It is a good news for those who are not getting more than 80% in the mock exams as I too was not getting more that 80% in some of the exam except Andy Crowe end of the book exam.

 

I prepared with the books from Rita, Headfirst, Andy Crowe and (Kim Heldman – use it very little)

I took the following mock exams

Edwel (very good exam; close to real one)

PMstudy (all 4 – they are all good and I got around 67%- 72%)

Oliver (good and difficult, 68%)

Headfirst (good and easy, 78%)

Andy Crowe (good and easy, 82%)

 

I also went through end of the chapter exams from Rita, Headfirst, Andy Crowe

 

The exam itself was not difficult. It has easy Earned value calculation questions. My strategy was to look the formula-based question and on the first look, if it looks difficult, I have planned to skip it and come back to it later. The rational was that I did not want to spend 5 minutes on a difficult calculation based question which has equal weight as other questions. And instead of wasting five minutes on one question, I can solve 5 other easy questions. This strategy really works for me during mock exams and at actual exam as I had plenty of time left to come back to solve those questions.

 

The exam has too many question related to risks. I think I got around 25 questions related to risk management. Then quality and executing. Very few questions related to communication management. Questions were straight forward, very few with word ‘except’, ‘all but not’ etc

 

I have prepared to take exam in last May-June timeframe. I have submitted my application and when I try to get the approval for taking exam, PMI selected my application for audit and that really put me down. The whole audit process took almost two months and after I was approved, it was very difficult to get back to study and focus again. So lesson learned is that start preparation and try to get the approval and then prepare early in the process. Don’t assume that you will not be select for Audit. I started to prepare again beginning Nov and then appeared on the exam yesterday that is 01/11/11 – strange date.

 

During exam, the thing which I realized is that, how a person who has deceases like diabetes or high blood pressure will sit for high pressure four hours.

Is this the right away to access a person’s ability in project management? Does PMI offer ways to award certification for persons with difficulties and should they? May be PMI can answer these questions?

 

I hope this will help. Finally, I am thankful to PMZilla folks and the contributors here. I took 25 tough questions exam from PMZilla and got around 70%.

 

Thanks PMZilla