PMP Certification Training: PMP Exam Lessons Learned
Free PMP Training: PMP Exam Lessons Learned
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Summary
Join me in this webinar packed with PMP exam lessons learned from those who took the exam.
Joining me is Dana Domnisor, PMP, a recent exam passer who will share her experience taking the PMP exam at home. Learn how she overcame several obstacles and what she would do differently if she took the exam again.
The PrepCast team has been closely monitoring online PMP exam forums to help you better prepare with insights from successful exam takers and their actual test-taking experience.
Topics for this webinar include question types, question style, language, COVID-19 hurdles, formulas to expect, insecurities about passing or not, question length, question content, question difficulty, exam duration, and dealing with question vagueness and self-doubt during the actual exam.
Until Next Time,
Cornelius Fichtner, PMP, CSM
President, OSP International LLC
Transcript
F00.40 PMP Exam Lessons Learned
[00:00] [Introduction]
Hello and welcome back to the Project Management PrepCast™, everyone. I’m your instructor, Cornelius Fichtner. And this lesson is recorded with a live audience on Facebook and YouTube. And today, as you can clearly see, we are going to do a Project Management Professional (PMP)® Exam lessons learned round. Hello, everybody! So, yes! PMP Exam lessons learned is the topic of the day. Let’s take a look at the agenda together here.
[00:40] Agenda
And surprise! We’re going to start with lessons learned. Then, we have a live guest who wrote to me, oh three days ago and said: ‘Hey! I just passed the exam, one of your students, why don’t I come on Monday.’ So, we have rearranged everything, and you can welcome Dana Domnisor, PMP in about 10 minutes or so. Then, we’re going to go back into a few more lessons learned and we are going to have some take action at the end for you to know. As always, Qasim is the first to say: ‘Hello!’ Hello to you as well, Qasim.
[01:20] It’s Easy…No! It’s Hard!
The first lessons that I have for you is this one here. “It’s easy…No! It’s Hard!” Okay so, this is kind of a contradictory lessons learned and that s intentional.
[01:35] Lessons Learned?
So, this is what I have found in the last five days on the internet, okay. This is also why it has a question mark after. But it’s lessons learned, really? ‘The test was more difficult than I expected.’ And somebody else says: ‘The test was easier than anticipated.’ In my opinion, the bottom line here is this: Don’t believe one or the other. You won’t know until you have taken the exam whether in hindsight it’s going to be appearing easier for you. Obviously, if you prepare well, and you’re really a go-getter and a studier, it’s going to appear less hard to you. But if you’re just kind of play it by ear, and you don’t study all that well, you’ll probably going to say: ‘Oh my God, this was a really, really hard exam,’ right. So, instead of worrying about whether your exam is going to be easier or hard, why don’t you look at this as an opportunity to study up on the latest project management theories, principles, processes, techniques, and become a better project management in the process, right. Preparing for the PMP should be more than just adding these three letters behind your name. It’s a point in your career where you can decide: ‘I am going to step up my career.’ Yeah! That’s about it! Hello also to Kevin and hello also to Suleiman here, who have joined us on Facebook and YouTube today.
[3:17] Question Vagueness
The next one is question vagueness. This is a big one.
[03:23] PMP® Exam Lessons Learned
Because we get this almost every week. The questions on the exam are vague, really, really vague. And you have to be prepared. You can’t be prepared for this, but in your mind, you have to prepare yourself for these questions are going to be really vague. I’m going to be confused by them, okay. If you go into the exam with that attitude, you are good to go. Alright!
[03:48] Lessons Learned
So, here’s a longer one, right. This person was genuinely shocked at the difficulty and vagueness of the questions. This person has used Rita Mulcahy’s exam simulator and says: ‘Well, on Rita’s simulator, I was fine, right. But on the exam, 90% of the questions on the exam, I felt uncomfortable with.’
