CA Intermediate · January 2026 · Paper 4
CA Intermediate Cost and Management Accounting January 2026: paper analysis
Our own analysis of the official paper, as of 12 October 2026. The questions and answers belong to ICAI; read them on ICAI's website.
Chapter-wise marks
Where the marks were in this paper (out of 100; internal-choice alternatives not double counted).
| Chapter | Questions | Marks | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Service Costing | 2 | 14 | 12% |
| Overheads - Absorption Costing Method | 3 | 13 | 11% |
| Material Cost | 6 | 12 | 11% |
| Employee Cost and Direct Expenses | 3 | 11 | 10% |
| Marginal Costing | 5 | 10 | 9% |
| Cost Sheet | 1 | 9 | 8% |
| Standard Costing | 2 | 9 | 8% |
| Introduction to Cost and Management Accounting | 2 | 8 | 7% |
| Cost Accounting Systems | 1 | 7 | 6% |
| Joint Products and By Products | 1 | 5 | 4% |
| Process & Operation Costing | 1 | 5 | 4% |
| Budgets and Budgetary Control | 1 | 5 | 4% |
| Activity Based Costing | 1 | 4 | 4% |
| Job Costing | 1 | 2 | 2% |
What each question tested
In our words, by question number. Open the official paper for the full question.
| Q | Marks | Tests | Chapter |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1(a) | 5 | Apportioning packaging cost to products using yields and box sizes | Overheads - Absorption Costing Method |
| 1(b) | 5 | Joint cost apportionment with by-product credit and further processing decision by incremental analysis | Joint Products and By Products |
| 1(c) | 4 | Worker earnings under Halsey and Rowan incentive plans | Employee Cost and Direct Expenses |
| 2(a) | 9 | Working back from given data to prepare a cost sheet up to cost of sales and profit | Cost Sheet |
| 2(b) | 5 | Process account with normal and abnormal loss and resulting income statement | Process & Operation Costing |
| 3(a) | 8 | Costing loan application processing in a bank branch with shared professional staff | Service Costing |
| 3(b) | 6 | Per-trainee cost, fee and minimum batch occupancy for a training institute | Service Costing |
| 4(a) | 7 | Material, labour and variable overhead variances from budget versus actual data | Standard Costing |
| 4(b) | 7 | Cost profit under normal capacity absorption and reconciliation with financial profit | Cost Accounting Systems |
| 5(a) | 6 | Working back a machine hour rate component from operator and machine data | Overheads - Absorption Costing Method |
| 5(b) | 5 | Capacity, activity and efficiency related ratios from hours data | Budgets and Budgetary Control |
| 5(c) | 3 | Opportunity cost when choosing between two mutually exclusive products | Introduction to Cost and Management Accounting |
| 6(a) | 5 | Classifying expenses by function and by behaviour | Introduction to Cost and Management Accounting |
| 6(b) | 5 | Choosing a suitable incentive scheme for stated factory conditions | Employee Cost and Direct Expenses |
| 6(c) | 4 | Usefulness and suitability of activity based costing | Activity Based Costing |
| 6(c) OR | 4 | Components of a budgetary control system | Budgets and Budgetary Control |
What stood out
- Two five-question MCQ cases (inventory EOQ and sales-mix break-even) made Material Cost and Marginal Costing the dominant MCQ chapters.
- The written part was heavily numerical; only Question 6 was theory.
- Service costing returned strongly with 14 marks across two practical parts.
- Standard costing and reconciliation of cost and financial profits each took a 7-mark question.
- Many questions required working backwards from partial data rather than straight computation.
Practise the chapters that carried the marks
Service Costing, Overheads - Absorption Costing Method, Material Cost: study guides and practice questions in the CA Intermediate format.