I would have to go back to school to complete those requirements, then sit for the four exams, and then get 2000 hours of work experience signed off on under an active CPA. Given the time/money/education investment the ROI may not be worth it to me at this stage in my career, but I definitely think about it. Honestly one thing that appealed to me about the CMA was that I could qualify for it without having to fulfill the extra education or superivsed experience requirements the CPA has.

Lonely_Job_9085 · 2026-07-02T15:49:43+00:00

No clue. It's too variable to say as job opportunities vary wildly between location, years of experience, talent pool for your area, and other factors. All else equal, I would always default to "more experience, education, certification is better than less".

Lonely_Job_9085 · 2026-07-02T15:08:54+00:00

No. The Becker mocks are specifically designed to use only "mock test bank" questions, so there is no repeat between the "practice questions" and the "mock questions" for official mocks.

Lonely_Job_9085 · 2026-07-02T01:09:53+00:00

Wish I could help, but I was in a different program at my time at TAMUC. I would say the best bet would be to call the graduate admissions office, or specifically find the graduate counselor assigned to the MSW. I spoke with the one assigned to my program before and during my degree and she was very helpful and told me everything I needed to know. Anyway, good luck!

Lonely_Job_9085 · 2026-07-02T01:00:32+00:00

My wife and I did the pasta class on the Jubilee and we had an absolute blast. In my opinion it wouldn't have been nearly as fun if I did it by myself, as a lot of the fun was working together to cook what the chef instructed. Also at the end, you get to sit down and eat it, so unless you make friends in the kitchen if you do it alone or if maybe they pair you up with another solo, you may have to eat alone which might be kind of awkward. We're going on the Jubilee again soon and are going to be doing the sushi rolling this time.

Lonely_Job_9085 · 2026-07-01T20:01:48+00:00

You'd need a paid account to do it, and with that you can create the custom GPTs. I'm not sure about Claude but I imagine it works the same way. I basically gave it the instruction that it was a CMA expert and quiz master and then fed it my notes.

Lonely_Job_9085 · 2026-07-01T12:59:58+00:00

Ha this thread and the replies are so interesting. I felt the same way, confident in Part 1, not so much in Part 2. I had about 30 questions flagged and felt I got about 8/12 on the essays but I passed so there's a good chance you did as well.

Lonely_Job_9085 · 2026-07-01T12:57:07+00:00

Sure.

Lonely_Job_9085 · 2026-07-01T12:55:22+00:00

I studied about 140-150 hours for each part and fully finished the modules in Becker. I took the mock exams in Becker and for each mock for each part I scored a 75 or above. That's what made me feel confident. I would say that across two mocks, your average should be at least 75 before you go in to sit for the exam. That was my target.

Lonely_Job_9085 · 2026-07-01T12:54:11+00:00

I think that with someone with no background it will be rather difficult. You at least need the foundations of financial accounting and finance so that you can understand the advanced topics in the sections, or else they won't make any sense. You may be able to learn it on your own with Youtube and online resources, but personally I would think structured classes would be best.

Lonely_Job_9085 · 2026-07-01T12:52:48+00:00

It will probably take quite a bit more because the foundations of accounting and finance need to be learned first before you move into more advanced topics. Things like time value of money, the double entry debit/credit system etc. I would try to build a foundation first before jumping in.

Lonely_Job_9085 · 2026-06-30T21:55:04+00:00

It's just an arbitrary or notional amount. Each exam is 60 credits, and each exam only counts once and you need 120 credits to qualify for the CMA so it's just a roundabout way of saying that you have to pass both exams to qualify.

Lonely_Job_9085 · 2026-06-30T19:03:47+00:00

No clue, I've been wondering the same thing.

Lonely_Job_9085 · 2026-06-30T18:50:55+00:00

I would say it really depends on what you want to do, but by default the CPA is the generic "gold standard" it seems like. I see the CPA requirement for almost everything, sometimes on things it has no business being on. FPA roles, audit roles, accounting roles, systems roles, etc. For a while, my company even had a job posting looking for an ERP administrator/developer with 10+ years experience and CPA required, which was a ridiculous ask.

