Certification Insider

One of the most important activities for your PMP Exam Prep is to take mock exams. Be sure that you do this only after reading the PMBOK® Guide at least once. Also remember that failing mock quizzes does not mean you will fail the PMP exam. Online sample exams should be used as a progress indicator in your preparation. Nothing more.

Most students tell me that they repeated their sample exams again and again until they were satisfied with the results. There is a danger in that approach: when you take the same sample exam again and again you will start to remember the questions. You will remember that you answered B in your last attempt, and that the correct answer is C. This means your result will improve every time you repeat the same sample exam.

But on the PMP Exam you only have one chance!

So my recommendation is this: Sign up for an online PMP Exam simulator. This simulator will cost you some additional money, but their two major benefits are that they offer a large number of questions & quizzes that you can take (no repetition!) and they allow you to test yourself in an environment that closely resembles the actual PMP Exam.

Therefore, go beyond searching for free PMP Exam questions on the internet and use the professional tools that are available to you.

I was recently interviewed on the Construction Industry Podcast and asked to introduce PMI and the PMP exam to construction professionals. Cesar Abeid, the host of the show is himself PMP certified and one of my students. We discuss the following topics:
 

• What is the PMI?
• What are the benefits of PMI membership?
• What are the PMI certifications?
• What are the benefits of the PMP certification?
• How has the PMP certification helped you?
• What does it take to get certified?
• What is the best way of preparing for the exam?
• What are some tips to select the correct answer on pmp questions?

If you are new to the PMI and PMP then this interview will give you a good head start. Please go to http://www.remontech.com/the-project-management-institute-construction-industry/ to hear it for free. The interview itself begins at the 14 minute mark.

The following PMP® exam sample question is taken from the Free PMP Exam Simulator at http://free.pm-exam-simulator.com - The answer is at the very bottom:

Activity / Duration / Predecessor
A / 2 / Start
B / 4 / A,E
C / 6 / A
D / 3 / B,C
E / 7 / Start
F / 2 / E

What is the duration of the critical path?
A.) 11
B.) 14
C.) 9
D.) 15

Hint:

Use PDM to calculate.


All our questions are updated to the latest PMBOK® Guide standard. Stop by at http://free.pm-exam-simulator.com and try the PMP Exam Simulator free for 3 days. We also offer 110 free questions at http://www.free-pm-exam-questions.com. We are a PMI Registered Education Provider.

 

ANSWER AND EXPLANATION:

The correct answer is B
Explanation: The critical path is EBD and the duration of the critical path of the data given is 14.
Reference: PMBOK Guide 4th Edition, page 138

In this 1 hour long webinar:http://bit.ly/GOzZGZ I will answer dozens of questions about the PMP Exam. In particular, I will discuss on:

•   What topics are on the PMP exam and how many questions per topic?
•   Did the PMP Exam recently change?
•   Is the PMP exam based on PMBOK® Guide 4th or 5th Edition?
•   What is the PMP Exam passing score
•   Where can I find good PMP Exam sample questions?
•   How do I know that I'm ready to take the PMP exam?
•   What is the best way of studying for the PMP Exam?
•   What goes on a PMP Exam "brain dump" sheet?

And many more live questions asked by the audience during the webinar.

There is a bit of a disconnect that PMP Exam takers report as they are preparing for the exam. Because you must be an experienced project manager to take the exam, you bring years of experience in managing projects and using tools & techniques with you. Often, these are based on company internal project management best practices and tactics that you found working for you. However, the PMP Exam requires that you apply the concepts from the PMBOK Guide to real-life situations as presented in the exam questions. If the methodology that you are experienced in using is not aligned with the PMBOK Guide, then you may pick the wrong answers in your test.

Furthermore, the projects you manage may not have required you to deal in all the PMBOK Guide's Knowledge Areas. For instance, risk management was something I did very rarely on my projects and maybe in your career you never had to deal with procurement. So it is likely that you’ll be more comfortable with some project management knowledge areas and processes than others. This can lead to two problems:

First you may feel that because you are an absolute pro in scheduling (after all you have years of experience here) you can slack off in your studies and rely on your own project management experience instead. You tend to minimize studying for the areas you know best. But this can hurt you because the PMBOK’s approach is the correct approach for the PMP exam.

The second is the tendency to minimize the importance of project management areas with which you are unfamiliar. Just because I didn't do much risk management doesn't mean that it isn't important. But we are creatures of habit, so it's only normal to also think that the "unimportant" areas on our projects are also "unimportant" on the exam. PMPs are expected to demonstrate a good understanding of all aspects of project management as defined in the PMBOK. So pay particular attention to the processes with which you are not familiar.

So what's the best approach? I always recommend to my students that they study the PMBOK Guide at least twice before taking the exam and that they immediately start using the practices learned on their projects. Applying the theory from the PMBOK Guide on your projects is the best way of learning it and passing the exam.