5 Tips To Pass Your PMP In First Attempt

During my experience as a project and program manager, I have helped and mentored several people in my personal and professional circle to pass PMP in first attempt and they have all regarded the advice as valuable and instrumental in passing the exam. This blog has provided me an opportunity to organize my thoughts and write down all those tips so that more people interested in project management track can benefit from the same. I had passed the exam back in 2012 and have maintained the credential ever since.

 Tips to pass the exam in first attempt

1. Many experienced project managers make the mistake of believing that their experience alone is sufficient to pass the exam. I agree that experience is essential but certainly not sufficient! You need to supplement that with reading the PMBOK latest edition and other reference books such as Rita Mulcahy latest edition (I highly recommend reading both these books end-to-end twice) and take mock tests ( I would recommend doing mock tests fromwww.simplilearn.com as they are effective and reasonably priced. You get PMBOK free when you become PMI member, so it makes a lot of sense to become a member atwww.pmi.org first.
2. A duration of 3 months is more than sufficient to prepare and give the exam. Planning too much in advance or not zeroing in on the date of the exam just leads to procrastination. Scheduling your exam also gives you a target to adhere to and gives new vigor to the preparation. So, schedule your exam and stick to the date!
3. Complete you PMP application process before you complete your preparation. The application process is quite a detailed one and you have to show that you have 4500+ hours of project experience, but there are very good templates available online which can help you.. one tha I particularly like is inpassionatepm.com. Also, do not lie on the application since that’s not ethical and if it is audited, then you will be in trouble. When you mention your old and current supervisors’ names on the application, make sure you reach out to them and ensure they are still reachable and ready to provide endorsement in case your application goes through the random audit.
4. The questions on the PMP exam assume large projects. If you have lack of experience working in large scale project, you may need more preparation and understanding of tools and processes. Also, be mindful of those “Which is not” questions, they can be easily confusing if you don’t pay attention.
5. The internet has a large free repository of mock questions. Make sure you do as many questions as you can. Mock tests are super important too. Without doing any mock tests or practice questions, don’t expect to pass the test.  PMI does not prescribe how many questions you must answer to pass the exam. Just to be safe, try to get 85% of questions correct when you are doing mock tests. That way, you know when you are ready for the actual test.

Hope these simple and practical tips help you in your journey to become PMP certified. Feel free to ask questions or leave comments in the box below and I will be happy to answer any questions you may have!