In this instructional video, Helena Liu outlines a comprehensive set of strategies to help candidates pass the PMP (or CAPM) exam on their first attempt. She begins by promoting a free 1.5‑hour class and then debunks three common myths: (1) the “formula myth” – formulas appear on only a few questions and a calculator is provided; (2) the “read the PMBOK cover‑to‑cover myth” – the PMBOK should be used as a reference and glossary rather than read start‑to‑finish; (3) the “I’m a subject‑matter expert (SME) myth” – real‑world experience alone won’t suffice because PMI has its own processes and reasoning style. Liu advises candidates to become familiar with PMI’s methodology through extensive practice questions and personalized note‑taking. She stresses the importance of a consistent daily study routine, treating exam preparation as a marathon. She recommends taking full‑length 200‑question mock exams under the four‑hour time limit to learn pacing and break strategies. Practical exam‑day tips include driving the route to the test center in advance and using the provided legal‑size scratch paper to sketch the PMI process chart. She explains how the process chart serves as a “skeleton” of the exam, suggests memorizing it, and shows how to prioritize study based on the percentage weight of each process group (e.g., Initiating 13%, Closing 7%, Planning 24%). Throughout, Liu encourages PMI membership for a free PMBOK copy and reduced exam fees. The video concludes with a call to action to sign up for the free class, subscribe, and comment.
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Hello and welcome. In this video, you are going to learn the tips and tricks that you should know in order to pass your PMP or Project Management Professional exam on your first try. Now before we get started, if you haven't done so already, be sure to sign up for our 1.5-hour free class at examspm.com/free. We will be going into all of these tips and tricks in much more detail, plus you will learn the exact study plan in order to pass your PMP or your CAPM certification in just 6 weeks. Now let's get started right into our tips and tricks. The first myth is called the formula myth. You may have heard people tell you that, you know, the PMP exam is full of formulas and you should know all of the formulas like the back of your hand. However, most test takers report that they only got a couple of questions on their exam regarding formulas, and you will also be given a Windows-based calculator during your exam, so you don't even need to do math. You can just use the calculator to help you. Now the number of formula questions would vary from person to person. So there's not a specific tag on the questions that indicate whether they are a formula question or not. So when you walk into the Prometric Center, the database will randomly pull 200 questions and assign them to you. This means that you could be sitting next to someone who is also writing the PMP exam and the 2 of you can have completely different exams. So the specific number of formula questions will vary from test taker to test taker, but in In general, it's not a major part of the PMP exam, so don't stress about it. You do need to know all of the formulas, but it's just not a major, major part of the exam. The second myth is the read the PMBOK myth. You may have heard people say that you should read the PMBOK from COVID to cover 2 or even 3 times. Now, although you could do that, but if you have limited time to study for your PMP exam, this is probably not the best use of your time. So how you should use the PMBOK is as a reference guide. So you're probably taking a prep course to help you prepare for your upcoming PMP exam. A better use of your time is to use this as a reference guide. So if you didn't understand something from your prep class, then go through the PMBOK and read about it in more detail, or see if the PMBOK has additional flavor to add to that specific topic. You should also note that you're actually getting a free copy of the PMBOK when you sign up as a PMI member, so this is really great and I highly recommend that you sign up as a PMI member because A, you are going to be saving on exam fees, and B, you're getting a free copy of the PMBOK, so it's definitely a better deal to sign up as a PMI member then write your PMP exam than to just pay for the exam outright. Which is I think $555 US dollars, and if you get the membership then sign up for your exam, in total you're paying $534 US dollars plus you get a free copy of the PMBOK. With your free copy of the PMBOK that you got from PMI, another great way to use the PMBOK is as a glossary. At the end of the PMBOK in the appendix section, there is a list of all of the terms that's covered in the PMBOK plus all of the concepts in the PMBOK Guide because the PMP exam is based on the PMBOK Guide, just before your exam, flip through the glossary. Make sure you know all of the terminology, all of the definitions, all of the concepts you need to know about project management going into your exam. So just to recap, the 2 ways that you should use the PMBOK is one, as a reference guide in case you didn't understand something from your prep classes or just want more detail about a specific topic, and the second way is as a glossary to understand all of the terminology and concepts in The third myth that we see all the time is the I'm a SME myth. So some test takers go into the PMP exam thinking that I don't need to study for this exam, I already know everything, I've been doing project management for the past 100 years and I know everything there is to know. Well, this is a myth because PMI really have their own way of managing projects. They have their own methodology, their own processes, and for the PMP exam you should know their processes and their way of doing things. So it's a trap to rely on your real-life experiences to answer these PMP questions. You should know the PMI way of doing things. And how do you know this PMI-ism or the PMI way of doing things? Well, it is through doing a lot of practice questions to understand PMI's way of reasoning and their style of asking the proper questions. And one great tip is that when you're doing these