[4:16] Lessons Learned
Next one is very similar situational, pick the best option, not maybe like real life, right. ‘I honestly was not sure of a lot of my answers as the situations were unique and I had to use my best judgment.’ Again, the vagueness here. And then this one here: ‘In general, the question was shorter than in the PrepCast Simulator, more vague.’ ‘We have more references to specific process names, the exam was more vague.’ Welcome to the wonderful world of managing an exam simulator and developing questions for this. I can tell you this: If we, in our simulator, if Rita, if anybody in their simulators had questions that were as vague as on the real PMP Exam, you would be writing to us and say: ‘Your questions stink. How am I supposed to answer these? They are so vague. You’re not giving me enough information. I really don’t know why you’re putting questions this bad out there.’ Then you take the exam and you come back to us ang you go: ‘I’m really sorry. You were right. The vagueness of the questions in your simulator was correct.’ But we don’t want that to happen. So what we and everybody else does is, we give you more in our exam simulators. So, in our exam simulators, you get a little bit more information, a little less vagueness but on the exam, it’s going to be there. You’re going to be surprised at the vagueness in the exam.
[05:53] Question Types
Alright! And then question types. This is important for you to know because PMI has traditionally only had one question type. A question, four answers A, B, C, D. You have to select the best one.
[06:12] Lessons Learned [5]
Alright! But they’ve changed that. They now have matching questions as you can see here. Multiple answers, that’s where you have five or six answers. And then, it’s your choice to select two, select three, questions where you have to click on a chart, okay. More in terms of the format, I got matching, multiple response, 20 questions were like that. For fill in the blank, you have to type the letters, A, B, C, D. So as I said, there’s a question and you have to select A, B, C, D. But there’s also what PMI calls the limited fill in the blank. So instead of clicking A, B, C, D, you literally have to go to your keyboard and you have to type A, B, C, or D into this. I asked PMI why do you this, and they said, to give some variety. If you only have to click, click, click, click, click, that gets boring. So if you suddenly have something where you have to type on your keyboard, then that changes the cadence and gives you a little bit of variety on your exam.
[7:14] Lessons Learned [6]
And here also, there were several drag-and-drop questions. One click on the diagram question, oh, click-on-the-diagram question. Those are the ones where maybe they show you a diagram of an S curve of a budget and then the question maybe something like: Where in this diagram is most of the money spent? And then you have to go to the diagram and you have to go click. This in the diagram is where I think most of the money was spent. So, that’s the click-on-the-diagram kind of a situation. And then choose three, choose two and the important thing here is: If it says choose two, you have to choose two before you can go to the next question. You cannot leave it incomplete. So if you’re not sure, you want to flag them and then later on go back.
[08:09] Dona Domnisor, PMP [Interview]
Cornelius Fichtner: Alright! And now, it is time for our guest, Dona Domnisor, PMP, who joins us today from Luxembourg. There she is. Hello, Dona! Welcome! Dona Domnisor: Hello, Cornelius. Thank you for inviting me. Hello, everyone, from over the raining Luxembourg. Cornelius Fichtner: Yeah, thank you so much for offering. I mentioned this to you before we started. This is actually the first time that any of my students has come to me and said: ‘I would like to be here. I would like to talk about my lessons learned.’ You only took it a few days ago, right? Was it last week or two weeks ago? Dona Domnisor: Last week on Friday actually. A long Friday for me. Cornelius Fichtner: Yeah. So let’s see, Friday, we are Monday. That’s like four days. Dona Domnisor: Four days ago, yeah.
