TOPIC: Urgent advice/suggestions needed

Hi all,

My exam is scheduled in a week from now, I am nervous as my simulator scores ( 5 so far ) never going above 65-70%. Gone through PMBOK and another PREP book few times. Reviewed the explanation of the wrong answers. Feel comfortable with the knowledge. The issue that I am facing is the time management to answer 200 Q's in 4 hours. Never have been able to finish all Q's. Last hour RUSH contributing either wrong answers, guess work or no answers resulting low scores. Also used the technique of marking and skipping long questions for review later. So far no luck on scores. On the contrary finished most of my timed quiz ( 10/20 ) mostly on or before time and scored progressively upto 90%.

Need suggestions :
1. Do you suggest me to appear for the exam next week to take a chance or reschedule 4 weeks from now ?
2. If rescheduled, what else needs to be done to improve the simulator score, time management other than improving my reading skills ?

Will appreciate response at the earliest convenience so as to make a decision of rescheduling.

Thanks & Regards.
Jay

Jay,

I cannot offer you advice on if you should postpone the exam - only you can make that decision. I can say, however, a 70% score on the simulated exam probably will not work for the actual exam.

There are a number of test-taking strategies on the forum as well on on places like YouTube. Among those strategies are hints on how to read the question, marking long-worded questions to come back to later and the like. The hints that worked best for me were:

1. Understand the general question types: Short questions, 3+ sentence questions, scenario questions, formula-based questions and ITTO questions.
2. Read the last sentence of the question first and read it very carefully then read the answers: Find out what the question is asking. (In many instances, all of the information above the real question is "fluff." Look for keywords like "most likely," "least likely," "best" and so forth. You may be able to eliminate answers fairly quickly.
3. Be careful of questions that have "best course of action" and "first thing to do" types. Remember to answer from the perspective of PMI or the PMBOK Guide - not what you would personally do.
4. Know the formulas and use the correct one.

With respect to ITTOs - I did not memorize the ITTOs for every process. Many processes share ITTOs - I learned the unique ones for each process.

Good luck!

Harry

Thanks Harry for your valuable advice. I think the issue I noticed are

a. Spending too much time attempting formula & diagram questions ( seldom did a formula/diagram question wrong )
b. Need faster response to mark & skip long questions
c. Improve reading skills

I am reading PMBok and Any Crowe. Wondering, Rita's book will help at this point or confuse more.

Regards.
Jay

I used four references: PMBOK Guide+Agile, Head first PMP ( smile.amazon.com/Head-First-PMP-Manageme...%2Caps%2C1275&sr=1-6 ), home made flash cards, and the PM Prepcast+Exam Simulator. The exam simulator is by far the most comprehensive resource I could find. I stopped studying once I started reaching 80-85% on full practice exams and only reviewed weaker areas. I passed with 5xAT on the first time around.

Good luck!