Your words inspire me, Dawn. Thank you very much, I wish you good luck with your exams studies and with your career as well!
Cris

Hello Brittany,

I've no idea why I haven't been notified by email about your post here. I visited the forum for a different reason, so I saw your message. On LinkedIn, I don't go by Cristian, it's simply Cris. I sent you a connection request.
Yes, I took both the exams in a row. I've been approved for both of them at the same time (if anyone wonders whether one could have two or more active PMI applications at the same time).

In my opinion, let the PMI worry about you being audited or not. Once you do your homework (being fair in your application), I don't believe you'll have any issues if you'll get audited. I was in a weird situation, as my title is not even "project manager". I was and still am a mechanical engineer doing engineering and project leading. I was not audited, but in my application I wrote exactly who I am. It was all fine after all.

One of the biggest difference, that I've noticed between the two exams, is the difference between theory and real PM world.
For example, if the question is "How's the project doing from the cost point of view?", this is how the question would look like for the two exams:
CAPM: "A project has and earned value of $100 and the total costs to date are $115. What's the CPI?"
PMP: "A project has and earned value of $100 and the total costs to date are $115. What should the project manager do first?"
Did you see the difference? CAPM is just theory, taken from BoK guide, or somewhere else. PMP involves actions, thinking. You're the PM for this project right here, right now. This is the situation of the project, what would you do?

How many questions I've seen that needed an equation? I would say 1%, about two per exam. I didn't pay extra attention to those, since I really liked them. In my opinion, they're easy points. The calculations needed are fairly simple, I think.

Again, please consider my message is all my opinion. Don't take it as scientifically verified. It's just the way I think and this is what I share.

BK,

I'll try to explain another one.
The main purpose of a project is to deliver a product, per client's requirements (it might be a requirement from your organization, or a government request, but it's all similar). So we guide the team to do project work in order to deliver the needed product. Call it "guide the team", or "guide the project work", or simply "direct and manage project work". At the end of this process, after we all worked hard, we have the deliverables in our hands. These deliverables might be in a form of a report, a bicycle, a new book, or whatever the product of the project is. What are we going to do with, say the new book? We can't simply provide the client with the new book just like that. We have to verify its correctness. How's its quality? Let's control the quality of the book. Read it one time, read it ten times, study it, compare it with the initial plan, compare it to the customer's requirements, verify the book in order to look perfect for the client. So at the end of the Control Quality process, we should have the verified book ready to be presented. If it's not about a book, we may call it "verified deliverable(s)". Once we have the deliverables verified, we want to see what the client thinks of it. It might be accepted (Accepted Deliverables), it might be rejected with some modifications needed to be done (Change Request), but the product's initial scope should be validated. (in Validate Scope Process)
Summary: We collect the requirements (Collect Requirements process) -> We write down the purpose of the project (Define Scope process) -> We do the actual work in order to get the needed product (Direct and Manage Project Team process) -> We verify the deliverables (Control Quality process) - > We ask the customer whether he accepts these deliverables or not (Validate Scope process).
In my opinion, these are the steps to be followed to get the product of the project done.

BK, this thinking might be overwhelming to you, but I really hope you'll find your own way of understanding all these processes. Think like you are above all, somewhere in an invisible attic. You have a guy that asks for a new book, you have a bunch of people ready to help to create the book, you have a lady willing to pay for all this. What would you do in order to deliver the requested book?

Regards,
Cris Sirbu, P.E., PMP

Chris, This is extremely helpful I so appreciate you sharing your logic. Congrats on passing the exam and kudos for breaking down the ITTOs so logically.
Dawn

Hi Cristian, I tried to find you on LinkedIn to message you there, since I doubt you will see this. But wow there are a lot of Cristian Sirbu's! So I will try it on here. You are part of a very select group of people I'd love to hear from right now - those who did a CAPM test and followed it up with a PMP test shortly thereafter.

I just passed my CAPM earlier this month. I have been in project management since 2013 and I want my PMP. I decided to go this route because the PMP application used to be so stringent and difficult to fill out, and I was afraid that if I were to get audited there's no way to prove my exact hours because they were never formally tracked. However, I see now that PMI has changed the application to months, which is so very much easier to fill out!

I am finishing my application right now, and hope that I get approved with no audit. My goal is to take the PMP exam in early December, seeing as how I'm still so fresh from studying hard for CAPM. I am planning to jump right back in and keep studying.

I would love to hear from you how you (or anyone else who's taken the same path) felt the tests compared to one another. I am very curious what percentage of the test do you feel involved questions that necessitated utilizing the equations?

Hi Chris,

Thank you for your explanation. Seeing it for first time with such a summarized explanation.
As a request is it possible for you to explain other process similarly i might be asking more plesae try if you can.

Thank you.
BK