Failed PMP Exam first try

Submitted by amyg on Wed, 02/05/2014 - 14:54

after month and half of intense preparation I took the test on Feb 3rd and failed the exam with 2MPs and 3BPs.
Here is my experience and it appeared totally weird.

1. There were no questions related to ethics
2. about 20 questions related to EV
3. About 4 questions on network diagrams
4. About 2 - 4 direct ITTOs questions
5. Many questions were quality related,
6. 4 questions about team - forming ....
7. risk related questions
and mix of other topics

overall the exam did not appear difficult, I would say about 40 questions where I could straight away eliminate the two answers and had to think to pick one between the two. I did not take a plain guess, I tried to apply logic to get to the answer.

I finished 200 questions in less than 3 hrs and had 1 hour of time to check formula based questions and other marked questions. Finally I was feeling good about the exam and when I got the results it was very disappointing.

Their useless printout of 2MPs and 3BPs is not much of an analysis to identify the gaps either. Now I am completely lost and have no clue where to find knowledge gaps.

I bought PMPrepcast exam simulator, I consistently got 70 - 75 in all 8 full length tests.

I would appreciate help for my second attempt.

Forums:

General Discussion

mrjavaj

Thu, 02/06/2014 - 01:58

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Sorry to hear

First of all, you need to realize that none of Olympic gold medal winners, got the Gold in their first attempt of participating in Olympic game. It requires tense of preparation, commitment and willing to accept failure to scale to the top.

So, now what you need to do is step back, take rest for a week or two without studying or thinking about the exam. Then plan your studies again. But the key is that when you practice Rita’s book or other books, you must do only 20 question on each chapter, and evaluate the answer one by one, the right once plus the wrong once. NEVER GO TO THE NEXT CHAPTER, before you realize why you got the right answer and why you got the WRONG answers from previous chapter you studied.

After you got your score for 20 question, keep this result in a binder and labeling it “RITA CHAPER 4 SCOPE MANAGEMENT”, cuze you need to go back to it in a week or so, to take the same exam, possibly review your first and second attempt scope, and measure your performance.

if not memorized, you must know Rita’s process chart in your heart, that is a key, it is basically telling the process steps.

Personally, i was studying for version 4 of pmbok, and before i was about to book the exam, i had family matter and did not take the exam, then the version changed from 4 to 5. So i completedly dropped what i have studied for version 4 and focused studying version 5 and i passed the exam just before two days of my one year period...

Good luck, and you will do it in second attempt. That is for sure.

amyg

Thu, 02/06/2014 - 09:58

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Thanks for the encouragement

Thanks for the encouragement and explaining the process of studying. Here is one bad thing may be its a curse rather than a gift.

once I go through the test and review, then if I go back to the same test questions again within a week I wouldn't even have to read the whole question, I can just plainly pick the right answer. Call this photographic memory or not. But once I take the test and go through the explanation then that same test is useless for me to take again.

But like you said I will prepare and will take each individual chapters. I did the same during my past preperation and mostly I got 18 out of 25 questions correct.