Other Project Management Exam Stories

Based on some requests I am putting back up exam stories from prior to the most recent PMBOK.  Upon further reflection most of the stories are still relevant to preparation for the exam, but some of the materials that individuals cite may or may not be available. 

Success Story - John S.

Success Story - James N.

Here are several tips on my preparation of the PMP.  I have been a consultant for over 14 years and have over 10 years of PM experience.  A key point to remember is not to rely completely on personal experiences when taking the exam.

I took the test on July 3rd, 2002.  I passed with a score of 88% and was surprised.  Here is what I focused on:

I primarily used the Rita Mulcahy PMP Exam Prep books and CD as my bible.  I purchased the entire package for roughly $400 about 2 months prior to the test.  I probably spent about 160 hours in preparation.  I did not take any formal preparation class or participate in any study groups, although I have heard they can be useful.

I did not take any of the practice exams until I thoroughly went through the study guide.  Once I completed that guide, I took a practice
exam.  The first time I took an exam I score about 67 percent. Then I took, retook and retook the exams.  I probably went through each possible question (about 1,300 in total) about 3-4 times each.  It was absolutely worth it.  You begin to understand the nuances associated with the questions.

I was surprised to find that very few if any questions on the exam matched the study materials.  So if you think you can get away with pure memorization, you will be surprised.  I finished the exam in about 2:45 and marked about 30 questions for review.

I rarely used the PMBOK in my studies.  I only used it for reference in researching practice questions that I answered incorrectly.

Success Story - Carl S.

I scored an 85% on the exam.  My highlights are as follows:

• I did not take any official preparation classes

• My brother, John, had already received the ESI materials through his employer.  The ESI tests proved to be invaluable.  I found the ESI practice exams to be more difficult than the real exam.  I went through the exams three times, moving my scores up from approximately 70% (barely passing) to around 95%

• I purchased the Mulcahy training guide and found it to be highly useful.  For some of the items that I had trouble focusing on, such as the (obsolete) network diagrams, Mulcahy had simple rules to memorize that were sufficient to pass the exam.  The Mulcahy practice CD, which mimics the exam format and offers 200 randomly mixed questions (i.e. a cost question, then a quality question, etc...) also was very good practice

• I bought the Kerzner Project Management reference text but had difficulty slogging through that very thorough book.  It is overkill for what the exam requires (in my opinion)

• I did not have any problems with time.  I probably marked about 30-40 of the 200 questions and finished my first pass through the exam in about an hour.  I reviewed my work over the next 2 hours and probably changed my answers on about 20 questions

• I did not study very much.  I had studied on and off for several months but really focused on studying for the 2 weeks prior to the exam.  I read the PMBOK chapter, took the ESI exams, and took the Mulcahy exams

• I memorized the 37 PMI segments (i.e. Project Integration Management - Project Planning, Project Execution, and Overall Change Control) and wrote them down on the scratch paper when I entered the exam room.  This was most helpful.  I also memorized the earned value formulas and the PERT formulas.  If you memorize these formulas those questions should be easy

• Even if I had my PMI materials with me at the exam site they would not have been much help for the questions that I found most difficult.  These questions had very complex wording and offered more than one choice that appeared to be reasonable.  Many of these questions were "What would you do FIRST" in a given situation which is hard because my instincts are so different than those described by PMI.  In general, I was able to narrow it down to 2 answers out of 4 and picked the one I liked best

• In a bizarre coincidence, the woman at the test center who was running the classroom knew me from grade school.  I went to school with her daughter and she recognized my last name.  It is a small world...

Success Story - George W.

George is a Project Management Professional (PMP) who is a very capable consultant and former colleague of mine.  George recently passed the PMP exam.  Below is a summary of his background and the effort that he spent preparing for the exam, along with his comments on how to prepare most effectively:
   

• George did attend a PMI Certification Seminar.  See the hyperlink for an example of such a seminar held by the Midwest PMI Chapter.

