When to Take First Mock Exam?

Submitted by makarandh on Fri, 06/08/2012 - 21:41

 Mock exam plays vital role and one of the key element while preparing for PMP. There are several benefits in taking mock exams and most of the times test scores act as a confidence boosters, if taken at right time. Yes it’s very important when you take the mock exam.


I know few people who have passed the PMP exam without taking any mock exam, well that’s not really a point of discussion here.  In my opinion, it’s an essential ingredient and would like to be in the favor of taking mock exam as part of the preparation. Read my PMP LL on http://mypmpll.blogspot.in/

There are several mock exams available with varied quality and standard. It’s better to take mock exam from multiple sources. I would recommend www.pmzilla.com,BrainBok, www.oliverlehmann.com and there are many more.
 
Being human there is a natural tendency to see where one stand as of now during the study and its natural to look back how much distance is covered and how much more to travel and mock exams acts as milestones in this journey.

The preparation process starts with training to earn 35 PDU to become eligible for PMP. Most of the times there is a gap of few months to a year between training and actual exam. Thus in order to get prepared, it becomes apparently important to refresh the concepts, knowledge and solve few mock exams.

Many times PMP aspirants go for mock exams quite early in the preparation and it’s kind of mistake because though by experience we know many things but when it comes to answering the questions one need to be in different mode and follow the PMBOK’ism to answer the question. Poor score due to non-preparation or premature attempts to mock exam could make you feel frustrated and could make you disoriented as well. Upside is you will realize where you stand and how far you need to go.
 
In my opinion before taking any mock exam one has to read the PMBOK (All Chapters + Appendix) at least once and one more book. There are several PM concepts which are not being practiced in day to day work, which has to be understood well and visualized. Example : Per PMBOK, there are several conflict resolution techniques which a PM needs to apply based on the given situation. Most of the PM’s though follow some/all of them but when answering questions one must know the formal terms. Such holes can be easily plugged with the formal study.

The first round of reading sets the base for entire journey toward PMP, second reading (may be from other book) makes the concepts concrete.  
 
List of things to do before taking First full mock exam: 
 
Read at http://mypmpll.blogspot.in/2012/06/when-to-take-first-mock-exam.html
 
-Makarand, PMP
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PMNovice

Fri, 06/08/2012 - 22:14

 Great article Makrand.

I have schedulled my exam for this Sunday and focussing on notes,ITTOs and answers to wrong questions. Please give me some more advice for 1 day and during the exam.

makarandh

Sat, 06/09/2012 - 11:26

 Guess by now you must have finished with the review of notes, ITTO's et al. 

Make the plan of how you are going to go about taking attempting 200 questions.

Have a mind-map ready for certain thresholds like, 72 Sec / question.

Approach for reading (situational) questions.  2nd reading has to be quick.

Sometime you can get the tone of question looking at provided options

Quick way to attempt for numericals, look at the data from problem statement and glimpse through the answers and with law of elimination you may able to jump to right answer quickly.

Finally dont look at the timer countdown. 

Hope it helps

 

- Makarand, PMP

 

 

 

PMNovice

Sat, 06/09/2012 - 14:09

Thanks Makrand, Yes read my notes ,still reading Nayar notes etc.

 Considering that I am good at numbers is it ok to give a few minutes to the calculationg to get a sure right answer ? Also what in your opinion should be strategy for handling long and wordy(half page) questions apart from reading the last sentence ?

Thanks

makarandh

Sun, 06/10/2012 - 13:46

While reading long question, as you progress with reading let following thread start in back of mind, 

1. Diffrerentiate between noise and substance. 

2. Read substance again, by and large subtance is situated near the question (end or last para or last few lines).

3. Try to mentally map the provided information (Problem Statement) to the corresponding knowledge area  

4. Now look at the answers and see how closely you can relate the each provided option to #2 and #3

5. Rule of a thumb, there are 2/4 options are obviously wrong. 2/4 are close and 1/4 is the best answer.

6. Try to determine 2/4 which are correct, re-read those. There is a subtle difference (mostly of a word or two)  between best and 2nd best.  The more practise you do, it will help to easily make out the best. 

 Incase you concentrate on the noise, its likelyhood that you will get the wrong answer. Be careful as its tricky sometimes.  

- Makarand, PMP

See my LL at http://mypmpll.blogspot.in/

makarandh

Sun, 06/10/2012 - 13:52

Usually it does not take minutes to solve numericals. In mycase I found questions on numericals and ITTO's are quickest to solve. But yes even if its take minutes at the beginning the more practise you do it will take less time.

Tip: While solving numericals do keep an eye on provided options, halfway through you can make out the right answer (again subjected to the practise)