[8:59]
Cornelius Fichtner: This is really brand new that you have been a PMP. So, tells us about your experience because I remember if I read your lessons learned, you said: “I have taken it at home on my computer. And looking back, I would now probably go to the test center.” Why did you say that? Dona Domnisor: It’s true, it adds extra stress on you. And you don’t really need the extra stress. You are under pressure enough because of the exam itself. And the logistics and everything that you have to pay attention to because of the online tool, it puts extra pressure. It can be difficult to handle. Cornelius Fichtner: And by the online tool, you are referring to their online system, right, and a system check and all of that. You did the system check before the exam, right? Dona Domnisor: Exactly. I got an email with two links --- one for the system check and one for logging in for the exam. And what they didn’t tell me or it wasn’t there in the email is that after you do the system check and you actually install something on your computer, on the day of your exam, you should launch this application and start from there the exam, not just click on the link, which will bring you back to checking the system. On the day of the exam, I had to check again. Cornelius Fichtner: Oh, so, you also mentioned, you’re in communication and these kinds of things drive you crazy. It’s not communicated properly, right. Dona Domnisor: Yeah. And I was supposed to be there 30 minutes before the real exam started. So at 9AM for me, and it’s six of seven minutes past nine, still nothing happened. There was nothing happening. My button was not active. I could not click on Start Exam. And I started to panic a bit. I found a call center number, which was not directly embedded in the email or on that page, I have to look on their website and find the number for me. I called London, and they guided me through the process. They asked me to restart my computer. And then, my phone didn’t quite work to take, you need to take photos of yourself, of your working space, so that they see you don’t have anything under the table or around the corner. And they actually managed, I think, 9:33, 9:34, I was starting my exam. Then another exam administrator, I guess, started to talk to me. And he asked me to throw away everything. Cornelius Fichtner: When you say, he started to talk to you or she, is that live? So, you’re on your loud speakers? Dona Domnisor: Yes, yes. I could not write. But I could hear. And I could see him. And he told me that I’m not allowed to have even a white piece of paper or pens on the table that I wasn’t aware of. I thought I could have a scrap paper so that I mark something on it. And I started the exam, I think the first part is divided in three. So after the first 60 questions and after you revised everything, all the questions marked up for review, you have the option to take a break. Cornelius Fichtner: Right! So, you take the 60 questions and when you feel I’m done with those, take a break. Dona Domnisor: Yes. After question number 60, you are prompted to a screen asking you to review all the questions. And after you review them, they ask you if you want to go on a break or not. I chose to go on a break and it was something, a note on the screen, something like: The rules of the exam still apply during the break. And I was not sure, am I allowed to go to the toilet at least? Can I go for two minutes? Because I really need to go and to grab a coffee or something. And then I started to have a chat window with the option to contact the exam administrator, and he wasn’t very prompt. He kept on writing me: I’ll be back with you in a minute.’ Yeah, I don’t know for sure, something like that. Just not sure. But actually, he allowed me to leave the room. But you have to be back until the break ends, in 10 minutes. Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. To summarize, at the end of 60, you push a button that says: ‘I’m now taking a break.’ You are allowed to leave the room, but you have to be back before the 10 minutes are up. Dona Domnisor: Exactly.
[14:04]
Cornelius Fichtner: Now, before we move on to the second part here. There is a question from Kevin Reilly. And Kevin asks: “Were you able to do a Brain Dump” of some sort? Now, you already said they told you every paper has to be gone. So, you couldn’t write anything down. Did you use the whiteboard that they had to do a brain dump? Dona Domnisor: No, no, no, no. I was concerned about managing my time and I had a small plan in my head that every 30, each set of 30 questions have to be within 35 minutes, so that I can manage everything. Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. So, you opted not to do the brain dump? Okay! Dona Domnisor: I opted not to, but I think I marked up for review many questions, much more than I usually did with your tool. Because indeed they are a bit vague. Cornelius Fichtner: So, they are vague, right, like I said earlier. So, do you think that the vagueness of the question made you mark, mark, mark, mark for review more often? Dona Domnisor: Yes, that as well. But I also wanted to be more thorough to take another look even when I was inclined. I usually had two choices and I was not sure if it’s A or C maybe, but I’m strongly inclined to one of the two, but I still marked the question for further review.
[15:28]
Cornelius Fichtner: Alright! We have a question here from Alex, because you had to take the paper away. “Can you have water in the room?” Assuming the room isn’t good enough, you probably have to have it right there with you. Can you have water right there with you? Dona Domnisor: Yes, I think I had one in the computer of water during the exam and coffee. Cornelius Fichtner: What I know, you have to have it in a transparent container. So, it has to be a glass and water bottle where you can see through. So, my tea cup here and my teapot, that wouldn’t work because you cannot see into it. Dona Domnisor: The coffee was in a mug. It was in a normal mug. Cornelius Fichtner: Oh, you had a normal mug? Dona Domnisor: Yeah. Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. That seems to have changed. Dona Domnisor: No one told me anything about it.
