TOPIC: Failed PMP exam on my First Attempt

Yesterday I took the PMP exam and failed. I have been scoring between 75% to 80 % on my Mock exams .but what I found in the exam was real pmp exam questions much different than the mocks. 80 % of my questions are Situational and very lengthy, time consuming confusing too . I don’t see any direct question on Tools and Technique or input out sections
I think I failed due to Executing and Monitoring and controlled.
I scored below Proficient in Executing and Monitoring and controlled process groups
Proficient-Initiation and Planning
Moderate Proficient- Closing

As far as I'm concerned, failure is not trying or giving up. I plan on taking again in 6 to 8 weeks.
Can you suggest a new study strategy and some test tips that will help me take and pass this test?

San Patra,

So sorry that you didn't pass on your first attempt. It is hard to suggest a particular study strategy since everyone learns in different ways. Did you use / try the PrepCast videos?
I think one of the best things you can do is check some of the lessons learned posted on this forum and see if you can find any new ideas and/or approaches that others have found successful that you may not have tried. I am glad to hear that you are going to persevere. There are many inspirational stories on this forum from people just like yourself that failed once and even twice but persevered and were eventually able to pass the exam. Best of luck to you!

Mark

Hi bro,

Sorry for your failed , but you did not mention which Moc exam you took, kindly clarify to avoid those mocks because i am studying for the PMP Exam .

Thanks.
Br.

khaled abulfotooh.

Hi

I'm preparing for the PMP exam and want to take up the exam in about a month. Can we discuss about the questions? Please email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . We can discuss and study for the better results.

Books: Rita/ PMBOK/Aileen

i took mocks from 4 Hour full MOCK from below sources
2- pm aspire ( free)
1 -IIL PMIQ( paid)
1 _core performance concepts-Achieve PMP Exam Success-Diane Altwies (Author)- paid part of book 3 month access
PREPCAST- 3 Free mocks ( 80 to 85 %)
200-Mock -.ittoday-levin , leroy
200-Mock -simplilearn (76%)
175 oliver lehman (78)%
Christopher scordo pmp questions ( scored 35 to 40 of 50 set)
edwel 1 online—76%
IZEN BRIDGE (79%)


I took more than 1500 questions with different chapter end questions from ( Aileen , Rita, , andy crowe Achieve PMP)

Hi San,
My story is very similar but I fail with 3MPS and 2BPs. The mock tests were no where close as the questions were full of twists and turns. I think the mock test preparers have to extensively change the strategy and introduce real PMP stuff

please let me know what was your study plan and when you are panning to appear gain

Hi
I Studied PMBOK-5 , 2 times and took mock tests from oliver leihman, simplilearn and Pmstudy.

Hi,
my advice is to pay that 125 USD for the premium simulator, I had very close and even easier questions on the exam than I practised in the simulator. Amongst the 1800 questions I resolved a bit more than 1500, in 7x200 sets and some quick ones. My main concern before I started to learn was how I could make sure that the tests will be realistic and not outdated. My decision for the premium exams here was the best I 've made.
In short, before you hit the next attempt get the premium, practice as much as you can (do at least 2-3 sets of 200 questions per week), analyse your failures and make sure to maintain a stable success range between 82-86% while you have at least 80% or more from each process domain.
Also do a final 200 set on the day before the exam, and I also did a few quick 30s on the exam day to "warm up my brain"

This strategy did help me to get through at the first attempt.
Good Luck!

Cheers, Ferenc

Sorry you didn't pass. I felt very uncertain for all 4 hours whether I would pass. I agree - questions very very situational and confusing. I found that free simulation tests by Oliver Lehmann were much more challenging and closes to the PMP questions. I scored 61% on one of them and then 72% on another. I did pass from the first try with 1P and 4MPs. Good luck on the second try! Glad you are not giving up!

i have had this paid 125 $ I scored 2 exams 70 % other tows from 63 to 66% and still failed --please advise

i studied rita and pmbok and scored 70 % for two paid exams from prep cast but failed how i don't know

I'm sorry to hear this. However, I am so glad that you are not giving up. You now know what to expect - regarding the types of questions that are asked. And you are correct, they were mostly situational questions. I read chapter-by-chapter PMBOK, Rita, and PrepCast. Any answers on Rita and PrepCast quizzes that I got wrong, I went back through the material and online to research. When I had reached the end of the PMBOK, I started taking the simulators. I first used Lehmanns and scored a 62%. This is the most challenging of the simulator tests that I cam about. However, it gave me a different perspective and allowed me to further research the answers I got wrong. I highly recommend taking this test.
I then did many PrepCast simulator tests, everyday, and again studied what I did not get right. I took Lehmann's again 5 days before the exam and then focused on studying and studying the answers that I continued to get incorrectly.
You have to understand, that the PMP is not about testing your knowledge of PM procedures and definitions and tools. It's all about applying the knowledge you have to situational occurrences. You used the knowledge you have of the processes and definitions and tools and apply it to situations. even then, the PMP answer may not be the answer you would chose. above all, you have to think about what the best answer is for that specific situation.
Keep at it. and review other's lesson's learned to gauge which study plan will work best for you. We are all rooting for you.
Time yourself on your simulators and practice process of elimination, because many of the exam questions will come down to this method in finding the best answer.
good luck!

