TOPIC: First Exam with %55.33

Extremely disappointed and with all the work I've put in so far I was expecting at least %70 to %75. My exam is scheduled for June 5th what should I do from here? Due to my work I usually try to study 1 to 2 hours a day and that's pretty much all I can afford as far as time dedicated to study goes!

Hi Martin,

I am in the same boat as with in regards to how much time I can devote to studying due to work. My exam is scheduled for the 29th this month and I started studying at the end of January, doing 1-2 hours a day during the week and 2-5 hours on the weekend.

Doing that 1st practice exam can be overwhelming if you've gone straight into it from the learning videos. I took some time and practiced getting used to the "exam environment" and questions style by doing sets of 25-50 questions under the Timed/Learning Quizzes. This really helped me focus on learning how to read a question and what techniques I should try to find the right answer. I did about 10 of these sets of quizzes and reviewed each one in detail, writing down why a certain answer was correct. If I still needed clarification or found I was continuously missing questions in a certain area, I would then reference the PMBOK section and take any notes I needed. I learn and retain information best by hand-on experience so I've also added to the PM PrepCast exam simulator with another online PMI certified exam simulator. I'll do a full exam one day on one site and then switch and do a full exam the next day on the other one. This is what works best for me, but for you it might be flashcards, reading the PMBOK, or re-watching some videos.

Try not to get too discouraged with your first exam score, see the score as an opportunity to improve. You have plenty of time before your exam to bring that score up. Keep practicing and studying and you will only get better!

Good Luck and Best Regards,

Leah Goff

Thanks Leah. Actually I started back in October but just skimming through online lesson and actually got more serious around the same as you in January. I find that each mock test "question creators" have their own style of writing questions! It's like I don't have issues with the questions but rather the answers or the choice of answers! I try to do around 25 questions a day plus major ones like 150 questions at least once a week. Some other mock I do fairly ok from 70 to 80 what I'm afraid of is this will happen in the CAPM exam that the questions are phrased so differently then all the mocks we've taken. I'll try the timed quizzies.

So your exam is in less then a week? How are you feeling?

I was very nervous about my exam yesterday (lots of test taking anxiety), but I passed (!!) with an “Above Target” in all sections except in Procurement where I finished at “Target”. I did about 1600 practice exam questions total between PrepCast and PMTraining exam simulator. I felt more than prepared and confident after about 3 questions into the real exam.

I am working on drafting up my lessons learned post, but I found the PrepCast exam questions to be more difficult than the actual exam questions. Don’t take that lightly though. The PrepCast exam questions were great to drill and practice with because I really knew the material and this eliminated a lot of anxiety and second-guessing during the exam.

That is so awesome Congratulations!!!! Please please do share! My weaknesses are ITTOs and EVM I heard that PMI are really getting heavy on Procurement and Change Control both on CAPM and PMP! How many EVM questions did you get?