I PASSED! #pmp 01

 

Earlier this week, I took my PMI Project Management Professional certification exam, and…

…I PASSED!

Thank you, Jesus!

This is a big win for me. Ten weeks of studying, 650+ flashcards (terms and definitions), and a whole lot of grinding out practice exams.  And the result?  Above Target in all three categories.  That's good!

The test is 180 questions that must be answered in 230 minutes - that’s 72 seconds per question.  Many of the questions are long - three to four sentences - describing a detailed scenario.  Most questions are multiple choice, but still very challenging.  There are four choices, two of which are obviously not correct.   The diabolical part is that the remaining two choices are viable responses.  You’ll have to think like a PMI exam writer to discern the correct answer.  

You get two 10-minutes breaks during the test.  The advice I’d read online was to make sure you take them - so I did.  I agree with the prevailing opinion on this one - unless you’re an off-the-charts genius, you’re going to want to take the breaks.  

This was my experience:


I went in-person to the testing center.  They have a rigid process of ensuring that you’re not cheating.  After verifying my identity, I had to turn off my phone, empty my pockets, and put everything in a locker outside the testing room.  I was allowed to keep my ID and my locker key.  

Before going into the room, you to put your locker key and ID on the table and do a self-pat-down, turning out pockets, lifting your hoodie hood, and turning all the way around for inspection.  I have glasses and so you have to put your glasses down for the proctor to examine.  They took it very seriously - no joking around if you want to take your test! 

I sat down at the computer and they logged me in.  There were 8 or 9 other people taking tests at the same time.  When I saw the noise-cancelling headphones, I was delighted.  I’d worried about distractions, but the headphones took care of that concern! 

The proctor logged me in and I started the test.  It was a bit anti-climactic.  I halfway expected a 20th-Century Fox-style fanfare, but I just clicked “next” and the first question was on the screen and the timer was counting down. 

I methodically plowed through the first 60 questions. The questions were detailed and specific - discerning the correct answer could turn on one word in the description. I had numerous times where I would read the entire question, but not comprehend the scenario.  So, I had to read it again.  The going was slow.  I flagged questions for follow-up if I wasn’t 100% certain on the answer, and for a while it seemed like I was flagging every other question. 

While working through the first 60 questions, I kept an approximate running percentage in my head of how many questions I answered where I felt like I definitively knew the answer.  That number was disturbing low - maybe 60%.  It was a bit demoralizing.  

I hit the first break and took it.  I walked around a bit (the testing center where I took the test let me leave the room, although I had to go through a full security check when I came back in).  I prayed - I bet I wasn’t the only one praying in that room!  I did some deep-breathing techniques, and asked the Lord to have them feed me some easier questions in the next block. 

They didn’t.  The next round was brutal.  I had to re-read numerous questions, and there was one question that didn’t make sense to me at all.  I read it, re-read it, and then read it again, but none of the choices appeared to be the answer to the question.  

Imagine:

“What is the sum of 4 + 4?” 

Your four choices: 

• A small piece of Swiss cheese
• A light shade of blue
• Ryan Reynolds
• 90 degrees

Like THAT!

I chose the most likely answer (to me) and moved on.  I wondered afterward if that question was a test to see how I would handle utter ambiguity.  Who knows?  Since exam participants don’t get detailed results (PMI doesn’t want their questions out there on the web - I don’t blame them) I don’t know if I answered it correctly. 

I also had to contend with some counter-productive head-games.  In this block, I began to imagine how it was going to feel to tell my wife and friends that I’d failed.  How distracting! I suppressed it several times, and had to pause to re-center and focus and then continued the grind.  

I reached the second break feeling like I was trending well below the necessary 80% to pass the exam.  I had 60 questions remaining, and only 52 minutes left on the clock.  That’s 52 seconds per question!  I took the break, cleared my head, did some more deep-breathing, prayed some more, and then set my resolve.  I figured if I was going to fail, I would at least finish. I wasn’t going to leave any unanswered questions on the table.  I was going to leave it all on the field. I resolved to read the question as quickly as possible, and then answer immediately, totally giving the decision-making over to my instincts.  I wouldn’t re-read the question, and I wouldn’t second-guess any of my answers.  

The clock started and I flew through the remaining block in just over 51 minutes, reading as fast as I could and answering as quickly as I could.  I didn’t re-read the questions, and I didn’t second-guess my answers.  I’d studied for ten weeks - 2 to 3 hours a day each weekday, and so I knew my stuff, so I wasn’t just clicking any answer so I could beat the clock.  I was choosing the answer I believed to be the correct answer based solely on instinct. 

I reached the end, and clicked to finish the test.  It said, “are you sure?” I clicked, “yes”.  It said, “Are you really, REALLY sure?” I clicked, “Yes”, sat back, took a deep breath, and let it out.  

That’s when I noticed there was message on the screen.  “Congratulations on attaining your PMI Project Management Professional certification!”  I stared it for a moment, and, like the many, many questions I’d encountered during the test, I read it again.  

I’d passed.  

I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.  

Why did I bother telling this story?

I wanted other future PMP folks to have an idea of what to expect - at least what my experience was like.  It can diffuse some of the pre-traumatic stress if you have someone else’s story to draw on. 

I also wanted to encourage future PMP exam takers to rely on their instincts.  72 seconds isn’t really enough time to really ponder more than just a couple questions.  If you’ve done your homework and studied up, you should be able to pass based on your internalized understanding of project management.   

One final note: I didn’t have a single question on SPI, TCPI, Earliest Start calculation or any other earned value or CPM formula.  I assume the tests draw on a large pool of official PMI questions, and so you never know what you’ll get.  I was just surprised that I didn’t have ANY.  

I’ll share my study regiment in a future post - again, just to share one way that led to successfully passing the exam on the first take.