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Hey everyone, here's my exam feedback from yesterday!
First of all, I passed! First time taking the PMP as well as my first professional certification so I'm super excited!
Regarding the test, I have several points and experiences to share:
ONLINE TEST PLATFORM
• You will receive an email a couple of days prior with instructions on how to login and how to do a test to make sure your computer works well.
• The check-in starts half an hour before your test and I must say is quite tedious, it took me over 20 minutes to login which I found ridiculous. Firstly everything has to be cleared from your desk and surrounding area (I have two working desks next to each other, one for myself and one for my boyfriend so cleared up both the night before), then you have to unplug the monitors if you have any (take out all cables from the back and show them). Also if you have a watch they might ask you to take it off (I have a Garmin).
• Put your phone away. If the proctors need to contact you they will do so via chat that pops up in front of your questions. I did not have any water/snacks but you can always ask and see if it is allowed
• The calculator sucks, just putting it out there. Can only be used with a mouse, has almost no functions (think the basic Microsoft one) and is just clunky to use. Good that I didn’t have many calculation questions plus most I did on the whiteboard
• The whiteboard is ok, you can resize it so for example you can see it, the calculator and the questions at the same time. It has some drawing functions and a text function. I managed to do the critical path on it but it looked ugly!
• You can mark questions for further review, use highlight (in different colours) and strikethrough.
o I found strikethrough particularly useful as I crossed out answers I knew not to be true
o After your 90 questions (part 1) / 110 questions (part 2) there is a review page so you can go back to marked or unanswered questions
• The timer is in my opinion not very intuitive, or maybe I was just too focused on the exam. I think it should be split into the two parts or at least show time in hours and minutes not just minutes (so it says for example 234:50) as I can’t keep calculating how much time I have left. However the time itself is fine, I had plenty extra to triple check questions (not all just marked ones, but I mark any I’m not a 100% sure about)
• After 90 questions there is a 10 minute break. The timer is paused during this and you can end the break early. I would suggest taking it and stretching your legs out, go to bathroom, have some water etc. Also the good thing is that time wise you don’t have to split your time exactly in two, I left more time for the second part as I knew it has 20 more questions, so once I was happy with part one (after around let’s say 1,5 but less than 2hrs, I don’t know exactly) I went to part two.
• At the end of the test you get a message saying you passed or failed (says something like Congratulations for joining the PMP, it’s a bit unclear when you’re in testing mode as it looks almost like a question). I expected it to have the full results, but you get those via email in 1-2 working days. It might take longer to see it on the PMI website
THE EXAM QUESTIONS
• Most of the questions were situational and can be boiled down to the below:
o Issue happens/PMr joins a new project/PMr needs to do something (e.g. create a budget), what should:
? The project manager do next
? Have the project manager done before
? The project manager do (general idea)
? The project manager use (tool/process)
• Not a lot of calculations at all, maybe three or four? I was surprised by how little they asked for and the calculations themselves were ones you could basically do by hand:
o EMV where you get a probability/impact table to calculate the overall EMV
o EAC based on BAC and CPI (so you have to calculate CPI first then plug it in)
o Critical path and float on one activity (but the float is not actually a calculation as the activity was on the critical path)
• Questions were tougher than what I expected per se, as a lot of people said that the Oliver Lehman questions or PMI ones are a bit tougher than the test, while I’d say they are just about the same level of complexity.
• Some questions were easy and based on your general understanding of concepts (e.g. analogous vs bottom up estimating)
• Tools and Techniques were mentioned a lot which I found slightly surprising, lots of questions about different analysis, communication methods, conflict resolution, risk responses, data gathering
• I can see why some fail due to closing questions, they were quite tricky, I’d say make sure you really read on those in the Integration and Procurement Management sections
• Ethics was barely mentioned
• Whenever in doubt follow the plan/organizational procedures (assuming I got those right)
• Change management is like 10% of questions, make sure you are super familiar with it
• Got some agile questions, not too many, mostly to do with iteration burndown charts, product backlogs
• Had several questions on the different contract types for procurement. You have to really understand them as in one I was debating so much for example whether to choose the CPAF or CPIF (as in my eyes they are almost the same but apparently not)
• When studying/testing I’ve tried to logically connect the different processes and I think this helps a lot with exam questions. Rita explains it very well in her book, all of these knowledge areas are connected and many processes happen simultaneously or influence others. You don’t have to know the ITTOs by heart, just understand how things interact so you can answer questions easily!
Final advice – don’t be too afraid, the test is similar to practice tests and is testing your understanding of concepts and processes. Read every question super carefully and avoid stupid mistakes like ALL/ALWAYS/NEVER as well as negative questions (e.g. what process should the project manager NOT use). You have plenty of time to actually think about the questions but don’t spend too long dwelling on ones that have two similar answers, mark them and go back with a fresh approach.
Good luck to all of you trying to cram this in before the exam change!
