TOPIC: PrepCast questions vs PMI free questions vs real exam

Hello Community,

I have three question to those of you, who went to the PMP exam (passed/failed), and who tried both PMP PrepCast exam and the free test exam from PMI (the one you need to be a PMI member in order to get it free).
1. So far I have done 4 of the PMP PrepCast exams (82; 94; 87; 83%). I did also the PMI free exam - at 64,5%.
Did you have such a big gap between the two? If yes - did you analyse the reasons behind?
It seems to me that PMI questions need more intuitive answer (in a way they are simpler, but with strange wording), rather than the analytical approach that I used, while taking the PrepCast exams.
2. Is the difficulty level of real PMP exam comparable to the PMP PrepCast questions?
3. Are the free test questions from PMI free exam comparable (in wording/difficulty) to the real exam?

I have 2 weeks to fill-in my gaps and I will be grateful for your feedback/advice!
Many thanks,
Irena

I only used the precast test bank and took no other exams in preparation from my exam and recently passed 1st attempt. As noted in other threads, the prepcast test bank questions are much shorter than the PMP exam and a little more straightforward than the actual exam. In fact that's why it so hard to actually memorize questions from the actual exam because they are 3-4 sentences in length in some instances. That being said, a few questions were more or less rote memorization. The 1st half of my examination were generally shorter questions (though not as short as prepcast) and I finished with lots of time remaining. The second half of my exam was much was much harder with longer questions and harder questions. The exam is scored in such a way that the more difficult the exam, the less you need to score to pass.

My study plan had me attempting to get between 85-90% before I felt I had a command of the material. A careful exam review was as important as taking the actual mock exam.

The questions are kinda-sort-like this (which I just made up), though this is sort-of in the ballpark:

Question: Is it is company policy that only the scope and cost baselines are configurable items. Changes to the schedule baselines need to be signed off by the functional manager who directs and manages the scheduling department for the company. Due to a delay in a vendor delivering a required component, the schedule has slipped beyond a critical threshold and a new schedule baseline must be approved. The functional manager is away on vacation for a week. What is the best course of action for the project manager?

a) Wait until the functional manager returns to get approval of the new schedule.
b) Issue a change request.
c) Escalate to the project sponsor.
d) Get approval from the acting scheduling functional manager.

Answer: Eliminate a) project managers are proactive. Eliminate b) the schedule is NOT a configuration item, thus changes do not go through the change control. You are down to two answers and you have to pick the "best" option.

This question requires you to think about the configuration management plan and OPAs effect on project policies and processes. There is nothing in the PMBOK that you can actually memorize to figure out the answer, but your can take some intuition and think getting approval from the acting scheduling manager is probably the best answer as it seems there is a department whose sole responsibility it is make these changes and keep them updated (probably for the whole company) and there is probably a process in place for secondary approvals if the manager is out of the office.

What if the question said what is the FIRST thing a project manager should do and answer C was INFORM the project sponsor. The schedule has slipped and may want to communicate that fact FIRST, then get schedule change approval.

That's the PMP exam in a nutshell.

Here question states "New schedule baseline must be approved" which requires a change request. As per PMBOK if there is a change in baseline then CR must go through CCB. then answer should be B.

Please correct me if my understanding is wrong.

PMBOK, pg. 115: "Once the project is baselined, change requests go through this process. As a general rule, each project’s configuration management plan should define which project artifacts need to be placed under configuration control. Any change in a configuration element should be formally controlled and will require a change request."

Only those project artifacts that are fall under configuration management plan as configuration elements have to go through the integrated change control. In the scenario provided, ONLY the SCOPE and COST baselines are under configuration management. As per the question, the SCHEDULE baseline is not a configurable element. It only needs approval from the functional manager.

Hope this helps.

Many thanks, Devin!

Actually what you have shared answers my question. Seems the real exam questions are more difficult to understand than the prepcast ones.
This was what I suspected, and it can be quite a big issue for people like me with mother language other than English. The exam can be taken in several languages, but unfortunately mine is not among them. This, added on top of the whiteboard being practically useless, will make the exam a challenge.
So I cross fingers and hope to have luck with the questions
Let me also go through the real exam and I will share also my experience with the rest.

Many thanks once again!
Irena

Hi Community,

Real exam language is clear enough, and I did not find a single question, where I did have problems to understand what is asked.

A, forgot to mention that I took it - AT/AT/AT/AT/AT

Wish you luck and will post my lessons learned in the separate folder.

Stay healthy and keep on!
Irena

Well done.

Hi Irena,
First of all congratulations for your outstanding performance!
Now that you have taken the real exam, could you please answer the questions that you had posted initialy. (Cut and past below):
2. Is the difficulty level of real PMP exam comparable to the PMP PrepCast questions?
3. Are the free test questions from PMI free exam comparable (in wording/difficulty) to the real exam?

I can answer that. The 1st half of my test was much like PrepCast and I finished with a lot of time left (in fact so much time I thought I was screwed). I now chock this up to the fact that I had taken all the PrepCast tests and was just an expert on zeroing in on the right answer. The second half of my test was more like the PMI test., but not quite. The PMI test I think is a little off/vaguer than the harder/longer situational questions you will get on the exam. The PMI practice exam is great because it makes you deal with nuance, reading the question carefully, time management, eliminating bad answers, quickly getting the context of the question and ultimately deciding between two relatively correct answers.

Test taking is the best learning strategy, but careful test review is even more important. For each question on any practice exam you take you should be getting the correct answers down to two choices.

Long story short, each exam is selecting at random from the test bank for each candidate. The level of difficulty of the exam for each candidate will be different.

Hope this helps.

Thank you, that is very useful information