[16:20]
Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. So, during the first set, what were the question types that you had. I talked about the multiple choice, multiple correct drag and drop, point and click, fill in the blank where you had to type A, B, C. Dona Domnisor: I didn’t have that. Cornelius Fichtner: Oh, you didn’t. You didn’t need to be typing, okay. Dona Domnisor: Not at all. But I had to drag and drop, and this pairing type of questions, which were easier than yours. Cornelius Fichtner: Oh, so pair one to the other? Dona Domnisor: Yes. Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. Of course, we’re not allowed to say what exactly you had to pair. We’re not going to go into the details. Dona Domnisor: I don’t even remember. Cornelius Fichtner: As an example, as an example, you have an action and an action in a process, for example, quality. And then, you have to drag this action to and say: This is an action for quality. This is an action for risk management. This is an action for budgeting. Dona Domnisor: And you have to drag above the others. So from the left to the right. Cornelius Fichtner: Oh, so it’s an overlay. Dona Domnisor: Yeah! Cornelius Fichtner: Yeah, okay, got it! Alright! How did it continue for you, part two? Dona Domnisor: Part two, I think, it was pretty smooth. Nothing spectacular happened. But in the third part, when I was at question 175, my computer crashed. Cornelius Fichtner: So, that’s five questions before the end, right? Dona Domnisor: Yes. And I knew the answer to number 175. So actually, there were five more, and I got a blue screen. I never got a blue screen on this computer I was using. Cornelius Fichtner: How much time did you have left at that point? Dona Domnisor: I think around 20 minutes. But I had a lot of questions marked for review because I think for me, the third part was a bit more difficult than the others. Also, because I was tired at that point. That’s normal. Cornelius Fichtner: I was just going to say, yeah. Dona Domnisor: Yeah, and I had quite a few questions marked for review. When I saw the blue screen, I didn’t know what to do. I panicked. What is it now? What is going to happen? Are they going to let me in again? Are they going to allow me to continue? With this 175, is it good enough to pass it or no? And I got back, I think it took me three, four minutes to get back. Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. So, you still had about 15 minutes or so, yeah. Dona Domnisor: Yes. But I couldn’t revise all the questions I had marked. Cornelius Fichtner: Oh, there wasn’t enough time. Dona Domnisor: No. Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. Dona Domnisor: I was almost there but I couldn’t go through. Everything I just got the message on the screen, I was ready for any type of message. I was so scared. Cornelius Fichtner: So, you make sure that once you started the computer back up again, you were able to log back in, and you were able to continue so, you could add 75, 76, 78, and 90, okay. Dona Domnisor: Yes, yes. I was at 175.
[19:18]
Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. So, did you leave any question in the exam unanswered? Dona Domnisor: No. Cornelius Fichtner: Every single one is answered, yeah. And, that is the way to go. Because there is no penalty for incorrect answers. But as soon as you do not answer a question, it is considered incorrect. So, there is a penalty for not answering. Therefore, you always want to, every single one, check them out, alright.
[19:44]
Dona Domnisor: One important point about it. Because I realized when I restarted the computer: Check if you have applications running in the background, because their program takes control of your computer and they can see what else is running and I wasn’t aware that Microsoft Teams and Skype were running in the background in my computer. Cornelius Fichtner: Oh, okay. Dona Domnisor: And then, it prompts you to close this application, that I wasn’t seeing on the screen. And in my desperation to be back again, to be back on in the exam, I uninstalled Skype. Because I couldn’t close it. Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. So, before you go to the exam, turn off all auto-starts, in case when the computer crashes and you’re restarting, these background applications don’t fire up. I mean nowadays, yes, you have Skype. You have Microsoft Teams. Maybe, you have Slack. Maybe you have another application, some messenger app that’s running. Everything’s running in the background these days. Let’s see, what do I have running in the background right now? Yes, I have Teams. Microsoft Teams is running. I didn’t even know it’s running. I have Google Drive. I have Google Drive running. I have Slack. So yeah, without me knowing: Why is Microsoft Teams running? I didn’t even notice, right. Dona Domnisor: And when I was back online, the administrator asked me what happened. I don’t know. My computer just crashed and now, I’m back online, sorry. And then, he said it’s okay. Cornelius Fichtner: Okay, allowed you to continue. Dona Domnisor: Yeah Cornelius Fichtner: The reason why PMI has this 60-break, 60-break, 60 is it is very hard to concentrate for 3 hours and 50 minutes straight. And, if you drink water, it’s very hard not to go to the bathroom during that time. So, they have to give you time to leave. So, this was like five minutes, five questions before the end, which he could probably see. I don’t know what happens if you have a crash right at the beginning. What happens then? Will they allow you to continue, yes or no? I haven’t heard any stories like that. Dona Domnisor: I’m not even sure that the crash was not their fault, something that they… Cornelius Fichtner: Oh, you think their application or the server, or…okay. Dona Domnisor: Yes. Because I never had this kind of blue screen with the message “Computer unable to…”
