PMI Certification Exam Tips

PMI certifications are stressful and difficult for many reasons. Here are my top five reasons:

 

  1. Time Pressure – Most exams are four hours, with 150 – 200 questions. This means that test takers have 72 seconds per question on PMP/CAPM and 84 seconds per question for the rest.
  2. Mental Fatigue – Generally by the 2nd half of the exam, test taker’s body and mind are likely to become tired. Therefore, it is important to physical and mental prepare for the exam to maintain peak performance throughout the exam period.
  3. Memorization Challenges – While PMI does not advocate remembering any of the standards and in theory the exam questions come on many books and references other than the PMI standards, the reality is that many questions are based on the various frameworks on models in those standards.
  4. Broad Experience – Aside from the CAPM, all other exams contains “experienced-based” questions; the concentration of these questions vary across the exams. This requires test takers to have the broad experience across lifecycle, domains, and knowledge areas. Since most professionals have more specific and targeted experiences, sometimes with deep experience in a few areas, this can be challenging.
  5. Ambiguous Questions – Quite often, questions have multiple correct answers or at least have multiple answers that are NOT incorrect. This forces the test taker to choose the BEST response, and the “best” is nearly always context driven. Since no two people have the exact same experiences, the interpretation of the context can be as important as understanding the question. Collectively, these create a huge amount of ambiguity for the test taker.

 

As a leading project management training and consulting firm with courses and bootcamps across nearly all PMI certifications including CAPM/PMP, PgMP, PfMP, PMI-RMP to name a few, we have helped thousands of professionals with their challenges. Over the coming months, we will publish our best advice as well as proven test preparation and test taking tips from our customers.  If you have any original tips to share, please complete this form here. All accepted tips will be entered into a raffle for a $25 Amazon gift certificate OR $50 discount off any of our programs.

 

Here are the top 3 tips:

  1. Preparing for the exam – Our experience shows that it is much better to concentrate your study. For example, it’s far more effective to study an average of 2 hours per day for 6 weeks than 1 hour/day across 12 weeks. The actual hours required to prepare for the exams differs by many factors such as test taker’s experience level, ability to absorb information, the type of exam, and study habits.

 

  1. On the day of exam – Schedule the exam between 10 AM to 2 PM, depending on how long it takes to reach the exam site. In general, avoid the rush hours to avoid extra stress. Eat a healthy but not too large meal. If time allows, do a 30-minute warm-up exercise or stretches before the exam.

 

  1. During the exam – PMI no longer permits using the un-used portion of the tutorial for brain dumping. But once the exam officially starts, spend the first 10 – 15 minutes writing down everything you remember. This means that you should develop the content dumping strategy beforehand and use this time effectively. By writing down the information, it gives your mind the ability to relax.