TOPIC: break through advice needed

Dear All,

I am a bit very frustrated and I thought I share my issue. I am studying for the PMI-ACP for quite a while now. Unfortunately this year I had to break the studies for 5 months.
What I did:
- beginning of year listened to the Prep-Cast
- end of summer read the book PMI-ACP Examp Prep by Mike Griffiths
- purchased the Exam simulator.
My first exam was 68%. I review what I did wrong strengthened my weak points, did a second exam simulation 69%. I realized that I do something wrong so I went through all material. I really felt I am well prepared and took a third simulation: 54%
For me this was a shock and I would like to know if anyone of you had a similar experience. Was it only a bad day? Was I not really focused I cannot tell, therefore I thought I share my experience, perhaps somebody can gave me a "live saving" tip. I want to take the exam end of December

Thank you

Hello Sebesi! After taking 18 certification exams and passed 17 of them on the first take, I think I can help you.

But before I give you any advice, please provide some information:

1-Do you have practical experience with Agile?
2-How many times did you read the (great) Exam Prep book?
3-How did you score on the book's chapters review?

With this we can come up with a strategy so you pass your exam.

Hi
I cleared my ACP on 27th Nov-2017. Used the following materials thru out
1, Prepcast
2, Mike Griffts Exam Prep
The Prepcast exams are tough and i too received similar scrores.
My Recomendations:-
The Final Exam wrote this week was more than 95% situational questions, so i recommend to absorb all the concepts from Mike Griffts Exam Prep Edition 2 (read this atleast 2 times and a round of review), Review Prepcast Exams atleast twice and then go for final exam.

Key:- You need to understand the CONCEPT, just dont memorize.

Hello Carlos,

Thank you for your reply.
1. Yes I do have Agile experience.
2. I have read it 2 times and the score of the book's chapter review they were all above 80%
One final note. I use the Exam Prep Premier Edition by Mike Griffiths

Sebesi,

I too am taking the PMI-ACP exam later next month. I am enjoying and learning a lot from the Precast PMI-ACP simulator. I thinking it is a wonderful compilation of questions and I agree that most of them are challenging and make you think a lot. I got 73% in the first exam on the simulator, 72% on the second exam on the simulator, and 60% on the third exam on the simulator. I will be taking the 4th exam on the simulator in a day or so.

At this point, I guess the more focus should be on understanding where one went wrong and reviewing the explanation for all of the questions which one did incorrectly. There is excellent explanation provided by in the PMI-ACP simulator.

I am trying to strengthen my conceptual understanding and the rationale behind various situational questions which I did incorrectly. After all, these are practice tests, and it helps to understand one's gaps in understanding and strengthen them.

The "life saving tip' that you mentioned in your post, would be to thoroughly review the explanation for the questions which one got incorrectly, and thoroughly understand the rationale and the explanation.

I have cleared PMP and PBA exams before from PMI and it will good to take the exam after exposing oneself to a variety of situational questions and understanding the rationale behind them very well.

Like several others, I too received a lower score on Exam 3.

Exam 1 - 78.3% Pass but Below target two domains
Exam 2 - 76.7 % Pass but Below target two domains
Exam 3 - 67.5% Exam Fail

Really trying to figure out if I am moving forward or losing ground

My exam strategy products

1. "The" Exam Prep Book
2. RMC simulator question database
3. Prep-Cast Simulator

Process
1. Read the entire book cover to cover and did not attempt any questions.
2. Completed a full RMC database exam of 120 questions. Result low 70s
3. Read each chapter in the book. Do the questions at the end of the chapter (getting 80%) Take domain quiz (60 - 100 questions) in the RMC database getting 75%-85%
4. Took another RMC database 120 question exam. Got an 83%
5. Took Exam #1 from Prep-Cast - got 78.3% but below target in two domains.
6. Studied domains below target by completing step 3 - 4 from above. Scored 85% in the RMC database questions
7. Took Exam #2 from Prep-Cast got 76.7% but below target in two domains
8. Studied domains below target by completing step 3 - 4 from above.
9. Took Exam #3 from Prep-Cast got 67.5% failing with all but two domains below target!!!

I had planned to take the exam on Tuesday and planned to study all day on Monday (tomorrow) to review questions I missed -- but now not so sure. It looks like I have seriously regressed.

Any thoughts?

Also, the RMC database of questions nowhere near as difficult as Prep-Cast.

Stephanie

Dear All,

Thank you all for your advice. I am happy to say that in January I have passed my PMi-ACP exam with Above Target in each domain!
I have shared my experience in a previous post, but unfortunately the post did not appear on the list of posts

Regards,
Mihaly

Dear Moderators,
I was wrong, the post I posted did appear.
Thank you!

Congratulations.

Sebesi Mihaly wrote: Dear All,

I am a bit very frustrated and I thought I share my issue. I am studying for the Exam for quite a while now. Unfortunately this year I had to break the studies for 5 months.
What I did:
- beginning of year listened to the Prep-Cast
- end of summer read the book PMI-ACP Examp Prep by Mike Griffiths
- purchased the IAS Exam simulator.
My first exam was 68%. I review what I did wrong strengthened my weak points, did a second exam simulation 69%. I realized that I do something wrong so I went through all material. I really felt I am well prepared and took a third simulation: 54%
For me this was a shock and I would like to know if anyone of you had a similar experience. Was it only a bad day? Was I not really focused I cannot tell, therefore I thought I share my experience, perhaps somebody can gave me a "live saving" tip. I want to take the exam end of December

Thank you

These exams are extremely difficult. There can many reasons why your third attempt wasn't as good as you expected. One of the reasons may be that the test was harder than the others. It could also be so that the overall standard of the test was more difficult as a result the others too did not get high marks. As a student what you can do is do your best, be well disciplined and keep a cool head during the exams and give your best. As long as you do that you should be happy. Please dont stress about what has happened and concentrate and be motivated for your future exams. I have prepared for many tough exams where the competition is very stiff. What I have found very helpful in my preparation was yoga and meditation. These things helped my mental and physical health while ensuring that my concetration levels also went up. Moreover, always remember to have a good diet and eat regularly while the preparing. Another important aspect is to get good timely and regular sleep.

When you do poorly on one exam, try a Learning or Timed mode of a shorter set of questions (Maybe 50) and see if you do better. These quizzes are randomly generated from the same pool of questions, so you may see some of the same questions you've encountered before, and you may get all new questions of varying difficulty. The PM Exam Simulator was more challenging than my PMP exam in real life. Since OSP International has the same level of quality standards for both simulators, the Agile Exam Simulator may be more challenging in many cases than other sample question sets on the market covering the same exam content outline. All the better to be prepared!

Good luck! You got this! I'm right there with ya!