[22:24]
Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. When it comes to Pearson Vue, you get everything. So, you get from left to right, you get the people who say: ‘Perfect! I had no problem. I tested my system. It worked.’ All the way over to: ‘I tested my system. Everything was fine. Nothing worked. I couldn’t log in. Nobody spoke to me. It was terrible. It crashed constantly.’ So, you get all of it. The number one recommendation that I have definitely is use your personal laptop and not your business laptop. Because business computers, they are always locked down --- firewalls, virtual private networks, intrusion alerts, background applications that must run, you’re not an administrator, you cannot turn anything off. So, do use your personal computer. Now, let me test this theory: Dona, did you use your personal computer? Dona Domnisor: Yes, I did. Cornelius Fichtner: Okay, alright! Dona Domnisor: And in the same room, I tested it with the same connection, nothing special. Cornelius Fichtner: So, you’re done. You just finished. How long does it take until the message shows up on the screen? Dona Domnisor: Immediately, because my time was up. I actually didn’t get to push the button “End Exam,” or something. Cornelius Fichtner: Oh, you didn’t! Dona Domnisor: Yeah, because I was going through the review questions, review questions and then at some point: “You have five minutes left,” I think, it was a message at some point. Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. Dona Domnisor: Maybe, also: “You have 1 minute,” but I’m not sure. Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. Dona Domnisor: But five minutes, for sure. Cornelius Fichtner: There is a countdown clock, right? Dona Domnisor: Yeah. It’s big on your screen: “There are five minutes left.” Cornelius Fichtner: Okay, yeah. Does the countdown clock change color? Like it’s white normally, and it goes red for the last five minutes? Dona Domnisor: No, I don’t remember. No, I don’t recall. Cornelius Fichtner: But there is a message that says five minutes, okay. So you did. Does it just stop, you’re done? Dona Domnisor: Screen appears with a short message, two lines: “Congratulations! You passed the PMP Exam.” And I screamed. I didn’t jump from the chair because I saw on your forum that someone’s husband… Cornelius Fichtner: This is very important. Dona Domnisor: I was on the chair and I jumped and screamed. Cornelius Fichtner: Yeah, yeah, yeah, the celebration is fine. Once you done, don’t do this. Wait, I’ll go the other way, there. Don’t go out of the camera. Because now, if you’re out of the camera, they may cancel your exam, right? So, stay put. “Yeah, I passed!” And did you get an email? Was there anything else? Dona Domnisor: You have a questionnaire from Pearson Vue and a short one from PMI. I’m not sure about the order. Cornelius Fichtner: You’re exhausted. You’re tired. Dona Domnisor: It’s a very bad time to ask for feedback. I wouldn’t do that if I were Pearson Vue, or I would repeat the survey later on when people are not that exhausted and maybe disappointed or…
[25:27]
Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. Since we’re at the very end, let me take you back to the very beginning. Is there a tutorial? Dona Domnisor: No. I think, there’s none, no. I was very stressed at the beginning because I couldn’t start the exam, and you have three bullet points. If you don’t start it, maybe it’s not time yet. It’s longer than 30 minutes. Or maybe you already failed to log in to your appointment. You are too late. Then they’ll start to check if this is the CDs and what time is my exam. But, I don’t remember having the tutorial. Cornelius Fichtner: Yeah! Now, let’s go back to the end. No, wait! Let’s bring up this question here from Nivedita, who says: “While reading vague question, my min starts panicking more, putting me even further away from understanding it.” Did you ever have a situation where you read a question. A question made you panic? You go: “I don’t understand what’s going on.” Dona Domnisor: When I don’t understand what’s going, I usually get angry and I click something and I mark it for review. And at some point later, I come back to it. Cornelius Fichtner: You come back to check it. Dona Domnisor: Yeah, with a clear mind. Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. So, best choice in this situation Nivedita is make a choice. Mark it. Come back. Don’t let it get to you. That’s the important thing, right. The questions are vague. The questions are confusing. If you let it get to you, it will affect your exam. So, at that point, you have to realize what’s going on in your own head. Breathe in. Breathe out. D, mark, next. Dona Domnisor: Exactly!
