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Topic History of : Passed PMP, 1st attempt, 9/5/19–Part 3 of 4: Exam Interface/Answering Questions
Max. showing the last 6 posts - (Last post first)
4 years 1 week ago #18506 | |
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Lisa Sweeney PMP |
My Lessons Learned are lengthy, so I posted them as separate topics:
Passed PMP, first attempt, 9/5/19 – Part 1 of 4: Study Aids Passed PMP, first attempt, 9/5/19 – Part 2 of 4: Driving to the Exam & At the Exam Center, Pearson VUE Experience Passed PMP, first attempt, 9/5/19 – Part 3 of 4: Exam Interface & Answering Questions, Pearson VUE Experience Passed PMP, first attempt, 9/5/19 – Part 4 of 4: Exam Question Types & PMI Shaming Here’s Part 3 of 4: Exam Interface & Answering Questions, Pearson VUE Experience III. The Exam Interface NOTE: Screen shots in this section came from the following 2 sites. They are similar to my exam experience: Pearson VUE exam-day experience Computer Based Testing Tutorial Screenshots BAD news: My exam had a BAD INTERFACE compared to the PM Exam Simulator’s. GOOD news: My computer’s response time was lightning fast - no waiting between clicks! 1) Embedded Tools:
NOTE: Pearson’s screen displays were a lot different than what I was expecting. The next 6 items were shown in blue toolbars at the very top and bottom of the screen outside the question area. 2) Time Remaining My countdown clock showed how many hours, minutes, and seconds were left. 3) Progress Indicator (a misnomer) The Progress Indicator under Time Remaining displayed 2 things:
4) Flag for Review To flag a question for review, I clicked the button in the upper right corner labeled Flag for Review. When it turned yellow, the question had been successfully flagged. To un-flag the question, I clicked the Flag for Review button again and the yellow disappeared. I couldn’t see it at the time, but small flag icons began to appear on the pop-up Review screen next to the question numbers I had flagged. For examples of this, see point 7 below, “Question 6” and “Question 10”. 5) Type Size Adjust the type size on Pearson’s screen if your fonts are clown-sized. My exam’s words were huge. Looking back, I wish I had changed it. The button was at the top right of my screen, Normal Font. 6) Navigation Pearson’s navigation choices were at the very bottom right of the screen. When I wanted to review questions, I selected Navigator. Then, a pop-up screen appeared listing all the questions (see below). 7) Exam Review Screen (pop-up) Click the Navigator button when you are viewing a question to get this pop-up window. I added Unseen on the above image, because my exam displayed it next to questions I hadn’t viewed. On my Review pop-up, the blue toolbar at the bottom had these options to choose from:
The pop-up was small. At first, I could only view 6 lines at a time. It was difficult to see the number of questions I had left to answer. I opened the pop-up more and used the scrollbar. The scrollbar wasn’t very user-friendly either. I just counted the questions that said Incomplete and Unseen to get a real sense of what I had left to finish. IV. Answering the Questions 1) #1 Strategy – This is the most critical point in all my Lessons Learned: On my first pass through the exam, I automatically skipped all questions that were more than 2 sentences or had any calculations. The shorter the better. My exam did have a number of short questions with just 1 or 2 sentences. If a question had more than 2 sentences, I didn’t Flag for Review, I just selected Next. I practiced this strategy on all 8 simulated exams I took. This technique, suggested by my PMP Exam Coach Kevin Reilly, (Kevin W. Reilly, PMP, ACP, CSP) made a huge difference in my test score because of PMI’s inclusion of “experimental questions”– 25 long, vague ones that are not counted towards your score. You have to practice this, however, because on THE day, you may get swept up in reading all questions in the first pass. Why it works: Let’s say you answer 50 questions on your first pass through the exam. If it takes you 2-3 seconds each question to count the number of sentences and click Next, you only lose 5-7 minutes with this strategy. Remember, the computer’s response time was lightning fast – no pauses between clicks. After the first pass, I started to tackle the 3+ sentence and calculation questions. I was banking on the probability that the unscored, “experimental questions” were in this second group of longer, more vague questions. If they were particularly ambiguous or lengthy, I skipped them again. I Flagged for Review questions that I answered, but felt there was more than 1 good choice. 2) More Strategies –
3) Last Questions Were Awful – In a word, it was an awful experience all in all. I ran out of time. I had a couple of minutes left with 20 questions unread and unanswered. On these last 20, I could only read the answer choices and choose one. I chose either change request or a management plan. This is why it was important for me to put off the long, situational questions as much as I could. My hunch is that the majority of these last questions were not scored or didn’t take my target scores down enough to fail. Again, just a guess. With 1 minute 36 seconds left, I threw in the towel. I clicked on Exit and a pop-up appeared asking if I was ready to exit because I could not return and answer any more questions if I selected yes. I selected yes and INSTANTLY a new screen appeared, with a few sentences, starting with “Congratulations”. I blinked several times. I couldn’t understand any of the words after that. The next prompt asked if I was willing to take a survey (yes or no). I selected yes and was so bleary eyed, I really didn’t read the questions. I just kept blinking and rubbing my eyes thinking that was going to help. The TA saw I was done and came to escort me out. I looked at him blankly and realized I was supposed to stand up. I was shaking. I wasn’t feeling well. In the reception area, he handed me a paper with my exam results and that was it. He didn’t make eye contact or say anything. Nothing. I still wasn’t thinking or seeing clearly at that point. On the walk back to my car, I realized I had passed. End of Part 3 of 4: Exam Interface & Answering Questions, Pearson VUE Experience |
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