PgMP Exam Tips - Do These Things To Pass On Your First Try!

Hey guys, and welcome back to my channel. And in this video, I'm going to talk about some exam-taking tips for your upcoming PGMP exam, but these tips are pretty generic and they can be used for other certification exams as well. So my first tip here is to formulate a study plan. Just like how you need a project plan when you're managing your projects in real life, when you're going through your certification, you want to make a plan and decide on how you're going to pass this exam as well. So what One really great tip here is deciding on the date that you want to be certified by and book that exam. Now you have it set. Now you can't change the date anymore and you're committed to making it work. Now you will focus and you will study. If you keep saying, well, I will book my exam when I'm ready, then you will keep pushing the dates back further and further. I've seen people who have booked their exam after years from doing this. Decide on the date. Really important here. On average, it will take about 2 to 4 months for you to prepare for your program management exam. And once you have your study plan, you can still adjust it based on your personal commitments. The exam is taken at Pearson VUE, and if you do need, for extreme reasons, you can still change the date. But if you have it booked, it will prevent you procrastinating. Now here are the different domains on the PGMP exam. You have strategic program management, benefits management, stakeholder management, program governance, program lifecycle, program activities, related activities from the PMBOK Guide, and you also want to leave some time to do mock exams. Really important here, PMI really has a very unique way of wording their multiple choice questions, so you really want to make sure you do a couple of mock mock exams before your actual exam. So the sample plan I have here have you ready for your exam in just about 3 months, but you can take this as a sample and modify it accordingly based on your own personal schedule. Now let's go over some exam-taking tips here. So as a program manager, you know the importance of having a plan, and unless you manage your programs closely, the chances of success won't be high. You have to tackle your PGMP exam as a mini project. So try to set aside 1 to 2 hours a day for studying. I know this may sound like a lot, but you only have to do this for a couple months and then you are certified for life. So you probably want to set aside a bit more time on the weekend devoted to your studying. You also want to create a spreadsheet of all of the mock questions that you have done, and you want to circle the ones that you got incorrect, and you want to review the explanations for all of them to make sure you understand why got that question incorrect. Next, you want to mimic real exam settings as much as possible. So you want to complete your mock exam within 4 hours. You want to make sure you can do all of the questions and be able to do all of them under 4 hours. You want to aim for 70% on those mock exams. Now, no one knows the passing score for the PGMP exam, but Roughly, it's probably around the 60 to 70% mark. You want to aim at 70 to 80% on your mock exams in order to give yourself that margin of error just in case you get nervous for your actual exam. You want to think through the logistics of your exam. For example, are you going to drive there, or are you going to take the bus? Are you going to take it online, etc.? Even if you do take it online, you still want to make sure that you show up 30 minutes earlier just in case there's a technical difficulty. On your actual exam date, make sure you pack a bag with 2 pieces of ID, bottle of water, and some small snacks, maybe an energy bar or a piece of fruit. Get a good night's sleep as well. Scan through your spreadsheet right before your exam. This is a spreadsheet you created earlier with all of the questions that you didn't answer correctly. Make sure you review this spreadsheet before your exam so that you don't make the same mistakes during your actual exam. But during your actual exam date, it's probably not a good idea to try to cram and memorize more stuff. Avoid strenuous exercise on the day of your exam and make sure you eat a good hearty meal. You don't want to be hungry during a 4-hour exam after all. Try to get to the exam center at least 30 minutes earlier, if not 60 minutes earlier, just in case there's a car crash or you can't find parking or something like that. The person working at Pearson VUE will check your ID to make sure that you are you, and they will give you a locker to store all of your belongings. You cannot take anything with you into the actual exam room. When you're actually doing your exam, make sure you read every single question carefully. Sometimes you can find the answer to a question in an upcoming question, so if you don't know the answer to something, you can always mark it for review as well. After you click submit, you won't see your results immediately. PMI would want you to complete a survey, and after you complete that survey telling them about your experience, then they will show you your results. You will not know the score, but you will be told whether you passed or failed. During your exam, you may have some simple math questions to complete, and you will be given a Windows-based calculator to help you out. If you are taking your exam online instead of in person, please note that you will not have access to pen pen and paper. If you do take it in person at a Pearson VUE testing center, then they will give you a pen and 2 pieces of paper to use throughout your exam. You have to answer every single question from PMI's perspective. Learn the way that PMI wants you to do things, even if it's not consistent to what you're actually doing on your program. Let me give you an example. Let's say that your client wants to make a last-minute change just a few weeks before the final testing was supposed to take place. What do? Now, from PMI's perspective, you should reject that change, but in real life, we all know that you may be forced to make that change. So answer the questions the way that PMI wants you to. If you're unsure about an answer, just go with your gut feeling. You can always mark that question for review and come back to it later. If you are tired, you can take a break, but that will count towards your 4 hours of exam time. And if you you are suspicious of answers offering definitive responses such as never or always, it's probably the wrong answer because in program management it's very hard to broadly generalize. Always choose the best answer if 2 or more of the choices that you are given look correct, and you want to use the process of elimination to help you identify the incorrect answers. First, when you're looking at 4 possible responses, generally you can knock off 2 right off the bat, and now you have a 50% chance of choosing the right answer. This brings me to my next point: there is no negative marking for wrong answers, so please attempt every single question because you still have a 25% chance of answering it correctly. Also, just like managing programs in real life, you have to manage your time accordingly. You have to make sure that you complete all of the exam questions within the time frame given, so So you should be aiming for roughly 40 to 50 questions per hour. This means that you don't want to spend more than 1 minute per question in your first go. If your 1 minute is up and you still don't know the answer, then mark that question for review and come back to it later. You will be given 2 blank pieces of paper and a pen if you do choose to take the exam in person. You may want to use the first 5 to 10 minutes to create a brain dump for yourself. This is optional. Some people find it really helpful, some people don't. Make sure that you read every single question carefully. Some answers may offer a lot of information that's irrelevant and it's just there to confuse you, and PMI does this on purpose because when you're managing programs in real life, you will be given information that's irrelevant. Now you have the option to take the PGMP exam online, so if you do take it online, you will be given one 10-minute break at the end of 2 hours. Now, if you do choose to take this break, you can leave the room, you can look at your notes, you can do whatever it is that you want. But once you return from your break, you cannot modify any of the answers to the question you completed prior to the break. Also, when you come back from the break, you have to re-verify yourself. The exam will also not automatically resume after 10 minutes. You have to click on the resume button in order for it to resume, and if you don't do that, it will count towards your exam time. Only the 10-minute break will not count towards your exam time. Make sure you can mark the questions for review. And here are the different types of exam questions you may be given. Some questions will just be very straightforward. This will be a direct reference to the standard of program management. You will also be given situational questions. These questions are there to test your ability to apply the knowledge of program management and assess if you are making the correct decision. And remember here, always answer these questions from PMI's perspective. There will also be questions with 2 or more correct answers. In these cases, you want to choose the best possible choice from PMI's perspective. Always ask yourself what's the best thing I can do next? Also think about the next action that you can take, right? So if all of the answers look correct, think about what's the best and what's the next action I can take if I was in this situation. You will also be quite— be given questions with extra information that's irrelevant, and you have to figure out what's relevant and what's not relevant in order for you to arrive at the conclusion. Lastly, you will be given questions with a negative that's cleverly hidden. So do not overlook words such as except or not, and make sure you read every single question carefully because sometimes the question may be, which of the following is all except for this? And if you don't read that carefully, you may choose the wrong answer. So there you have it. Those are my top tips for the PGMP exam. Good luck on your exam, and be sure to follow and subscribe and click the notification bell for more Thank you so much.