[27:27]
Cornelius Fichtner: Okay, got it! So, at the end, you get the message “Congratulations.” When you are at the testing center, you can now get up. You can go out. They give you a printed piece of paper with your result. What did you get? Did you get anything from Pearson Vue? Did they send you an email or..? Dona Domnisor: They sent me an email one hour after the exam finished. Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. Dona Domnisor: It was “Congratulations, You Passed” and that I was above target in all three areas. Cornelius Fichtner: Right. So was that above target from Pearson Vue or was that from PMI, or was that sort of a combined? Dona Domnisor: It was from Pearson Vue and from PMI, it came Saturday afternoon, so one day, 24 to 48 hours, yeah. Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. And, have you already checked online if your name is in the online registry on PMI’s website? Dona Domnisor: I didn’t check today. I think I checked yesterday, and it wasn’t. But I can download my certificate, and I saw today the exam’s score in more detail.
[28:45]
Cornelius Fichtner: Alright! According to PMI’s Exam Content Outline, 50% of the exam is Agile and Hybrid, and the other 50% is plan-driven Waterfall. And this is the question that we have here from Miguel Escribano Nuño. He asks, in your perception: “What was the percent of Agile, hybrid, Waterfall” questions on the exam? Or did you not pay attention to that at all. Dona Domnisor: I think at some point, I told myself it’s a bit more Agile than expected. So, I think it was more than half. Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. Yeah, to me, this is something that many of my students tell me that they feel there is more Agile in the exam than Waterfall. I don’t know how to explain it because the Exam Content Outline says 50-50. So, 51, 52%, I will be okay, right? That’s just a small variation, whatever. But some people say it’s 75% Agile. Dona Domnisor: I don’t think so. Around 60, maybe. Cornelius Fichtner: Yeah, and this could, of course, also be if you have a Hybrid question. PMI says: Yes, this is a Hybrid question, but it’s primarily Waterfall, primarily plan-driven. So, they count that as plan-driven, but in our heads: Oh, this is Hybrid, right. So, how do you assign them versus, how does PMI assign it. Question from Andrey: “Is it possible to go back to marked question from the beginning when you are in your last…?” So, you get 60-break, 60-break. Can you go back to the previous ones? Dona Domnisor: You cannot. No, no. The first 60 are gone. You can’t go back. Cornelius Fichtner: So, if you are in the second, you cannot go back. Dona Domnisor: If you are only in the third part, or in the second part, and you don’t have access to others. And I think that’s the point, because you can’t go to the toilet and check a formula because you marked a question. Cornelius Fichtner: Kevin asks: “What materials did you use to study?” Dona Domnisor: I used Rita’s Tenth Edition, your Exam Simulator, and I discovered some YouTube videos from David McLellan in my last week of preparation actually. It’s seven hours video on YouTube, and this is it. I never read the PMBOK actually. Cornelius Fichtner: You never read the PMBOK? Dona Domnisor: Uh-uh.
[31:25]
Cornelius Fichtner: Okay, well, congratulations! Alright! What would be your number one recommendation here for everybody, sort of, in closing as a takeaway. If you had to do this again, what would you do differently? What would you tell our audience: Here’s what to focus on? Dona Domnisor: The stress that the administrative part of the exam puts on you is out of the question. It’s there and you have to deal with it. And don’t let the stress get you. Cornelius Fichtner: Don’t worry about it. This is live. I’m surprised that my cat hasn’t joined me yet today. Dona Domnisor: No, my cat also wanted to join the PMP Exam. Cornelius Fichtner: Alright! Don’t let the stress get to you. I think this is a.. Dona Domnisor: The administrative part that you are too late, or that you don’t have a pen, or that the connection is, it belongs to it. Focus on your exam. This is part of life. It’s not always, you cannot have control over it. It’s a separate thing but yes, it adds to your stress. Cornelius Fichtner: Alright! Dona Domnisor: And practice. I think the fact that I did three more exams from your simulator helped me a lot. It helps you learn how to be concentrated, how to be focused for four hours on the exam. Cornelius Fichtner: This actually answers this question here from David: “How many simulation exams did you write?” Did I hear you correctly? You said, you took three, right? Dona Domnisor: Yes. Actually, I had an attempt to take the ITTO, and I got bored. So I abandoned it. Cornelius Fichtner: Understandable, yes. ITTO, no longer on the exam. This is really strange. If we take the ITTO exam out of our simulator, people complain: Why don’t you have any questions about ITTOs? When we put it into the Simulator, people complain: Why do you have questions about ITTOs? So, you can’t, there is no way we can do it right. Okay, so you took three exams. Dona Domnisor: So, I took three, two weeks before the real exam. So, the first one was two weeks before the real exam, and I had scores between 72 and 76%.
