CMA Inter Test Series and Mentorship

Gradehunt's CMA Inter test series is built for students writing the December 2026 attempt, which ICMAI has scheduled for 10–17 December 2026, with June 2027 as the next window. It follows the ICMAI Syllabus 2022 and covers the four papers of Group 1 and the four of Group 2; check this page for the formats currently open. You write the paper under exam conditions, a Chartered Accountant evaluates it line by line, and you get back marks, comments, a rank and a model answer you can learn from.

Why writing practice decides your CMA Inter result

Most CMA Inter students know more than their marksheet shows. The gap is almost always the same: they have read the chapter, watched the lecture and worked through a few sums, but they have never written a full three-hour paper from a blank sheet. On exam day that is the first time they attempt it, and the cost shows up as unfinished papers, half-worked costing sums and theory answers that say the right thing in the wrong order.

The purpose of a test series is to move that first time forward by several weeks. Once you have written six or eight full papers, the exam hall stops being a new experience. You already know how long a 15-mark cost sheet takes you, which paper you tend to over-write, and what your handwriting looks like in the last forty minutes.

What the CMA Inter test series includes

Every test you write comes back with:

• A marked answer sheet with stepwise marking, so you can see exactly which step earned the mark and which one lost it.
• Detailed comments on each part of every question, not just a tick or a cross at the end.
• A suggested answer with its own stepwise marking scheme, so you can compare your working against the structure an examiner expects.
• A separate score for presentation. In our evaluators' experience, presentation is worth roughly 10–12 marks a paper at this level, and it is the easiest gap to close.
• An All India rank for that test, so you know where you stand against other students writing the same paper.
• The topper's answer sheet for that test, shared with everyone who wrote it.
• Subject-wise notes and MCQs to use alongside your revision.
• Doubt solving on any evaluated test, answered within 24 hours.

Answer sheets are evaluated in under 48 hours, which matters more than it sounds. Feedback that arrives a fortnight later reaches you after you have already moved on to the next subject.

Papers covered under ICMAI Syllabus 2022

The test series covers all eight CMA Intermediate papers.

Group 1

• Paper 5: Business Laws and Ethics
• Paper 6: Financial Accounting
• Paper 7: Direct and Indirect Taxation
• Paper 8: Cost Accounting

Group 2

• Paper 9: Operations Management and Strategic Management
• Paper 10: Corporate Accounting and Auditing
• Paper 11: Financial Management and Business Data Analytics
• Paper 12: Management Accounting

Where the costing and tax papers need extra attention

Cost Accounting (Paper 8) and Management Accounting (Paper 12) are the papers that define the CMA course, and they are also where writing practice pays back fastest. These are not papers you can read your way through. Marginal costing, standard costing variances, process accounts with abnormal loss and gain, contract costing, budgets — each of these has a working format, and the marks sit in the format. A student who writes a clean cost sheet with clear headings and a working note for each figure scores well above a student who arrives at the same final answer in a block of unlabelled arithmetic. Stepwise marking is what shows you this, because it separates the marks you earned for method from the marks you lost for presentation.

Direct and Indirect Taxation (Paper 7) has a different problem. The computation questions reward a fixed layout — heads of income in order, a line for every deduction, the section quoted next to it — and the GST portion rewards short, specific answers rather than long ones. Both habits are built by writing, not by revising. When you practise tax questions, use the relevant assessment year and check the amendments that apply to the December 2026 attempt before you rely on any figure.

Corporate Accounting and Auditing (Paper 10) and Financial Management and Business Data Analytics (Paper 11) need the same discipline for a third reason: they mix theory and numerical parts, and students routinely run out of time on one because they over-wrote the other. Full-length practice is the only way to find your own split.

You can see how the same approach runs through every level of the course on the CMA test series hub.

Which format to choose

The formats below all use the same evaluation. The difference is how many papers you write and when. Availability varies by subject and attempt, so check which batches are open on this page.

• Detailed Test Series — about five chapter-wise tests plus two full syllabus tests per subject. The most complete option, and the right one if you started early for December 2026 or are planning for June 2027.
• 2 Full Syllabus Test Series — two full-length mocks per subject, nothing else. Suited to repeat attempters and to students whose reading is done but whose writing is not.
• Unscheduled Test Series — all papers are released at once and you write them at your own pace. Useful if you are working or studying alongside articleship and cannot commit to fixed dates.
• Mentorship Program and mentorship combos — the papers are the same; mentorship adds a personalised schedule and one-to-one guidance.

If you are unsure, choose the format that guarantees you at least one full-length paper per subject. Chapter-wise tests build accuracy, but only a full paper builds stamina.

How your papers are evaluated

Every answer sheet is checked by a Chartered Accountant with seven or more years of experience, not by a pattern-matching key. The evaluator reads your working, awards marks step by step, and writes comments against the specific part of the question that went wrong — a missing working note, an unlabelled column in a cost sheet, a section number left out of a tax computation, a theory answer that made the point but buried it in the fourth line.

Presentation is scored on its own, separately from content. Students often treat neatness as a soft skill; at CMA Inter it is a measurable one, and seeing it as a number on your own sheet is usually what makes a student change how they lay out a page.

After evaluation you get your All India rank for that test and the topper's answer sheet. The topper's sheet is the most useful part for many students, because it answers a question no amount of feedback can: what does a high-scoring answer to this exact question actually look like on paper? If something in the evaluation is unclear, raise a doubt on that test and you will get a reply within 24 hours.

A study timeline for the December 2026 attempt

With the exams running 10–17 December 2026, you have roughly eleven weeks from the end of September. Confirm your own paper-wise dates on ICMAI's admit card and notification before you lock the plan.

• Late September to mid-October: finish first reading of the group you are weakest in and start chapter-wise tests as you close each chapter. Do not wait for the whole subject to be over.
• Mid-October to early November: keep going with chapter-wise tests for the second group, and write your first full-length paper in Cost Accounting and Financial Accounting. Expect the first one to go badly. That is the point of writing it in October rather than December.
• Early to late November: move to full syllabus tests, one per subject, at the real time of day you will sit the exam. Use the gap between tests to fix what the evaluation flagged rather than to re-read everything.
• Late November to early December: second full-length paper per subject if your format includes it, plus focused revision on the topics where your stepwise marks were weakest.
• Final week: no new topics. Revise formats, working notes and section references, and go through past ICMAI papers with the CMA question papers and suggested answers guide.

If you are also preparing for CA alongside CMA, the same method applies at that level through the CA Inter test series.

How mentorship works

The mentorship programme is one-to-one interaction with an experienced Chartered Accountant through your exam journey. The mentor builds a schedule around your actual situation — how many subjects are left, whether you are attempting one group or both, how much time you get on a working day — and then holds you to it. Between tests, they help you read your own evaluation: which mistakes are careless, which are conceptual, and which are just a presentation habit you can change in a week. The papers in a mentorship combo are the same papers; what you are buying is the structure around them.

How to enrol

Pick your level and format on the CMA test series page, choose Group 1, Group 2 or both, and enrol. Papers are released according to the schedule for the format you chose, or all at once for the unscheduled series. Write each paper in one sitting, on plain sheets, timed. Upload it, and your evaluated sheet with comments, presentation score, rank and the topper's sheet comes back within 48 hours.

Once you have both groups behind you, the CMA Final test series carries the same evaluation into the case-study style answers and the elective paper that the Final level asks for.