https://www.project-management-prepcast.com/

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https://www.project-management-prepcast.com/

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Hello and welcome back to the PM PrepCast. We’re the good, better and best PMP

exam preparation course all in one. I am your instructor Cornelius Fichtner.

Quite often, project management is not totally black and white. It’s a fact: A project

manager can respond in various ways to events. This means that you are not only

faced with the issue that you have a personality conflict on your team but you must

also decide, whether to address this conflict directly with the team members or if it

would be better to come up with a team building exercise that may help your team

to overcome the situation.

And what if during your exam a question just like this one comes up and you’d have

to choose? Which one would be the one to choose? Well… you’d simply have to

find the best answer to the question, which is what we will explore on the coming

slides.

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I am Cornelius Fichtner and I am the lead instructor. Thanks for your interest in our PMP exam preparation course. This free webinar will allow you to experience what the lessons in the course are like and will also help you on your road to becoming PMP certified.

The complete PM PrepCast has over 140 lessons that you can simply watch, learn from and then succeed on your PMP exam.

You can find all the details about the course and how it will make studying for your exam easier at https://www.project-management-prepcast.com/

And now... on with the show.

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First things first… Your job during the exam is often that of having to identify the BEST answer and not simply the CORRECT one.

The PMP Exam consists of 200 multiple choice questions that need to be answered in four hours. For each question you are give a scenario along with four answers a/b/c/d to choose from. More often than not, two or even three of the available answers may look correct. So your task is to first eliminate the obviously wrong answers and then select the BEST one from among those that seem to b e correct.

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• Just as a chess player must learn abilites and value of each chess piece on the board before they can master the game, so will you have to learn the mechanics of taking the PMP exam and what to expect when you arrive at the testing center in terms of the exam questions you’ll be asked. Being able to answer exam sample questions is crucial to your success. Sounds simple? In concept; yes.

• After all, you exam will only consist of multiple choice questions. However, there are a number of question types; each has their purpose and caveats, which makes knowing how to get the most of each question exponentially crucial. Here are the 5 question types to expect

• <Read the 5 questions>

• Let’s look at each in detail to see what you’ll have to expect and know.

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There are around 50 formulas that you must know for the PMP exam, so you can expect to see several FORMULA based questions on your PMP exam. Some are complex and others may be simple like what is the depreciation rate of an item that costs $500 and has a useful life of 5 years? Well… that’s easy, because it’s simply 500/5 which is 50…. No… I mean… 100 of course. But that is exactly the point I wanted to make here. During the exam you will have access to the built-in windows-based calculator on the exam computer. And I recommend that you use this calculator even for the simplest calculations. Otherwise 500/5 will become 50 instead of 100.

SITUATIONAL questions test your ability to apply theoretical know how to real life project management situations. Often, these questions tend to be very long winded. The idea behind this is that just as in real life you will be handed both relevant and irrelevant information. Your task is to identify what’s relevant, ignore what doesn’t matter and then act upon the real issues. Be sure to read and accurately identify the actual question being asked of you, so that you can eliminate the useless information.

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KNOWLEDGE based questions require you to identify the meaning of the situation based on your understanding of the facts provided. These questions also occasionally ask “What is the exception?”; e.g. ‘All of the following are subsidiary plans of the project management plan, except…’ Knowledge based question may also ask you to identify an example chart or list, such as Pareto diagram or a checklist.

INTERPRETATIONAL questions test your ability to deduce a situation or condition from the description of a status or problem. For example: “What does it mean if PV is greater than EV?” To solve this, you will need to know how a Earned Value works and how these two values relate to each other.

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SPECIFIC TECHNIQUE questions will provide a snap shot of a situation, like showing you a risk register, and ask you to either identify how and when it is used or identify an element that’s inherent to the tool, like the fact that the risk score is calculated using the probability and impact from the risk.

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So, there you have it.

• If you want to pass your exam, you need to know about the different types of questions that you will see on the exam

• and even more importantly you need to practice practice them

• So go ahead and begin by applying your knowledge on free questions first

• But then you need to move on to a high-quality online PMP Exam simulator like our very own PM Exam Simulator

• And the more practice you have the easier it will be for you to identify the best answer being from each of the question types.

I know this sounds simplistic, but it is no small task because you’ll need to be able to recall and apply all the theoretical knowledge required, combine it with your own project management experience and relate this to the question at hand.

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There are 12 approaches that you can apply when you are trying to figure out the correct answer to any given exam sample question. Well… that’s not quite true, actually, because the last 3 (Skip, Stick to it and Guess) are really approaches toward the exam as a whole and not toward individual questions.

Let’s go through them in detail

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After you read the scenario, come up with the answer in your head before taking a look at the answers supplied by the exam. You may already know the answer without taking a look at the four answers provided. There is no need to allow the answers provided to confuse you if you know the answer.

Read the answers before reading the question. This upside down approach can be helpful in the case of very long questions. Go ahead and read the answers first. Now read the final sentence of the long question. Now read the whole question again. This helps you see what answers are available, the last sentence in the question is usually where the “real” question can be found and once you have taken this information in, you can read the scenario and already knowing what possible answers you have.

Eliminate any answers you know are not correct. There are going to be times when you are going to be able to completely eliminate an answer or two which will make answering the question a lot easier because you have a couple of answers less to worry about.

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Question answers that contain absolutes such as always, all, every, never, none, and only. These answers may look good, but remember absolutes are a dangerous area since there can be exceptions to them. Make sure you consider the restrictive nature of an answer that contains an absolute.