[33:54]
Cornelius Fichtner: That’s about, that’s about the recommended target that we give to people. Alright! Dona, thank you. This has been absolutely wonderful. Thank you so much for joining us. Dona Domnisor: Thank you! Goodluck, everyone. Cornelius Fichtner: Yeah, and giving us your recommendations. Thank you! Bye, bye! Dona Domnisor: Thank you, bye! [End of interview]
[34:15] [Interview Closing]
Alright, everybody! That was our guest, Dona Domnisor, PMP, who just passed her exam a few days ago, four days ago. Alright! What we want to do is we want to continue a little bit here, and we want to take a look at a few more lessons learned.
[34:38] Formulas Are Still On The Exam
And this one here in particular, because people say: Formulas are no longer on the exam, and I can tell you within the last five days, I have seen a number of lessons learned that talk about formulas on the exam. So: “Formulas are still on the exam.”
[35:02] Current Formulas Questions
But, they have changed, okay. And they have changed because we as project managers, we no longer use calculators and have to do things on our own. We don’t really have to calculate all these in-depth formulas. But, we have to know how to interpret these, right. So, you have to know how to interpret charts. You have to know how to interpret results. And you can maybe expect one easy calculation. So, within the last five days, this is what I pulled off the internet. I had one calculation, and three to four questions on the SPI, the CVs. No calculations, the one there. One EVM with calculation, the third one, and three EVM without calculation. So, this is all interpretational. So, if other words, if I give you a number and tell you: CPI on your project is X. What do you do now? That is the type of question to expect. Or, you see a burn down chart or a burn up chart or a budget, or some sort of a graph that says: This is what’s going on in your project from a cost perspective, for example, what do you tell your sponsor? What actions do you take to correct this? Do you take any corrective actions? Those are the type of questions about formulas that you need to know.
[36:46] Not Sure If I Passed
Now, Dana, earlier said: I knew exactly that I passed because I had this message on the screen there that said: “Congratulations, you passed.” However, interestingly enough, many people say: ‘I’m not sure if I passed.’
[37:01] Lessons Learned
Here you go! There’s one: “I just finished my exam 10 minutes ago. I heard about other people being unsure if they passed, not in the end. So, I took it slow. I read everything once finalized. I read a page that says: Congratulations, and celebrate” or something similar. But, it was confusing if it said: Congrats to finishing the exam, or Congrats to passing the exam.” Okay.
[37:28] Recommendation
Same thing with this person here. This is exactly what actually what Dana had: “You will first receive a Pearson Vue email one hour or two after doing the exam. You will see your provisional score. Then one to five days later, email from PMI. Do not worry. You can also search Pearson Vue and PMI to see your scores.” There are a ton of people out there who have explained, you know, step by step if you are not sure where is your actual score both in Pearson Vue and on the PMI website. So, you can search for those as well.
[38:04] Lesson Learned
There you go, the third one: “Blank blue screen at the center for two minutes after I had finished. And then, “Congratulations!” I got so nervous,” right. And this person did it in the testing center, and when they got to the front desk, they got a printed result. And this is by the way, a tip for everybody. If you are at the testing center, do not leave the testing center without the printed copy of your test result. Very important, about four years ago, I think, a student of mine got their printed results and never heard back from anybody. Not from Pearson Vue. Actually, back then, it was still Prometric, and PMI. So he called them up, and they are like: We have no record of you ever taking this exam. The reason was, he was one of the last people at that testing center and then they moved the testing center, and somehow, the data got lost. But he had the printed version of this exam. He could prove that he had passed the exam, and therefore, he is now still PMP. So, make sure you get that printed version there.
