PMP Exam Tips www.PMTraining

1 PMP exam tips PMP Exam Facts There are 200 total multiple choice questions which make up the PMP exam 25 randomly placed "pretest questions" are included, and do not count towards the pass/fail determination Students have 4 hours to complete the exam Students must score 61% or higher to pass the exam (106 of 175 questions). Students may bring blank scratch paper with which to draft responses, such as for formula- based exam questions. Before the Exam Visit the exam location before your exam date so that you are familiar with the address and commute time, especially if you are a nervous test taker. Be prepared to fully utilize your blank scratch paper in the exam. This means that you have committed important formulas, concepts, and key facts to memory; and you are able to apply them to a blank sheet of paper in less than five minutes. Alleviate exam stress and anxiety by taking practice exams that attune you to the pace, subject matter, and difficulty of the real exam.

2 On the night before the exam, reduce your study time to one hour or less and get extra sleep. The reduced study time and extra rest will allow your brain to better process the information it has absorbed during earlier, more intense, study sessions. Taking the Exam IMPORTANT: Bring your PMI authorization letter, as well as two forms of ID, to the exam center. At the beginning of the PMP exam, use your scratch paper to download all of the formulas, concepts, and key facts you have committed to memory. To save time, perform this activity immediately after the initial computer tutorial which allots 15 minutes. Approach each question from PMI's perspective, not your own experience, even if the most correct response seems contrary to your on-the-job knowledge. Plan your breaks during the exam. A recommended break pattern during the PMP exam is to stand up and stretch after every 50 questions.

3 Smile as you take the exam. It has been proven that smiling alleviates stress and boosts confidence during exceptionally difficult tasks. Use deep breathing techniques to further relax. If you have exam time remaining, review the questions you marked for review . Use all the exam time you have until each question has been reviewed twice. PMP Exam Taking tips The PMP exam is a multiple choice test that asks one to recognize correct answers among a set of four options. The extra options that are not the correct answer are called the distracters ; and their purpose, unsurprisingly, is to distract the test taker from the actual correct answer among the bunch. Copyright 2016 SSI Logic, PMTraining. All Rights Reserved. Duplication of this material is not permitted without express consent of SSI Logic. PMP exam tips Students usually consider multiple choice exams as much easier than other types of exams ; this is not necessarily true with the PMP exam.

4 Among these reasons are: Most multiple choice exams ask for simple, factual information; unlike the PMP exam which often requires the student to apply knowledge and make a best judgment. The majority of multiple choice exams involve a large quantity of different questions so even if you get a few incorrect, it's still okay. The PMP exam covers a broad set of material, often times in greater depth than other certification exams . Regardless of whether or not multiple choice testing is more forgiving; in reality, one must study immensely because of the sheer volume of information that is covered. Although four hours may seem like more than enough time for a multiple choice exam, when faced with 200 questions, time management is one of the most crucial factors in succeeding and doing well. You should always try and answer all of the questions you are confident about first, and then go back about to those items you are not sure about afterwards.

5 Always read carefully through the entire test as well, and do your best to not leave any question blank upon submission even if you do not readily know the answer. Many people do very well with reading through each question and not looking at the options before trying to answer. This way, they can steer clear (usually) of being fooled by one of the distracter . options or get into a tug-of-war between two choices that both have a good chance of being the actual answer. Never assume that all of the above or none of the above answers are the actual choice. Many times they are, but in recent years they have been used much more frequently as distracter options on standardized tests. Typically this is done in an effort to get people to stop believing the myth that they are always the correct answer. You should be careful of negative answers as well. These answers contain words such as none , not , neither , and the like.

6 Despite often times being very confusing, if you read these types of questions and answers carefully, then you should be able to piece together which is the correct answer. Just take your time! Never try to overanalyze a question, or try and think about how the test givers are trying to lead astray potential test takers. Keep it simple and stay with what you know. If you ever narrow down a question to two possible answers, then try and slow down your thinking and think about how the two different options/answers differ. Look at the question again and try to apply how this difference between the two potential answers relates to the question. If you are convinced there is literally no difference between the two potential answers (you'll more than likely be wrong in assuming this), then take another look at the answers that you've already eliminated.

7 Perhaps one of them is actually the correct one and you'd made a previously unforeseen mistake. On occasion, over-generalizations are used within response options to mislead test takers. To help guard against this, always be wary of responses/answers that use absolute words like always , or Copyright 2016 SSI Logic, PMTraining. All Rights Reserved. Duplication of this material is not permitted without express consent of SSI Logic. PMP exam tips never . These are less likely to actually be the answer than phrases like probably or usually are. Funny or witty responses are also, most of the time, incorrect so steer clear of those as much as possible. Although you should always take each question individually, none of the above answers are usually less likely to be the correct selection than all of the above is. Keep this in mind with the understanding that it is not an absolute rule, and should be analyzed on a case-by-case (or question- by-question ) basis.

8 Looking for grammatical errors can also be a huge clue. If the stem ends with an indefinite article such as an then you'll probably do well to look for an answer that begins with a vowel instead of a consonant. Also, the longest response is also oftentimes the correct one, since whoever wrote the question item may have tended to load the answer with qualifying adjectives or phrases in an effort to make it correct. Again though, always deal with these on a question-by-question basis, because you could very easily be getting a question where this does not apply. Verbal associations are oftentimes critical because a response may repeat a key word that was in the question. Always be on the alert for this. Playing the old Sesame Street game Which of these things is not like the other is also a very solid strategy, if a bit preschool. Sometimes many of a question's distracters will be very similar to try to trick you into thinking that one choice is related to the other.

9 The answer very well could be completely unrelated however, so stay alert. Just because you have finished a practice test, be aware that you are not done working. After you have graded your test with all of the necessary corrections, review it and try to recognize what happened in the answers that you got wrong. Did you simply not know the qualifying correct information? Perhaps you were led astray by a solid distracter answer? Going back through your corrected test will give you a leg up on your next one by revealing your tendencies as to what you may be vulnerable with, in terms of multiple choice tests. It may be a lot of extra work, but in the long run, going through your corrected multiple choice tests will work wonders for you in preparation for the real exam. See if you perhaps misread the question or even missed it because you were unprepared.

10 Think of it like instant replays in professional sports. You are going back and looking at what you did on the big stage in the past so you can help fix and remedy any errors that could pose problems for you on the real exam. Copyright 2016 SSI Logic, PMTraining. All Rights Reserved. Duplication of this material is not permitted without express consent of SSI Logic.