The purpose of this article is to provide a content profile and a question index of the Certified Management Accountant (CMA) examination. A content profile of the first four CMA examinations 1972-1975 is presented in the article. This profile is broken down three ways, by subject area, by topic within managerial accounting, the subject area being given the most coverage and by topic within financial reporting, the subject area being given the second-most coverage. The ten subject areas in the profile were identified by integrating typical business administration curriculum formats and course descriptions with the reading list and topical coverage outline distributed by the Institute of Management Accounting. Questions are classified into subject areas and into specific managerial accounting and financial reporting topics on the basis of their content and context and the degree of sophistication indicated by the unofficial answers. Percentages in the profile reveal the average relative emphasis given to the subject areas and topics. Calculations are based on the suggested maximum number of minutes allotted to questions according to the examination instructions. Optional questions involving two or more subject areas are assumed to be selected with equal frequency in each subject area.

Knowledge of the coverage of Accounting Principles Board Opinions (APBs) in the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) examination is useful to the accounting educator in several ways. First, students often want to know the likelihood that questions and problems related to the most recently issued APBs will be included in the upcoming examination and the emphasis usually placed on APBs in each part of the examination. Second, financial accounting course content and examinations could be improved by being aware of how the Board of Examiners of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants examines CPA candidates on APBs. The findings of the study of this article are that, the coverage of Opinions has been highly selective in both Auditing and Practice but has been more comprehensive in Theory; thirteen of the APBs covered have appeared within 6 months after their issuance and three of the others appeared less than 6 months after their issuance; the relative weight of Opinions, in terms of time, in the examination parts has been 19.0 percent in Theory, 8.8 percent in Practice and 2.0 percent in Auditing; wide variation of coverage has occurred from one examination to another in all three parts; and there has been extensive coverage in the Theory and Practice parts of the 1972-1974 examinations.