TOPIC: How important are Formulas for the PMP Exam?

All,

I'd like to know from recent exam takers how important they thought formulas were for them to pass the exam. Here are three questions for you.

1. Approximately how many formula-based questions did you have on your exam?
2. Were they easy / medium / hard?
3. Do you wish that you had studied more or less in regards to formulas?

Thank you all!

I took the test earlier this week, and if I remember correctly there were about 6 of them. Given that I have a finance back ground, I would classify them more basic from an accounting/finance perspective. Understanding financial concepts such as ROI, Depreciation, and Break even should be understood. I found your "PMPrep Cast Formula Guide" to be a good review and practice tool. A friend of mine that is prepping for the test finds the formulas to be one of his breaking points.

Hello Cornelius,
I gave PMP exam on 9th April 2016
1. There were approx. 4-6 formula based questions
2. They were very easy.
3. I studied a lot for formulas, even wrote the dump sheet. I wish I would have studied less for formulas.

Regards,
Mahesh Ghatge, PMP

Hi Cornelius:

I took mine at the beginning of March but recall a slightly higher number of 6-10 that were not all direct formula questions with a numerical answer, but in 1-2 cases required an understanding of the formula at work none the less.

To me they were relatively basic once you had benefited from the formula guide and understood the formula purpose. That coupled to sim exam prep made it relatively easy.
I did learn the formulas thoroughly and still made use of my dump sheet during the exam to be sure.

I took my exam today, I got 6 formulas only... easy one EVM,EMV, PERT... I thinkl i could pass without any formulas!!!

All what i studied about PTA, EAC, project selection... useless.

Hello,

I pass my exam today and i had CV, SV together in the same question 3 times, sum of years 1 question, 2 pert that leave me uneasy... those PERT questions were hard.
I can't explain specific question so i think i can't explain why it was hard, but i took a guess for this 2 PERT questions.

I will do my lesson learned next week on the forum to give my lessons learned but what i can say now about the exam was that i had really few ITTO questions, 85% of situational that were formulated like here on the prepcast, however my exam i felt it hard because the answers were totally not like on the prepcast.

I finish my exam with 4MP and 1P for closing.... so tonight it's Rhum Party ! Cheers !

Congratulations and welcome to the club.

Best regards and do not forget to send us some drinks via ema.

Cheers and congratulations again

Hello,

I passed today with 3 P, 2 MP. There were very few Formula based questions, about half a dozen in total. All simple SPI or CPI Calcs or a situational question that required the calculation of SPI and/or CPI to answer and PERT questions(2).

The majority felt like situational based questions, often where it came down to two answers that could go either way.

Using the Exam Simulator I could comfortably finish the 200 question exam in under 3 hours. In the real exam it took 3 and a half hours and was starting to worry how long it was taking.