practice questions before and leading up to your PMP exam, you should also be making your own notes. So whenever you get a question wrong, make your own notes. Make a note for yourself in Google Docs or Word document of what you got wrong. And then the next day, just before you start studying, look over your notes as to what— which questions you got wrong the previous day. And at this builds up and builds up, and then sooner or later you'll have this note, this entire document of things that you should watch out for before your actual exam. And this is a really great document because this is customized to you. This is the exact things that you should know, and before your exam you have pages of notes that you should review. And then, you know, in the future, if you saw these questions on your actual PMP exam, you know exactly how to approach them. I know there's a lot of people offering free PMP notes where their PMP notes online or maybe in your network. However, it's still important to make your own because they tell you exactly what you should watch out for and exactly which questions you have gotten wrong in the past. The next study tip is to have a daily routine for your studying. Your upcoming PMP exam or CAPM exam is a marathon, it's not a sprint. There's a lot of information covered in the PMBOK Guide that you should So it's important that you have a daily routine devoted to studying. So your daily routine could be waking up half an hour early to study, or studying on your commute to work, or studying during your lunchtime, or coming back from home and devoting an hour to studying, or whatever. So it's really customized to you, but it's important that you stick with it every single day. Have the same routine every single day. Stick with it, and you'll be certified in no time. It's important to have a routine because there's a lot of things that you need to know, and if you tackle a little bit of every day, then you will be able to retain the information better rather than cramming for it last minute. And also, you will just be able to build up on your knowledge every single day. And remember, this is a marathon, so it's important to do something every day rather than, you know, just cram for it in the end. The next tip is to plan your exams. So when you're doing those practice questions, make sure that you actually do mock exams with 200 questions and make sure that you can do it in 4 hours or less. And because that you have that time limit, then this allows you to see during your mock exams how long you should be spending per question and when you should be doing and taking your breaks. So you can take as many breaks as you want, but they do count towards your 4 hours. So your routine for your exam could be You do 50 questions, then you take a 5-minute break. You do another 50 questions, then you take a 15-minute break, or so forth. So when you're doing these practice exams, it helps you figure out the routine that you should go into your actual exam with. So when are you going to take the breaks and so forth? So make sure you plan out your exam. So plan out when, how many questions you're going to do, then take a break and so forth. And make sure you utilize all 4 hours of your exam. Another great tip here is that before your actual exam, actually drive to the exam center so you know the route, so you won't get lost on your actual exam date, and arrive early just in case there is traffic. And the last tip that we have for you today is to memorize the process chart. The process chart is really like the quote-unquote skeleton or the backbone of the PMBOK exam because it tells you in just one chart how to manage projects and how PMI wants you to manage projects. So it's very important that you know this chart like the back of your hand. We have a separate video teaching you exactly how to memorize this chart, and we'll link it in the comments below. So here is another tip and trick for the process chart. So we have the process chart here on the slide, and you should have this memorized for your PMP exam. Another tip is that before you go into your exam, you'll be given 2 pieces of legal-sized paper that you can write whatever you want during your exam. So one quick tip is to draw the process chart right before your exam starts on one of these sheets of paper so then you have it with you throughout the exam. So if you suddenly got nervous or forgot something, you can always refer back to this chart. Now when you draw this chart, it does count towards your 4 hours, but I definitely think it's definitely worth it. So another way to think about this chart is look at the percentage breakdown for your actual exam. So what we can see here is that initiating makes up 13% of your exam, and there's 2 processes in it. Closing makes up 7% of your exam and makes up 7% of your exam. So just by knowing these 3 processes in initiating and in all of the closing process groups, that's 20% of your exam. There's only 3 processes, so these 3 processes makes up About, you know, 20% of your exam. So each of them is about 6 to 7% of your exam. However, if we looked at planning, there's about 15-ish processes in here. I didn't actually count, but it only makes up 24% of your exam. So each of the processes is about 1 to 2% of your exam. So another way to look at the, the exam and how to focus your studying is look at how the exam is broken down and then focusing your time on what's important, what's the most important, what's going to get you the most amount of marks. That's not to say you shouldn't study for planning, because if you don't study for planning, you're not going to pass your exam. But it's just about looking at which process groups gets the most marks and then really honing in on that to get the easy marks first, to get all of the low-hanging fruits first. Okay, so I hope you found these tips helpful. And again, be sure to sign up for a free class for more tips just like this, and we will go through an exact study plan on on how you can pass your PMP in the next 6 weeks. So sign up at examspm.com/free. Be sure to subscribe to our channel for weekly PMP or CAPM exam tips and comment below if you enjoyed this video. Thank you so much, guys. Bye.
