ASQ® CMQ/OE [2020] How to Pass Your Certified Manager of Quality / Organizational Excellence Exam?

The Certified Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence (ASQ CMQ/OE) is a professional who leads and champions process-improvement initiatives.

The certification is not focused on any specific industry. The CMQ/OE could lead the improvement initiative in a small, medium, or large organization in any industry.

The Body of Knowledge (BoK) for this certificate was updated in September 2019. I have a separate post highlighting the changes made to the BoK. The critical update made to the BoK is the removal of the Constructed Response (essay) part of the exam.

Eligibility

Before applying for the ASQ CMQ/OE certification, you might want to check if you qualify for this exam.

You need to have a minimum of ten years of work experience in the area of this certification (quality management or improvement). Out of this, five years should be in the area of decision making.

However, a portion of the experience years can be waived off depending upon your educational qualification. For example, if you have a Bachelor's degree, then four years of experience can be waived off.

For more details on the minimum qualification and experience to take this exam, please refer to this link.

Exam Details

The computer-based ASQ CMQ/OE examination consists of 180 multiple choice questions, a four-and-a-half-hour exam and is offered in English only. 165 multiple choice questions are scored, and 15 are unscored. You will not know whether a question is scored or not scored.

It is an open book exam. You can take any book or binder in the exam. Loose sheets and multiple-choice questions are not allowed in the examination room.

ASQ CMQ/OE Exam Passing Score

You need 550 marks out of 750 to get certified. However, these marks are not calculated simply by dividing the correct answers by the total number of questions. Instead, ASQ does the balancing to ensure that the particular exam's difficulty is taken into consideration. 

ASQ CMQ/OE Body of Knowledge

Here is the break down of questions:

As you would have noticed, Sections 1, 3 and 4 have the most number of questions allocated to them. These are the area you will need to provide more focus when preparing for the exam.

Suggested Study Material

I would strongly recommend the ASQ  The Certified Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence Handbook for study.

In addition to this, I will also recommend my CMQ/OE Exam Preparation online course available on Udemy. This course is based on the ASQ CMQ/OE Body of Knowledge and covers all topics in plain and simple language.

Calculator

ASQ does not allow programmable calculator in the exam. It does suggest a list of calculators allowed in the exam. Most commonly used calculator is TI-30Xa. This is a simple calculator and has statistical functions.

However, we suggest Casio fx-991MS for the exam. This is a scientific calculator.

Casio fx-991MS can perform many advanced functions quickly, without needing to actually use complex formulas and tables. Some of these advanced functions include:

- Finding out the mean and standard deviation of a group of numbers

- Solving the Simple Linear Regression questions (You will not believe how easy it is if you have not used a scientific calculator like fx-991MS)

- Normal Distribution questions (You will not need to open the Z-table to solve them)

- Solving equations with one, two or three unknowns

- Using calculator memory for complex calculations

Get used to the calculator that you will use in the exam. We have a course on how to efficiently use Casio fx-991MS calculator. Click here for a special discount.

Summary