[39:21] Questions Length
Next, I want to talk a little bit here about the question length. Because this is also one complaint that we often get on exam simulators. Your questions are too long. PMI’s questions are much shorter. Well, good news, bad news.
[39:42] Questions Are Getting Longer
The questions are getting longer, okay. “The length of the question this person says, caught me off guard. I spent almost more than two minutes staring at some of the fluffy questions and began to panic when I spent 80 minutes for the first 60 questions.” So, be potentially prepared that the questions are a bit longer that they are more like what you can find in our Exam Simulator.
[40:12] Rumor Has It
I also have this one here, but I want you to take this with a ton of salt, okay. So, this is completely rumor. I cannot guarantee that this is in fact true. They say that, this person said: “I had very wordy questions in the first 60, then it was easier, shorted in the middle, and then once again, wordy in the last, which is especially great when you’re exhausted by that point.” So, take this one with a grain of salt. There is no guarantee that this is in fact the case. I would be very surprised if PMI did this, but I wanted to share this particular lessons learned with you anyway. But, what I think we can get from this particular lessons learned is: When your brain is mushy by that point, be prepared for the whole duration, okay, and that it just drags on and on and on and tires you. So, using an exam simulator, being able to sit for 3 hours and 50 minutes in front of the computer and having done three or four tests, sample exams like Dona did, that is the way to go.
[41:25] Self-Doubt
Which takes me to this here: Self-doubt, okay. You’re in the 30, the 30 last questions and self-doubt begins to creep in. It can creep in even earlier, right. Do not think about pass or fail when you’re in the exam. Focus on the question in front of you. If you start to worry about: ‘Oh my God, I do not know this question.’ And, ‘How am I going to tell my friends about this?’ This is distracting you. This is not the way to take this exam. Breathe in. Breathe out. Count to 10. Move on, right.
[42:01] Lessons Learned
You also want to take each question one at a time. Answer the question. Go to the next one. Answer the question. Go to the next one. Don’t go: ‘Oh, I’m not sure about the previous question,’ or ‘I’m not sure about this one. I’m not sure about this one. I’m not sure about this one either.’ If you do that, you are just going to drive yourself crazy, okay. So, don’t do that.
[42:27] Lessons Learned
And this is I think a good summary: You will feel you failed on almost every question. But, at 180, when you thought your pockets were about to be a couple of hundred dollars later, because you have to pay the retake fee again, and you’re embarrassed to tell your family after all the hard work you put in, and you feel alone and you are cold, and then: “Congratulations” shows up on the exam.
[42:55] Expect To Reach A Point
So, as I have said a couple of times already today here. Expect to reach a point at which self-doubt starts to creep in. Everybody has that. I had that back when I took my exam. So, I knew for sure I had failed my exam. I was actually surprised that I passed, right. Everybody has that. Everybody goes through that. You have ups. You have downs. You have lows. You have valleys. You have peaks. That just happens. If you are in a low, breathe in, breathe out. Continue. That’s the only thing you can do. Focus on the here and the now, not the past, not the future. Read the questions. Read the full question. Read the full answer and move on. Make your selection, and go to the next one.
[43:48] Take Action
Yeah, and with that, we have come to the end of our lessons learned. There are more lessons learned coming up, just a second here. I’ll talk to you about that. But before we do that, I want you to take action. More lessons learned are available at www.pm-prepcast.com/ll as in Lessons Learned, okay. That’s where you want to go if you’re interested in reading more and current lessons learned. Have a few new ones there. There’s the one from Dona as well, and you can put your own lessons learned there if you have passed. Okay. And I mentioned there are more lessons learned coming up, yes.
[44:33] More Lessons Learned
We are going to do about two more of these lessons learned live streams. As you can see here, there’s a lot that I haven’t talked to you about today. I want to talk about the Exam Content Outline, Agile and Hybrid, definitions, ITTOs, question content, question difficulty, exam technology, the whiteboard, taking the exam, exam duration, time management, taking breaks, and ending the exam. All of that, all of that is coming up in upcoming; it’s coming in upcoming live streams where we talk about lessons learned together. And with that, it’s time for us to part ways today. So, thank you so much for joining me. And of course, until next time!
[End of transcript]