If you're searching for a "CA entrance exam" or "CPT" — ICAI's entry-level exam for the Chartered Accountancy course now goes by CA Foundation. Same idea, current name.
CPT (Common Proficiency Test) was ICAI's original entry-level exam — a single-day, purely objective test: 200 multiple-choice questions across four subjects (Accounting, Mercantile Law, Economics, Quantitative Aptitude), run in two sessions with negative marking.
ICAI phased it out as part of a wider overhaul of the CA course. On 26 May 2017, ICAI announced that its Revised Scheme of Education and Training would take effect from 1 July 2017 — new CPT registrations closed on 30 June 2017, and CA Foundation took its place. The first CA Foundation exam was held in May 2018.
The change wasn't just a rename. CA Foundation kept four papers but split the format: Papers 1 and 2 (Accounting and Business Laws) became subjective, descriptive papers, while Papers 3 and 4 (Quantitative Aptitude and Business Economics) stayed objective/MCQ — a subjective-objective mix CPT never had.
Eligibility today: you can register with ICAI provisionally after passing Class 10, but you must pass Class 12 (any stream, from a recognized board) before you're allowed to actually sit the Foundation exam.
Worth flagging: this 2017–18 shift is separate from ICAI's later 2023 "New Scheme," which further streamlined the Foundation syllabus (dropping standalone subjects like Business Correspondence & Reporting) — a different, later change covered elsewhere on this site. And the naming may not be settled for good: ICAI has since opened a public review of the entire Scheme of Education and Training, with syllabus, articleship and exam pattern all on the table.
Full syllabus by chapter, past papers, and free AI-graded practice — everything you actually need.