TOPIC: Help Needed!! PMP exam preparation

Hi,

Needed help on PMP exam preparation. I have been using PM Prep cast exam simulator for a 20 days and have completed about 1300+ questions and plan on completing the rest in the coming few days. My PMP exam is scheduled in 10 days and I am worried about my performance based on the quizzes and Mock exams I have taken at PM Prep cast. My average scores on the timed quizzes are between 60-65% and on the 3 exams that I have taken with a one week gap between each is 53%, 62% and 63%.
Considering I am failing in all of it, I am just worried that I won't be able to do justice to myself in the exam.

After every quiz and exam I review the right and wrong answers. But the problem I face is my weakness vary every time between a few knowledge areas and I am getting tired as the scores are not improving. I also read on the forums that Study Hall (SH) and the PMP exam are vague than the PM prep cast which makes me nervous. I have been putting in efforts for the last 3 months and still unable to do well. Should I look for any other source to study or do something which I have been following over the last month.

Can someone help or guide me on how I can improve by another 10% so that I can get some confidence going into the exam. I do not want to postpone as I feel I have put a lot of effort into studying.

Appreciate your response in advance.

Hi Manu,
If it were me, there are a few areas I would analyse to see how best I could help myself. It's sometimes painful to go through this, to dig down and isolate the root causes, but it's necessary if we want to find the solution.

First of all, when you are reviewing the quiz and practice exam questions that you haven't answered correctly, are these generally due to you not knowing the subject material well enough, or is there also a component of answering technique involved? By which I mean, you're not identifying the correct answers due to not having read or understood the question/answer options fully in the time provided, or something similar. If you do a large batch of quiz questions now, but take as much time as you need (selecting the untimed variant), do you obtain significantly better scores?

Outside of PM Prepcast, what have you used as study material in your preparation? How well do you feel you have internalized the content that you have studied. How do you actively absorb the material? Do you write and edit study notes? Do you use tools like flash cards for memorization of glossary definitions and the like?
Are there other important texts that you haven't yet studied? I recall there being a thread somewhere here that identifies the most recommended content, which is not necessarily all PMI publications. Is it worth accessing any that you don't have?

Is there perhaps someone you have studied under or alongside, who has got to know you and who you feel you can talk with frankly? Could you sit down with them and ask them to give you an objective outside perspective on where you could improve?

Finally, you mention that your exam is due to take place in 10 days' time and that don't want to postpone. I can well understand that, but perhaps don't reject that option entirely. Unless I'm mistaken, rescheduling costs USD 70. That isn't nothing, but it's by far the cheapest option. If one fails the PMP, retaking costs significantly more -- not to mention that one of the three possible exam sittings in the eligibility period will have been used up.
It's up to you to weigh the importance of the financial cost of these options against the possible time lost and emotional cost to you of either postponing or possibly not passing on your first attempt. You could also pass in 10 days's time, of course, I'm just looking at worst possible scenarios.

Hoping this all helps in some way. All the best.

Hi Dominic,

Appreciate your response on the following topic.

Apart from PM prep cast, I have familiarised myself with PMBOK 7, Process guide and Agile books. I haven't really done the flash cards, let me consider it.
While answering the quizzes or the exam I try to eliminate answer choices and it boil downs to 2 choices and 95% of the time I am choosing the wrong one. I think I am lacking that little bit clarity or understanding the question. At the same time I rush through keeping in mind the time limit and we need to answer 180 odd questions.

Regarding seeking support from a friend who is studying for PMP, unfortunately I don't have anyone. But, I will consider some of your suggestions on flash cards and taking easy on the untimed variant.
I also realised that I am weak in the process section, so would you suggest some techniques or ideas on how I can improve in this area.

The reason I don't plan on moving the exam is only that I feel I am failing by about 5%-10% so I want to also believe that over the next 10days I want to improve and make it over the line.
If there is anything that you feel I should do, I appreciate your response.

Thank you very much once again.

Hi Manu,
With fewer than ten days to go, the most useful thing is probably to complete the remaining PM Prepcast questions through your fourth practice exam and quizzes, continuing to review in detail afterwards.
I would also advise spending some time to establish a good time-management strategy for the real exam (having time targets for various points on the countdown timer, having a plan for when to stop and return later to more challenging questions using the 'review' option, etc.).

My previous question regarding how you fare when answering the quiz questions without any time pressure was to see if that was an important factor for you. I don't know how to reduce question answering time rapidly, but I suspect that more and more practice (through the remaining quizzes and practice exam) should help in the long term.

One of the most useful things to me -- I emphasize that, because we all learn differently -- when I started my PMP studies was building up a library of flash cards, a little each day over several weeks. I used all of the content from the glossary of the Agile Practice Guide and PMBOK7, plus other terms culled from the November 2020 edition of The Scrum Guide (Schwaber & Sutherland), which I think you can find free online. I used the cards whenever I had a free moment and I felt at the time that my ability to choose the correct answer from the options in PM Prepcast quizzes increased a great deal, thanks mainly to being so familiar with the terms, definitions and the language involved. With very little time left, I would not necessarily advise you to spend it in creating the many hundreds of cards involved. You may be able to find ready-to-use collections of PMP-themed cards available online, even for free, on flash card applications with crowd-sourced content. (I believe that typing them all myself helped me to absorb the information better than if I just read the cards and practiced with them, but that may be wishful thinking on my part.)

This is just what strikes me as possibly useful to you at this point in your exam preparation. You're free to ignore any and all of it. I hope others with other perspectives will jump in.
Wishing you well in this challenge.

Hi Dominic,

Appreciate your feedback and suggestions. I will try to follow the suggestions and see how it works.

Also, there is no harm in what you have suggested maybe it'll help me in the time I have.

Thanks for your response.

Hi! Have you decided to take the exam? What was the result in the end?

Hi Manu,
I want to suggest to practice more and more and then sit exam. I failed the PMP exam because I didn't understand all domain with detail and clearly. My knowledge is not enough to sit the exam.
Before I sit the exam, I took rehersal exam and I got above 75% but I fail. Real exam is more difficult than practice exams .
Thus you should need to practice as per my experience.