TOPIC: Trick Questions - HELP!

I am having an extremely hard time solving these types of questions. I believe I have a pretty good understanding of PMBOK, and get the vast majority of 'direct' questions correct. I have been studying on and off for 3 months, and aggressively for the past month. This is extremely discouraging as I was planning on taking my exam on March 23rd but I simply do not feel comfortable. I am having a hard time "seeing the light" at the end of my tunnel and feel as though I will never be in a position to take it and/or pass.

I have read the entire PMBOK, taken probably over 300 quiz type questions, PM PrepCast course and just finished reading (rather quickly) over Rita Mulcahy's book. I plan on reading it again but more thoroughly.

Here is an example of the easy questions I have such trouble with. Below I will also list my train of thought, perhaps that will help understand potential issues in my train of thought.

You have a total of 25 stakeholders on your team. Due to some unavoidable circumstances, two of your stakeholders leave the team and you are not replacing them, so you hire two part time employees. How many lines of communication does your project have now?
(a) 351
(b) 253
(c) 25
(d) 300

In the question it states that you are not replacing the stakeholders but you are hiring two part time employees. It doesn't state whether they are a stakeholders or not but the previous sentence it states they are not being replaced which leads me to believe they are not stakeholders. My train of thought is, you lose 2 stakeholders and are you not replacing them, the 2 part time employers are not stakeholders.

I feel if I took this same question from 3 other practice exams there would be an answer as "We didn't give the replacements roles" thus making the stakeholder count 23.

Any help, tips, advice or guidance would be greatly appreciate.

It's 28 March now so I'm not sure if you took the exam or delayed?

What page was the question on in RM's book? I hope there's an answer key.
Listen, Mike, you indicate to me that you have studied a lot in short amount of time. You will be surprised by how much you know if you take a breather and take a couple days off from studying. Then when you return to these questions, they'll be clear.

Go ahead, apply the communications channel formula and check your answer in the answer key. I bet you got it right. Let us know.

Thanks for the quick response.

I was a bit flustered in posting this question and missed a few key points. I have not taken the exam yet.
This question was actually in M Fahad Usmani book, not RMC's book. There is an answer key along with an explanation and PMBOK reference.

The correct answer is D but I selected B due to the reasons I listed at the bottom of my original post. I narrowed it down to B and D and zigged when I should have zagged.

My challenge is I let the wording confuse me and result in the incorrect answer. Not just in this example but as a whole of all word-play-tricky questions. I have not been able to identify a training strategy that helps me understand how to attack these questions.

What prompted me to post this was to see if anyone else had similar challenges in answering these word-play questions and what they did to overcome them?

Hello Michael,

If i had a question like this i would have think this way :
What i understand in this question by "you are not replacing them" is that you don't give them full time contract as right after you finally replace them with "part time employees".
They are contributing to the project work so they are stakeholder as well. i would have calculate with 25 not 23.
I do remember Cornelius talking about part time during a lesson on HR management so i took my PMBOK to check it out and lucky me it was on the answer was on the first page of the Project HR Mgmt.
page 255 it's writing :
"Project team members may have varied skill sets, may be assigned full or part time.... "
Finally part time or not, they are part of the team and a communication channel.
Hope this helps if i'm mistaken with my way of thinking please correct me.

Cheers,

Noreddine.

Michael you need to use the formula N*(-1)/2 . (N=25) then times the (-1) would start off as 25 but you minus 1 to make it 24. 25X24 = 600 then divid it by 2 = 300

So, 25*24/2 = 300 so i would have believed the answer to be (D) Though i am also in the learning process to obtain my PMP.

These are very tricky Michael - but the key is that they are going to be PT. Since they are part-time it still would make them stakeholders. Hence why you are still at 25 stakeholders resulting in 300 as the answer.

What about the Project Manager? does he have to be added to the number of stakeholders?

Manu, when calculating communication channels, my understanding is that you should always include the project manager in the count. The example given above seems ambiguous in this regard, as it doesn't really say whether the 25 people includes the PM or not. But since none of the answer choices would be correct for a team of 26 people, we must assume they mean that the 25 person team includes the PM.

Initially, It stated you have a total of 25 stakeholders in your Team " This should also include the Project Manager"

Hi, I think you may be over analyzing things:

You have a total of 25 stakeholders on your team. Due to some unavoidable circumstances, two of your stakeholders leave the team and you are not replacing them, so you hire two part time employees. How many lines of communication does your project have now?
(a) 351
(b) 253
(c) 25
(d) 300

Two stakeholders leave and two new albeit part-time arrive so the base number remains at 25. (25*24)/2 = 300

I would consider " how many communication lines" Answer id d) 300.............253 will be correct if communication will be 23.

I think everyone is over analyzing this, the PMP exam is based on the logic/formulas in the PMBOK. So this is (25 * 24)/2 equals 300.

As someone who passed the exam, I would give the following advice. Read the question very carefully to ensure you understand it, but after you have done that don't then over analyze things.

PW

There are no "trick questions' on the exam, but every question requires you to *carefully* read the question and figure out what the question is asking for. It was my experience (and the experience of others on this board in other topics) that the plausible detractors are answers for similar processes, but not what the question is really asking. Generally, at least one and sometimes two, answers can be tossed right away, and the remaining answers have to be carefully considered.

No such thing as trick questions. I am afraid for you if this is how you think and approach the PMP. PMI has hundred of SME's in their payroll whose job is to make sure you don't pass. In other words to pass, you have to go to the deep end and know the material hence the term "situational". There are no direct or simple or trick questions that you find online or that give you clear choices or answers. This one you will have to earn, no shortcuts. All the best.