How old are CIMA members and students? How many have degrees before beginning CIMA; and what type of degrees do they possess? What sectors do CIMA members and students work in? How many CIMAs are women? This article offers you 10 interesting statistics all CIMA members and students should know about, in order to make the best of their career options and career advancement potential.

What is going on in accountancy? From time to time, it’s good to explore how the changing trends can affect our decisions and career paths and prospects as management accountants and management accounting, or CIMA students.  Here are some key facts from the Financial Reporting Council's (FRC) June 2016 report on Key Facts and Trends in the Accountancy Profession that would interest CIMA students and members. 

"With CIMA certification, you are not just learning to be an accountant", says a lecturer for beginning CIMA students. "You are learning to manage accountants and other professionals. You are learning to be a leader.” He is right. The objective of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants or CIMA is to produce competent and confident management accounting professionals who can guide and lead their organisations to sustainable success.

If you’re going to take a test, reading strategies about how to pass it is not enough to optimize your study time and effort. Going for financial certification is best done by taking full-length practice tests. Brain research and educational experience suggest that you learn best by doing, by applying what you learn to an authentic situation.

In January 2015, CIMA syllabus as well as the way to examine students’ knowledge has changed. Since then we have OT exams (computer-based, that can be taken anytime in a dedicated centre) and case studies (computer-based, 4 times a year). OT exams’ questions are kept in a database and each time a student sits down to an exam, 60 questions are randomly drawn and students have 90 minutes to answer them.

The objective test question (OTQ) assessments are available for the 13 core topics, plus you can take them whenever you want. This is such an improvement compared to the previous 2010 syllabus, not to mention the aching hand after 3 hours of writing.