Got PMI-ACP certified few days ago.
Definitely harder than PMP exam!! ( Plenty of situational questions - I would say more than 90-95% in my exam were situational..)
Memorizing concepts from Agile Practice Guide or other info sources won't really help you to answer! Better try to think Agile.
It took me around 2 hours to go through all questions. Answered on the fly to around 100-105 of them , and flagged 15-20 for review. Taking decision on these 15-20 took me additional 30 mins. So I finished my exam in 2h 30'.
Questions are never too long (normally 2 lines text) and same for possible answers: very often short statements.
And they are never theoretical! (such as for example, PMP exam question where you are asked to indicate the Tool to be used for something, or the process etc..)
No questions requiring formulas
No questions about Contracting in Agile
To prepare my self for the exam:
- Followed Agile PrepCast (taken paper notes on key concepts while following sessions)
- Read twice Mike Griffiths's "PMI ACP Exam Prep" book
- Used Mike Griffith's FlashCards (I've found them very useful in the last weeks before the exam, to quickly review key concepts)
- Used PMI-ACP Exam Simulator from PM PrepCast. (made all 4 exam simulations, all passed 1st attempt, with scores between 70% and 81%)
(I've also slightly tried other exam simulators available online, but really they did not prepare me for the real exam)
My feedbacks on the above:
- Agile PrepCast is a great way to start - never annoying, modular enough to let you define your own study plan, and complete enough to cover all exam topics
- Mike Griffith's book is really more than a pure manual: it offers you plenty of tips and examples to go beyond the pure theoretical topics
- PMI-ACP exam simulator was really the key factor to pass my exam! It trained my muscle brain on situational questions, in a way that I was not really surprised when starting the real exam: I expected the kind and the format of questions I have effectively found!
It has been really an exciting experience to get PMI-ACP certified: interesting and complex enough topics, giving you the opportunity to shape your mind in a quite different way from PMP!