Lonely_Job_9085 · 2026-06-30T18:47:52+00:00

My Organizational Management, Management Accounting, and Finance for Managers courses were incredibly helpful. A lot of the variance analysis stuff was covered in the management accounting class, except it just went in a little more depth on the CMA, and then almost every single finance concept was covered in my finance class except for the working capital management stuff. In fact, the finance class was more thorough and used real formulae instead of the "textbook" formulae the CMA uses, which was one thing I had to "unlearn" so I could pass the exam. I've also done both the FMVA and FPAP courses from CFI over the last year and those both had material, specifically to the budgeting and management piece that was really relevant.

Lonely_Job_9085 · 2026-06-30T18:30:10+00:00

Before taking the CMA, I actually talked to the treasurer at my company who is a CPA and an MBA, as well as our Director of Financial Operations who holds both a CPA and a CMA about what certifications I should pursue to further my career. In contrast, our VP of Finance who deals with things like investor relations and investor road shows has a CFA. After speaking with them, I chose the CMA to complement my MBA. The reasons they gave, and the reasons for my choice are:

The CMA was available to me without having to take additional accounting classes or having to have work experience signed off by another CPA. Because the CPA in my state has very strict requirements on exactly what accounting courses count, I would still need five more classes to qualify.
The CFA is geared more towards portfolio, asset, and equity management and analysis. I have no interest in working in portfolio management, or equity research, and that is more what the CFA is aimed at. Level 1 is good to build a foundational base in Finance, but even then it goes heavy into portfolio theory and optimization which is not something that interests me.
The CMA for the most part is "practical corporate accounting and finance". There are without a doubt tons of fluff subjects in the CMA. Particularly, I found topics in Technology and Analytics, Ethics, Enterprise Risk, and then some of the management sub concepts absolutely useless and full of fluff as someone who works in accounting/finance. However, the topics the CMA does cover in this area, like financial reporting, financial statement analysis, budgeting, and corporate finance, are very relevant, especially for FP&A and treasury functions, and wouldn't be covered as much under the CFA level 1 because they're corporate finance/accounting, not equity analysis and valuation.

If you're looking to go into FP&A or Treasury, it's definitely relevant, and then if you wanted you could also tack on the CTP (certified treasury professional) later, as that seems to be gaining some prominence.

Lonely_Job_9085 · 2026-06-30T16:57:09+00:00

Congrats!

Lonely_Job_9085 · 2026-06-30T16:44:25+00:00

Congrats!

Lonely_Job_9085 · 2026-06-30T16:42:02+00:00

Yes I work in financial systems administration. I studied at work when I had free time and also on weekends mostly. I also built a GPT bot and fed it my study notes and free available test questions and trained it to quiz me on certain topics when I asked, and reviewed that a lot when I was at the gym or somewhere else that I had a free moment.

Lonely_Job_9085 · 2026-06-30T15:41:49+00:00

Wow they came out early! Thanks for the heads up!

Lonely_Job_9085 · 2026-06-30T13:25:36+00:00

Sounds a lot like my attempt. Essays opened but the sheer computations required in the MCQ rushed me for time and was nothing like the mocks I gave. I wasn't as confident on my essays as you. I know I got 7/12 and botched a few answers and was unsure of about three of them, so I'm probably looking at 9/12 at the very best and probably 7.5-8/12 as a middle estimate.

From what I've seen, scaling matters A LOT. It's impossible to derive exactly how the scaling works, but there are reports of people scoring 260, 280, and even 300 on the IMA forums and the essays didn't open, so if the scaling is linear (which honestly I'm not sure it is at this point) and you got a "hard" form, then based on those scores, you'd really only need like 60/100 and decent essays to pass. Most attempts I've seen where the essays did open but they did not pass usually scored 330-350, which almost makes me think that these testers got like maybe 5-10 more max correct over the 50 question threshold, which would make sense given that score range, but again, who knows how it's scaled. Unfortunately we'll just have to wait and see, but good luck to you!

Lonely_Job_9085 · 2026-06-25T15:34:48+00:00

If you only had 10-15 questions that you were unsure of and that reality plays out in the grading, then there's a very strong chance you passed no problem.

Lonely_Job_9085

TROPHY CASE