I too, failed on my first attempt this week. Very discouraging after in-person class, thoroughly reading PMBOK, Andy Crowe books multiple times each. Was very comfortable with math, processes, all major outputs and the flow of ITTOs. Also took multiple mock exams (Oliver Lehman most difficult & realistic) and scored 80%+.
The actual exam is nothing like any of the prep I studied for months. Only maybe 5 math questions and didn't even need a calculator for those. 10 questions into the test, I knew I was in trouble. Vast majority were situational questions each with 3-4 good answers. AAAGGGHHH!
Knew I would fail after about 15 minutes.
The question I have now is: How do I change my study criteria to gain more expertise with these types of questions? More mock tests are not the answer. And memorizing any more ITTOs is a waste of time and brain cells. Is there a preferred text out there that other have had success with? Other ideas?
Appreciate any knowledge / advice others can share!

Hi, my best advice is to complete approx 2,5K test questions mainly in the same 200 question batches. Towards the 2K you suddenly will realise the real meaning of the question. In this the explanations of the questions do play a very important role. I completed the 1800 test questions + 650 additional on a mobile application. It is very important to understand why that particular answer is the right one. The entire test is for testing the situational behaviour, and you always have to decide a good and a better answer or vica versa the to pick the best amongst all the wrong ones. If you use mock exam questions from the public sites you will certainly fail... as those won't teach you this mindset. I can therefore only suggest to purchase the PMP Simulator and get on with the extensive testing. You will hate it towards the end but this is the only way to succeed. At the end this is an exam that built on testing only certain schemas of your knowledge, not the overall knowledge you might have.
Good luck the second time!

Maybe you should try other certification programs. I am preparing for the PPM (proficient Project Manager) certification. It seems to be more focused on your knowledge and experience rather than playing language tricks.
You can check it out here if you want: case-in-point-learning-by-doing.thinkific.com/courses/ppm-certification-course-and-exam

I paased my PMP exam on Jan 8 this year. I read Rita and PMBOK as reference materials. The issue is as situational as those questions could be, one needs to be analytical in answering those questions. Some answers might look correct but if you look deeply they might not be correct most especially the conctruction of the grammar using words like , is, may, will, shall. These mean different things. If you really have project management experience coupled with the preparation, I don't think one would have cause to fail. I manage to identify my knowledge gap and fill them and refine my orientation about project management to PMI-ism

Hey... I liked your post.... very valuable... you are absolutely right... its about applying the knowledge... not necessarily gaining it. Situational, Situational, Situational....
Do you have any good recommendations for a good PMP simulator site? I am looking into Rita Fast Track, Simplilearn, prepcast and oliver lehman.... still confused.... would appreciate your advice.
Thanks

I gave PMBOK 6 exam yesterday and my first attempt wasn't a success. Although I went through various mock tests and went through my wrong answers, followed PMBOK and the study material provided by classes I took. I was surprised to see majority of my questions of situational, hardly 3-4 numericals which were super easy and only one Crital Path based question. I got very disappointed by the format and the result.
From my personal experience, don't focus too much on formula based questions, a basic understanding of how the formula is generated in EVM should be good enough, it's only 5 out of 200 i.e. 2.5% weightage, my expectations were at least 10% i.e. 20 Questions which should be formula based, didn't happen.

How was the 6th edition exam? I'm planning on taking it in a month.

What exam simulator did you use?

I took the Joseph Philips course - which was amazing and studied the PMBOK. The questions were super situational and tough. Planning to give it again next month with more practice in the simulators and more revision of the key topics in Executing, Monitoring and Controlling.

Hello All,

I did rigorous study for 5 weeks and my mock exam scores were 72%. Please suggest how should I plan for second attempt. Do you think I should wait longer or try again soon?
My scores are:
Initiating: Above Target
Planning: Below Target
Executing: Target
M&C: Target
Closing: need improvement

Hi Reshma, unfortunately you need to perform mock exams steadily at 85%. The results show where you need improvement.

Cheers,
Feri

Could you please tell me which simulator you used? (1800+650 additional questions)
Thank you kindly

I took the ExamsPM with Helena and failed in the first attempt.

I too studied from Rita's book but the questions given there are absurd. I think it is an overrated book.
I am now concentrating on PMBOK only

I did not use PreCast (I used Project Management Academy) and would agree with most of the responses. Here was my experience

So i took the test and it was awful. I scored very poorly on 3 of the 5 and below on another. Like one of the responders said, within 15 minutes I knew I would fail
.. a few thoughts.
1) This isn’t like any normal high school / college exam, there are no questions about ‘name this’ or straight up sort of test your knowledge. Most if not all questions are situational and a lot had terms i had never seen or answers that i had never heard of. Most seemed that you could argue 2 or 3 answers
2) There were less than 3 math questions
3) I swear there were 25 questions where the answer made sense to go with ‘do the change request process’, it felt like a catch all but you could always argue that could be right
4) I didn’t really do a brain dump on paper. I don’t think that would have helped
5) Memorizing / brain dumping actually to me wouldn’t help because just by having the processes written down in front of you doesn’t really help you if you don’t understand the intricacies of each of the processes.. the ITTO’s, etc.
6) Although I got my ass kicked, and kicked hard, i’m glad i did this because i think it will better help me prepare for the next time around…. .that leads me to ask you. What can i do to better prepare. I think I approached this like I did back in high school an college… that is to say memorizing factoids, trying to memorize the Process groups. I swear that doesn’t help you in this test.

People seem to suggest the simulator, has it worked?

Any advice would be great!

I feel your pain man, you had the exact same test experience I had today, was getting 80s on (project academy) online timed 200 question courses . Cycled through the entire study program and thousands of process and knowledge body tests. Hit the exam start and felt lost the first half of the test all situational and change order questions with multiple plausible answers. Been a project manager for 20 plus years and that didn’t help at all as well. Really need a situational simulator. Seemed as the test questions did not give you enough info to place you in the process or knowledge area. Left me assuming a lot. Let me know if you come across a good simulator. Don’t give up man. I’m signing up again for another exam before July when the pmp changes the pmbok & test again.