Doubt answers that are not familiar to you. If any of the answers provided do not seem familiar to you or don’t seem to fit in with PMBOK language or terminology, there is a good chance this is not the answer to the question.

When two answers seem correct, compare their differences. In the case of two answers that seem to both be correct, compare the differences to determine which one is the best answer. There will be differences even if they are slight.

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Select the answer most logical to you, based on your studies. Remember that you have invested a lot of time studying for this exam. That can’t have been for nothing. So select the answer that seems to be most logical to you.

For computational questions you are familiar with do the work and then refer to the answers provided. If you are familiar with the required calculation to find the correct answer, work the problem before looking at the available answers.

For computational questions you are not familiar with work the problem backwards. Four possible answers are provided that you can use to work the problem backwards to determine which the correct answer is.

And let me remind you that even though the gentleman here in the picture is holding a calculator in his hands, you are not actually allowed to bring one to the testing room. Your exam will be on a windows computer and you can use the built-in calculator.

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And finally we come to approaches 10-12. And as I mentioned earlier… these are not really “question approaches” but more “exam approaches” and they help you get to grips with the exam as a whole .

At the end of the exam you will want to review and check your answers. That’s only natural. But please: only change an answer for a really good reason. Your first answer is generally your best so only make changes if you are sure or if clues within the text cue you another answer.

Answers questions that you know and return to those you have not answered later. Everyone has favorites. So instead of forcing yourself to waste time on a question type that are more difficult or complex for you, just mark it for review and then go on to the next one. Keep the tough ones for last. This allows you to obtain the easy points and spend the remaining time on the questions you skipped.

Answer each question even if you just guess. There is no penalty for guessing on the exam. So make absolutely sure you select an answer for all 200 questions on the exam. Because even if you guess…you have a 25% chance of getting it correct.

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By the way… did you notice that I left out the most obvious approach? I mean the one where you just read the question, then the answers and then you make your selection? I did that on purpose, because believe it of not, there is more to it than you’d think!

So here is the “traditional” way.

• Start out by reading the question. And then make absolutely sure that you understand what is being asked. You want to do this, because you have to understand what the question is actually asking and not what you THINK it is asking

• Then you have to distinguish between the important facts and the extraneous information that you’ll see in the question

• Here it is important to learn to ignore those facts that do not relate to the question.

• Once you are satisfied that you’ve read the question and truly understand what it is asking for… Then Read all four possible answers and begin to eliminate until you have identified the best answer. Usually two of the four answers will be very obviously incorrect and can be eliminated. Then weigh the two remaining answers against each other and make your choice.

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Let me finish by answering a question that almost every single one of my students asks: The question is of course: When do I know that I am ready?

And frankly… That is a difficult question to answer. Most of us will never feel ready.

But there is one metric that you can use: The percent of questions that you answer correctly. Here is what you have to do:

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Answer as many new sample questions as you can

Keep score of the FIRST time that you answer the questions.

If you are consistently answering 80% of new questions correctly then you may consider yourself to be ready.

Remember: I am not saying 80% of all questions.

And that concludes our look at ways to finding the best answers to sample questions. Until next time.

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I’m saying 80% of NEW questions. So don’t go through the same 1,000 questions 4 times. The goal is to answer 800 of those 1,000 questions right on your very first try. So you have to always be on the lookout for new questions that you have never seen before.

And note that the word MAY is highlighted because this 80% rule is just a guideline. Everyone is different and your mileage may vary.

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Let me try and explain this concept to you with this table here. This is completely made up data, but it does represent what I am trying to explain.

• The table is from an imaginary student who has kept track of 8 sets of questions that she has answered in preparing for her. You see the 8 sets listed in the first column.

• Then every time that she went through these sets of questions she kept track of it.

• You see that in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th column where she noted the % of correctly answered questions each time that she repeated going through a set of questions.

• What you will notice is that the first time she answered the 50 free questions in the first row, she only got 60% correct. Then she tried the same questions again and got 72% correct. And on the 3rd time that she answered the same 50 questions… well… she got 94% correct.

• But that wasn’t because she improved… that’s because she remembered what the correct answer was from her previous attempts.

• And that is true for ALL question sets that you will answer. If you answer the same questions over and over you will get better, because you will remember what the answers are.

• But on the PMP exam you only get one try.

• But now notice how the numbers in the first column are slowly increasing. How she is slowly raising her score over time. She is doing this by answering questions, analyzing what she did wrong, studying more and then answering new questions from a different set.

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• This is what we are talking about, this is what we are looking for. She is raising her score the FIRST time she is answering questions.

• So try and keep track of your score in a similar way.

• This student here, may consider herself ready to take the exam. Will she pass? We don’t know. But at least like this she has a performance indicator she can use to guide herself.

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The actions that I want you to take at this point are simple and logical.

• First you should begin your studies for the exam.

• In the beginning it’s going to be enough if you simply look on the internet for a small number of free exam questions and work your way through those

• But then… at some point sooner or later you are going want to find yourself a good PMP exam simulator and you can find a link to our recommendation in the student handbook

• And once you have access to this simulator then it’s simply study for the exam, practice questions, study for the exam, practice questions, and so on, until you see a steady improvement and hit that magic 80% mark

And with that we have come to the end of this lesson. So it's time for Elizabeth to say "X" and of course... I say Until Next Time.

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https://www.project-management-prepcast.com/

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