II STRUCTURE AND CONTENT OF THE EXAMINATIONS
Article 5 Overall Structure
(1) The advanced professional examinations for the Certified International Investment Analyst (CIIA®) as set forth in these Rules comprise:
(a) International (common) examinations (covering common components) centrally administered by ACIIA®, and
(b) national (specific) examination (covering national specific components) administered by each national/regional association (the content of which will be reviewed by the IEC).
(2) The international (common) examinations under (1) (a) above comprise two levels: a Foundation Examination and a Final Examination.
The Foundation Examination will examine all topic areas and will contain multiple choice, calculation, and essay type questions which assess the basic knowledge and analytical skills of candidates.
The Final Examination will similarly examine across all topic areas and will contain full and mini- case study questions, together with in-depth essay or discursive questions and some structured computational questions which assess the more advanced knowledge and synthetic analytical skills of candidates.
Article 6 Eligibility to sit for the International Examinations
There are two ways of sitting for the examinations to attain the designation CIIA®:
a) Those candidates who do not already hold a qualification from an IEC Accredited examination programme of their national/regional association must sit and pass the International (common) Foundation and Final examinations as well as the national (specific) examination.
b) Those candidates who have taken an IEC-accredited examination programme of their national/regional association and who have passed at least 12 hours of examinations and been awarded the related qualification from their national/regional association need only sit and pass the Final Examination.
Article 7 Topic Areas and Examination Hours
(1) The international (common) examinations comprise examinations in seven topic areas as indicated in the table below.
Total examination hours will be fifteen: nine for the Foundation Examination and six for the Final Examination.
The Foundation Examination will consist of three papers and the Final Examination two, both exams covering the following topic areas with length of each examination being as indicated.
Foundation Examination:
Topic AreasExamination Duration (Minutes)
Equity Valuation and Analysis, Financial Statement Analysis, Corporate Finance 190
Fixed Income Valuation and Analysis, Economics 160
Derivative Valuation and Analysis, Portfolio Management 190
Total time 540 (i.e. 9 hours)
Final Examination:
Topic AreasExamination Duration (Minutes)
Corporate Finance, Economics, Financial Statement Analysis, Equity Valuation and Analysis 180
Fixed Income Valuation and Analysis, Derivative Valuation and Analysis, Portfolio Management 180
Total time 360 (i.e. 6 hours)
(2) The national (specific) examination set by each participating national/regional association will be of at least three hours duration.
The topic areas to be addressed in the national (specific) examination are those areas which are specific to the particular country/region and which cannot be covered in a common examination such as:
· Regulations
· Ethics
· Financial Statements
· Market Structure and Investments
(3) Total hours of the international (common) examinations (fifteen) and the national (specific) examination (at least three) will be at minimum eighteen.
(4) The coverage of each topic area will be in proportion to the study hours specified in the Examination Guide.
Article 8 Language
Candidates may choose to participate in the international (common) examinations either in English or other available languages as determined by the IEC.
Article 9 Examination Guide
The IEC will publish an Examinations Guide for the reference of candidates, which contains an explanation of the purpose and structure of the examinations, a detailed description of the topic areas covered by the examinations (examination syllabus), and recommended readings.
Article 10 Examination Calendar and Venues
(1) The IEC is responsible for recommending the schedule of examinations to the Council of ACIIA® who will decide the dates.
(2) The examinations will be held at several locations on one/two occasions a year for both the Foundation Examination and the Final Examination as determined by ACIIA®. (In the initial stage, only the Final Examination will be held.)
(3) National/regional associations are responsible for organising examinations in their respective country/region in accordance with guidelines separately adopted by the ACIIA® as well as arrangements stipulated by the IEC.
(4) ACIIA® may organise examinations in countries/regions where there is no national/regional association with membership of ACIIA®, pursuant to guidelines separately adopted by the ACIIA®
