TOPIC: Practice Exam Scores low, not passing....NEED HELP

Hi everyone,

I have been prepping for a while now. My practice quizzes scores have been good, in the 70-80% range, sometimes 90%. I thought I was ready to take the PMP exams and I took all 4 practice exams.

My scores are 56% for Exam 1, 61% for Exam 2, 57% for Exam 3 and just took the Exam 4 with a 51%. After I took Exam 3, I thought my knowledge was lacking and I reviewed all the knowledge areas for the Process Groups to refresh my memory and understanding of the material. I took over 100 questions quizzes for the weak areas so I could improve but I was surprised to see that my scores have deteriorated.

My exam is coming up end of October and I am thinking of a better strategy to use other than the one I am currently using. I review all my answers and the explanations on why I get them wrong by understanding the reasoning behind them, take detailed notes, review them every day to refresh my memory. I am feeling concerned about passing my exam because it is coming up very soon.

Do I not need to be concerned about my scores at this point? My point is I do well when it comes to taking the quizzes, passing them all with 70-90% range but the exam questions, I am not performing well.

I will be retaking all the practice tests and of course, the scores would be better the second attempt as I have understood the reasoning and they are the same questions. In addition, I am going to start taking the practice exams from the PMI Study Hall to see how well I perform on those exams.


Did anyone have any experience with scoring less on the practice exams like me and still passing the real exam? Do I need to be concerned? I am open to any suggestions that anyone may have to boost that confidence for passing the exam and scoring higher on the practice exams. I have read from some threads to not worry about the scores but to develop the understanding and concepts well.


Thank you,
Saba

Hello Saba,

There have been all kinds of cases of people having low scores on the simulation exams and still passing the PMP exam. There's actually a table in your simulation exam page that shows the relationship between the simulation exam scores and the PMP passing rate. Based on the statistics you want to be in the 75-80% range in the simulation exams to maximize the chances of passing the PMP exam. Perhaps the issue you're facing is not related to your knowledge, but the way that you are taking the exam. There are several articles that provide with helpful tips on how to take multiple choice exams. Here's an example: education.macleans.ca/study-tips/how-to-...ltiple-choice-tests/ .
Another suggestion I can give you is that maybe you're not taking enough time to review all the questions before you take your next exam. Just to give you an example, I would take 1 simulation exam per week, and leave 6 days to review every question of the exam after taking it and reviewing some concepts before taking the next one. I hope this helps, and please let me know how it goes.

All the best,

Thanks for your feedback, Daniel! I will definitely try the link you sent to me.

I have been taking 1 practice exam per day in consecutive days, except exam 4 which I gave a 3-4 day gap to review all the material.

I have limited time left now as my exam is coming up in 10 days. My original plan was to start practicing the PMI SH practice exams (1 exam per day as there are 5 practice exams) and then retake PrepCast exams 1-4 the rest of the 4 days until the day of my scheduled exam.

Now, I think I could use your suggestion to review as much as possible and space it out a bit to see how it affects my scores.

One more question, given a time constraint, would you advise to focus on the Prepcast questions more on the PMI SH questions? I know based on what I have read, students have said they found PMI SH to be vague and more difficult. I am curious to hear your thoughts on it, would it be a good idea to refresh my knowledge more with Prepcast Quizzes and Exam or the PMI SH?

Thank you once again!

Saba

If you want, and time allows I would suggest you take the PMI SH practice exam for fun to get your brain familiar with the extreme vagueness and it doesn’t take you by surprise. At least you would have some experience with extremely vague questions which you will also encounter on the exam. You can still improve in the time remaining. This is the final stretch, stay focused and keep up the work. You got this!