TOPIC: Passed exam 9/11/23 - 1st try... I overstudied

I studied on and off for a year, but really picked things up in the last few months. I purchased PM PrepCast and PMI's Study Hall. I took all of the practice exams on both platforms and was getting about an 80% on the PrepCast ones and about a 72% on the PMI ones. I was not doing as well on the Business Environment portion - getting closer to 60%, but didn't care because it was worth such a small proportion on the exam (8%). I scored AT on People and Process and Target on BE. There were two formula questions on my exam. (I am not sure if I am allowed to say what the categories were they were, so I won't). The questions were all very vague. So vague that they were just general questions about what to do, what to do first, or what was done incorrectly, but mostly the first two categories. There were no long questions and the answers were not that long. There were not even really a variety of questions. I was surprised. I flagged about 45 total questions as being unsure of the answer. After the second break, I didn't bother to review the final final section and make changes or reread because I was pretty sure I had passed and that my answers would not change on the questions I flagged. Even re-reading the questions I flagged in the earlier sections did not make me feel more solid on many of them anyhow. I had planned to only spend 70 minutes on the first section and 80 on each of the others. That worked as very well, as I was getting tired towards the end! It left me enough time in the first two sections to go back over the questions I had flagged. I didn't use the review time during the third section and just ended early.
I know I overstudied. The questions were just so general that I didn't even see really any tool or technique questions. They were all just like A PM took over a project, blah, blah... what should the PM do? Or the PM is managing a project and a new regulation is passed and... what should the PM do next?
What I did not see is PMBOK language in the questions or the answers for the most part. I couldn't tell the percentage, but seemed like there were an equal number of Agile/Hybrid and Predictive questions. I actually find the Agile questions easier.
I did feel that answering lots of trial questions helped me. Because I did 7 practice exams in total, I knew what to expect of the test duration and my fatigue levels. It wasn't nearly as wearing as I thought it would be. Of course taking 7 practice exams takes a lot of time!!!

Hope that helps. Good luck everyone!

Hello Christine,

Congratulations on passing your PMP exam! This is a huge accomplishment, and I am glad that you ended up over preparing than not being prepared and failing the exam. It's always good to err on the side of caution. I am curious to know if the formula questions required you to write things down on the digital board and use a calculator to work the question through or was it simple math? The only reason why I ask is because you are the first person I noticed posted about having formula related questions in the updated exam. I did have a couple of questions with numbers, but nothing crazy that required me to write things down and use the calculator if you know what I mean.

I wish you all the best in your professional journey, and make sure to continue your development work to get those PDUs.

Regards,

Hi,
I suppose one of the formulas I didn’t need to use the calculator on as it was simple, multiplication, simple addition, and simple division. But I’d rather be safe than sorry. The second one required simple, subtraction, and then division but there’s no way I could’ve done the division in my head. I could’ve ballparked it, but not close enough to pick between two answers. Both of the formulas are standard formulas that are on every PMP study material that I’ve ever seen and easily available on the Internet. I had read that formulas aren’t that common but I figured it wouldn’t take that long and it didn’t take that long to learn the formulas. I am glad I studied them because I’m pretty sure that I got both of them right.

Well done, Christine,

I am currently studying and I also bought both PMI Study Hall and PrepCast.

In the PrepCast, I am getting around 75% but in the PMI Study Hall pretty low, about 65%.

I am very comfortable with the questions and anwers here in the PrepCast, even when I got then wrong, I understand very clearly why I got wrong and how to do next time.

On the other hand, I am really struggling with the Exams of the PMI Study Hall, I feel the questions are very vague and most of the time I dont agree or learn well the explanations they have in the answers.
The questions are most of the time too long and vague.

I am wondering if you feel your real exam more closer to PMI Study Hall or similar with here PrepCast.

Thanks a lot and well done
Fabio

I will let Christine chime in, but having done both I can say that the actual PMP exam was a good combination of both. This is where I saw the benefit of also doing sample questions from the PMI study hall as it prepared me for the intense vagueness. At the same time, there were also a lot of questions that were very similar to the ones you'll find in the PM PrepCast.

Thanks Daniel. Yes, I will invest more time there then.

To be honest, I thought that something was wrong in their similators, I paused the last time I tried and didnt come back anymore.

I admit that as I like using my critical and logical mindset, but t is not working well, while I am doing the PMI Study Hall Exam.

On the other hand, I am learning a lot from Prepcast.

I don't think I ever scored higher than a 69 on a StudyHall exam, but slightly higher on the quizzes overall. I do think that both of the practice tests through both venues helped me though. The thing about the questions that I had on the PMP exam was that there were just no PMI type words on it really. Not in the questions and not in the answers. It was all just vague scenarios. Kind of like if you tried to describe a book without using the word book and then tried to describe a bag without using the word bag, but you need to know that the book goes in the bag without ever seeing either word. (I hope that makes sense) I did not find the reading in StudyHall to be helpful. Honestly, I had a hard time following it all and it was just too much.
Maybe I got lucky with my selection of questions, but I don't think they were longer than 3 sentences for the most part.
But they were vague. My coworker sat the exam 9 days after me and she asked what to focus on and I said I have no idea. I couldn't really point to any specifics. I just think that being able to puzzle through exam questions repeatedly during practice and then taking all the practice exams really made me feel comfortable in breaking down the exam questions during the actual exam.

Thanks so much, Christine.
Yes, it makes sense to me.
Today, I completed my Exam 3 here in the Prepcast. I got up to now 75%, 76%, 77%.
I will keep studying a bit more and taking some timed quizzes questions. Then, next weekend I will try it again, the last prepcast exam.
Then, in the following week, I will try the Study Hall.

Thanks again and congrats to you.