• George has been a consultant for many years, with an engineering-related background.  He has strong experience in the Financial Services industry vertical

• He decided to take the PMP exam and become certified to improve his credentials and polish his project management skills

• George contacted PMI and submitted his credentials to take the PMP exam.
  These credentials were accepted by PMI.  He had 13,000 hours over the related time period qualifying for PMI purposes

• His studying time frame was five months at approximately forty hours a month for a total of 200 hours
  

• George took a 4 day preparation course conducted by PMI but it was mainly on how to prepare for the exam rather than coverage of exam topics.  This would probably be more helpful for less experienced managers

• George started studying with the PMBOK.  He carefully reviewed the graphical pages that began each of the chapters describing the inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs.  During his studying he would relate items to each
  of these sections

• George used the ESI exam preparation materials that we are using for our PMP Study Group

• He went through all of the exams and "mixed up" the order of the questions
  (so that they did not all relate to a single chapter - this is the manner that the final test is delivered, as well)
  

•  When George saw an area that he did not understand very well or needed more background information (whether it was a reference in PMBOK or a sample exam question), he looked it up in Kerzner's book.  This is now a recommended book for our team, not to read cover-to-cover but to keep as a reference and to read through complex areas that you may not fully understand such as Earned Value
  

•  George did not buy the ESI books "lite pack" or the expanded pack.  George felt that 90% of the information in the exam was either directly from  PMBOK or closely related to a reference from PMBOK
  

• During the exam, you can "mark" a question and come back to it.  George
  marked about 67 questions and came back for a final answer.  There is no
  penalty for guessing so all questions should be answered
  

• Prior to studying, George scored a 63% on a practice exam.  He passed the   exam with a score in the high 70's which seemed pretty common with other individuals that George contacted.  Scores at the 80 or above range are apparently rare
  

• The areas that were the most trouble to George and others taking the exam are SCOPE and QUALITY chapters of PMBOK
  

• Per George, there were only a few questions (15-20) that required calculations.  Scratch paper, pencils and a calculator are provided at the testing facility
  

• George received his notification that he passed about 15 seconds after completing the exam
  

In summary, George's study preparation materials were pretty consistent with what we are using.  We are now recommending the Kerzner book and having less of a recommendation for the non-ESI exam prep materials.  Our focus is on PMBOK and directly related materials, rather than starting to walk through dozens of potential books on detailed topic areas.  Remember to focus on terminology and where the item falls in the PMI "monographs" by chapter.

Success Story - Greg R.

I spoke with Greg and asked him to provide any comments that he thought might be useful to individuals studying for the PMP exam based on his experience.  Below are his comments:

I passed in the low 80% range, so I guess somewhere in the middle.  I have the
following 3 suggestions:
 

1. I think the hardest thing about the exam for me, was being able to sit down and read 200 questions.  As such, I think one of the better recommendations I  could make is to practice by doing 200 questions at least once prior to the exam.  Even if it's doing a subset of each of the ESI or Mulcahy question sets.  It's harder than you might think to focus after being bombarded with new questions for 4 hours straight.

2. Another observation is that a lot of the exam questions were more lengthy than the questions in either the ESI or Mulcahy material.  LOTS of  "extraneous" information, and lots of "What would you do FIRST", or "What is the BEST way to handle the following situation..." type questions.  For this, I thought that the Mulcahy CD (PM Fastrack) was most helpful in studying.

3. Something that I did that helped me quite a bit was to take time every day writing down the PM Area (i.e. Project Scope Management) and corresponding Processes (i.e. Initiation, Scope Planning, etc.) and label each process in the PM life cycle (i.e. initiating, planning, etc.).  Do this until you can do it in your sleep.  It helped me answer a lot of questions geared towards "Where in the process are you"?
   

Success Story - Julie L.

Here is a summary of my experience:

• I took the exam on 9/4/01 and passed.

• I studied quite a bit. Although I didn't keep track, I'd say that I studied at least 200 hours over a period of 4 months.

•  I think that the PMP Exam Preparation Class that ESI taught was invaluable in helping me target my studying efforts. I am amazed at the BREADTH of material that is covered. In addition, people need to have a DEPTH of knowledge, as well. Without the ESI books, tests, and "PMP Challenge," I think it would have been difficult to pass.

• My strategy to pass was by "eating the elephant one bite at a time." I studied a little bit every day. However, towards the end, I was studying several hours a day. When I went for my daily 1-hour walk, I'd flip through the "PMP Challenge." That helped me a lot. 

• I felt that there were a LOT of "scenario-based" questions on the exam. There were more than I had anticipated.

