Hi Jaymondo & others.

I'm looking at applying for 189 under accountant (general). I am CIMA qualified from the UK.

I want to get the points for superior English, which means a general IELTS, which is fine. However CPA skills assessment sounds like it requires the academic IELTS as well.

Do I need to do academic IELTS for CPA if I was born and raised in the UK, holding a British passport? And if so, will I need to sit both academic and general in order to satisfy both criteria of would 1 be sufficient?

Thanks all in advance.

Can't help with CPA requirements without googling, but DIBP don't care which test you do so if you do need the academic test for skills assessment, you can use that score for points too

Cheers, that's great news.

Hi Rob

I am pretty sure that the academic IELTS is needed for your CPA assessment.


I wouldn't worry about it being much more difficult than the general test. If you have got through your CIMA exams and have English as your mother tongue it will be a breeze but make sure you have done the practice exams just so you know the format.

I have taken both the general and academic (for different reasons) and scored pretty similarly (and highly on each).

Give me a shout if I can help you with anything else Rob. Having gone through all this in the last year and now living in Australia I might be able to help

All the best

Jaymondo

Cheers Jaymondo.

I'm confident enough of getting 8's on the test, whether academic or general. I knew I needed academic for CPA, I just wondered if I needed to sit general for the department of immigration as well. I'm 100% English and I got A's in GCSE language and lit - a good few years ago but should still be alright!

To be clear though, once CPA give a positive skills assessment does that give 15 points for CIMA counting as an Oz bachelors degree?

Yes I got 15 points for ACCA so I don't see any reason why CIMA would be different now. Also CIMA had a mutual recognition agreement with either CA or CPA here so you can transfer your membership if you wish but any decent employer here will know what CIMA is.

And yes just do the academic IELTS - it's a long day at those test centres so don't put yourself through both

Are you doing the application yourself or have you got an agent?

Sounds good.

I wasn't going to bother with an agent. Do I really need one? I've read a lot of advice and it seems pretty straightforward. I'm not going to claim any work experience because I can get 65 without and that seems like the only tricky element. Why spend another 2 grand? Am I missing something?