Candidates may ask themselves how transparent the CIA examination system is, given that candidates can't know which specific questions they got wrong and why. The answer is highly related the fact: CIA is a Practical test.
I would like to emphasize that what I write is my own opinion, but I believe it is in line with what the IIA represents.
One issue should be clear: for the CIA qualification's credibility, the examination system itself must be credible. This includes the MCQs, which must be suitable for assessing the actual level of knowledge.
The Security of the Question Bank
The number of questions in the live question bank can't be infinite, so MCQs must be used in exams over a long period of time. This is why the IIA guards the live question banks.
Once the exam is over, the candidate could remember more while reviewing mistakes, and the live question bank would become reconstructable, the exam would change into a memory test, and CIA title would be inflated.
If we had an almost infinite number of questions and the MCQs for the day could be discarded at the end of the day, the situation would be different. Protecting the "live" bank is a necessity.
The "Black box" of Field Testing and Weighting
The questions undergo a rigorous validation process before they are used. An important part of this is described in the official IIA document:
Questions are "tested to ensure they are at an appropriate level for the exam. During field testing, a question is included on an exam but does not count toward a candidate's exam score. Field testing ensures that each question measures the candidate's knowledge fairly and accurately."
This means that a significant number of questions are included for field testing purposes (pretest questions) and do not count toward the final score. There is no indication to the examinee which questions these are.
It is also important to note that scored questions carry different "weights" based on their difficulty. However, this weighting is hidden from the candidate.
From a transparency standpoint, this seems another "black box." But it may serve a vital purpose: since you cannot know which questions are pretested or which ones carry more weight, you are compelled to treat every single question with the same level of seriousness. This prevents strategic skipping.
Summary
In short, for the reasons described above, it is not possible to achieve transparency at the individual question level in CIA exams. The rules are written down and accepted by the examinee when registering for the exam. Transparency prevails at the system level.
While I found this apparent lack of transparency frustrating during my exam journey, I now see it is the very thing that protects the value of the CIA title.
Sources & Further Reading will be my first comment.
Pictures are generated by AI.