• Although I finished my first pass through the exam in three hours, I felt "pressed" for time. Several questions were long. Some questions were very easy, but there were several difficult questions.

• There were a lot of questions that required me to know "inputs, outputs, tools/techniques." I'm glad that I made an attempt to know these well.

• Prior to taking the exam, I didn't write down formulas because I knew them in my head. I wrote down all 37 processes in the diagram. 

• That diagram in the materials ESI provided was very, very helpful. Knowing that diagram and the inputs, tools/techniques, and outputs is probably the best way a person can prepare.

• I didn't see a great deal of overlap between the 200 questions on the test and the 360 questions in the ESI exam booklet. I wish that more of them had been the same, but they weren't. Of course, the concepts were similar.

• The exam seemed to start off tough; this tended to make me panic and squelch my confidence. Then, I forced myself to calm down, and the questions started to seem a lot easier. After I calmed down and finished the test in 3 hours, I was able to go back to the initial 20 questions and then they made sense to me. I find it hard to take an exam if I am feeling "panicky," so it was important for me to calm down and regain my confidence. The thought of "not passing" prior to the exam had never crossed my mind. So, when I was in the exam and really thought there was a possibility that I might fail, I panicked!

• Answering 200 questions in one sitting was grueling. When I was on question 30 out of 200, I wondered how I was ever going to finish! In the end, I passed with a pretty healthy margin. The PMP exam is certainly not a test that people can walk out of feeling like they "aced." There was just so much to know. I am glad that I prepared as much as I did. I'm glad it's over. 

Success Story - Rich H.

I just wanted to thank you for your help in passing the PMP exam. Here are some thoughts that I would like to pass on to others who are preparing for the test.
 

• Of course I read through the PMPOK.  As a reference I used in "Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling, 7th Edition" by Kerzner. This book is way too difficult for a straight through read. I was disappointed that it did not have great examples of how to work some of the IRR and PVquestions, also some of the other areas seemed to not fully work out the "how's"
  of a problem.
• I used PMIQ exam prep. The questions were similar to those on the exam but only in concept.  The most helpful tool was something that I created from your study notes. I simply blanked out the processed, tools and techniques and the outputs, and printed out many copies. Every day for the month before the exam, I  would pull out one of the copies and fill it in starting by simply coping the original then slowly by memory alone. This was a great help in cementing the process concepts. I have attached a copy of what I used, maybe it will help others.
• These study tools and knowledge gained from over 4 years of project
  management helped me pass the exam with a percentage in the high 80's.
  
  Thanks for your help,
  
  Rich
   

Success Story - Shannon G.

I found this website late the night before I took the test. I wish I would have searched via Dogpile earlier. I like the site.

Here are my impressions...

This was a difficult exam. I have taken plenty of technical (IT) certification exams and grad school exams and this ranks right up there with the latter.  I passed with an 83. I completed the exam in 3 hours 40 minutes and amazingly had time to look through my "marked-for-review" items in the last twenty minutes.

I studied about 40 hours memorizing the "Guide to the PMBOK" and Rita Mulcahy, referring to Kerzner and Jamie Lewis when I needed to (which basically was for more detail on network diagramming). I also had Mulcahy's CD of practice tests, which while useful, did by no means indicate how rigorous and draining the real test was. I am fairly adept at rote memorization.

The test was full of ambiguous and nebulous questions. There were at least ten involving earned value analysis calcs and more regarding quality. Some of the questions were not in the Guide to the PMBOK or in Mulcahy's review book. I have an MBA degree from about ten years ago and that helped me with some of the quality questions, believe it or not. I also got to write my company's PM methodology and have been running projects for about six years, so that helped.

All in all, I recommend that candidates not take this lightly. Memorize the PMBOK, get some experience, and read an independent book or two.

Shannon G
 

Success Story - Jody W.

Thanks for your site - it helped focus my efforts. In particular, I found the success stories useful - real world appraisals of what was important. 

Background:

Worked as an analyst, manager, and project manager for a telecommunications company in northern Canada. Professional engineer
and accountant. Roughly 12,000 hours PM experience over about 5-6 years.

Formal PM training: none.

PMP exam prep:

No courses or packaged prep materials, but I did use several sample question packages - from PMI and from a PMI chapter in Ottawa where a colleague prepared for the exam. These were useful in two ways - first as representative of the questions asked (a few were repeated on the exam I wrote) and second as practice for getting through lots of questions in the time allowed.

I did a set of questions before beginning studying to see where I was weak and several sets a few days before the exam.

I focused almost all of my review on the PMBOK. I memorized the 37 processes and, more importantly, how they fit together. I tried memorizing the inputs/outputs but found that knowing the relationships between the processes made it fairly easy to fill in the general idea of what fed from one into the other.  The specific knowledge areas that I focused on (based on what the sample questions seemed to cover) were:

- EVA - memorized the key formulae.
- Network diagraming - slack, CPM, PERT duration formulae, early/late start/finish.
- Conflict management - memorized the main approaches and their relative effectiveness for different scenarios.

The only supplementary reference I used was Kerzner, though I would also recommend Verma's HR Skills for PM's - for the conflict management material in particular.

One of the things that works really well for me is _writing_ notes.  Underlining or highlighting is too passive. I worked through the PMBOK
summarizing the material in the margins. I then made up some flashcards and reviewed them a number of times, dropping the ones that were too easy after a while.

I spent a total of 25-30 hours preparing over two weeks but feel that my previous training and qualifications helped shorten what I needed to do.  As for the exam, it took about 90 minutes for the first pass. I marked about 50 questions, reviewed them first and then reviewed all the questions. I changed about 10 answers but doubt if that changed my score significantly - they were so oddly worded that I was really just guessing. Total time - 2 hours. Score 94%.

Thanks again for the help,
Jody W.
 

Success Story - Petula B.

Hello,

Thanks for your help in passing the PMP exam.  I decided to plunge in and take the exam in May 2002 and passed w/ an 87%!  I nearly fell out of my chair!  After my peaks-n-valleys experience taking various sample tests, I was seriously considering postponement.  But I figured if I didn't know the info. by now, I never would.  Below are some thoughts:

1. ESI-like or Rita-like questions? More Rita-like in terms of question length.  One of my stress points was that I'd get Rita questions wrongbecause her logic and mine differed significantly.  I think PMI logic was more in-line with my perspectives that the impression I got from her materials.

2. Memorization or application focus?  I think most of the questions would have been doable without a concerted memorization effort if you took the time to thoroughly read the question and ask yourself, "what would I do in an ideal situation?"  Although a few questions asked for straightforward info (XXX is part of XXX process), most couched these items in "what would you do next" or "what would you do first" situational questions.

3. Time?  I had 20 minutes left when I was done.  My strategy was to break up the exam into four 50-question segments and take 5 minutes breaks in between.  Helped me keep my focus through the end of the exam.  Once I did a first pass on a segment, I went back to check marked items and do a final pass through of all the segment's questions before moving on.

4. General thoughts?  I'm glad I distilled info into my summary tables so I didn't get caught up in info overload from PMBOK micro-details.  The test site was great (they provided calculators and earplugs).  Not studying for two days prior to the exam was maddening, but it forced me to do relaxation stuff (leisure reading, yoga, etc.) that helped me clear my head and reduce nervousness.  Prior to taking the exam, the center manager made a point of telling me he's seen more passes with the new exam versus the old PMP, but that most folks "skate through."

Good luck to all!

Petula B
 

Success Story - Karen T.

I took the PMP exam on Monday, June 3, 2002 and passed with an 87%.  My advice:

* Know the inputs, tools, and outputs for all the PM processes but especially Risk Management, Quality Management, and Procurement Management.  I didn't memorize them but I knew them VERY well.

* Practice network diagrams and know the "old" Earned Value terminology, e.g. BCWS=PV, BCWP=EV.

* I took the Rita Mulcahy PMP Exam Prep course in March and found it VERY helpful.  Even if you can't afford the class, the book is very useful on its own.

* I paced myself and answered questions in groups of 40.  Then I took a brief, maybe 3 minute, breather and started back.  I had over an hour left when I finished answering questions and reviewing those I had marked.

* Yes, there are numerous vague and tricky questions on the test.  All you can do to prepare is PRACTICE answering these types of questions and understand why you missed them.

All in all, I'd recommend that anyone considering taking the exam SET A DATE!  I had been postponing taking the test for quite some time, but then I finally just set a date about 2 months out and made myself prepare.  This gave me a goal to work toward. 

Good luck!

Karen T.

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