Project Management Certification: How to pass the PMP exam on your first try?

I usually attend PMI chapter meetings for a few reasons. These meetings help me to build my network. Also, it is a great way to share our experiences. Besides, you will get credit for attending the meeting which you can use for recertification. In one of the meetings, the chair introduced a few professionals, who received PMP certifications recently.  In that meeting, one of the participants who was a certified PMP enquired how these guys felt about the exam, and have they faced any difficulty while preparing the exam. The newly certified PMPs said that the exam was not too difficult since they used mock exams before attempting the real exam. Hearing this, a trigger went off in my mind and an article about PMP mock exam was a must to vastly help PMP aspirants.

The Project Management Institute (PMI) is the leader and the most widely recognized organization in promoting project management best practices. Both the PMP and CAPM exams are gaining lots of popularity and demand in all areas of business and have become the industry standard certification for Project Management. In January 2010 there were already 90,000 PMPs and 25,000 CAPMs, and the number is increasing at an exponential rate. The PMP® exam is a four-hour, multiple-choice question examination. The exam focuses on the candidate’s knowledge of project management and the ability of the candidate to apply that knowledge in many different situations and scenarios. A score of 61 percent is required to pass the exam. The exam has 200 questions, of which 25 questions are considered “pre-test” questions. This means you’ll actually have to answer 106 correct questions out of 175 live questions. Despite the term “pre-test”, these questions are seeded throughout the exam to test their worthiness for future exam questions. They don’t count against you, but you won’t know if you’re answering a live question or a pre-test question. These exams aren’t free. You have to pay a good deal of amount to take the exam and also in case someone has to retake the exam, I’ve included fees for these exams for your reference. PMP exam for a PMI member: $405; PMP exam for a non-PMI member: $555; PMP re-exam for a PMI member: $275; PMP re-exam for a non-PMI member: $275; CAPM exam for a PMI member: $225; CAPM exam for a non-PMI member: $300; CAPM re-exam for a PMI member: $150; CAPM re-exam for a non-PMI member: $200.

Now let’s go back and critique the preparation strategy the newly certified PMPs had used. It seems to me that they used the right strategy to prepare the exam. I think they took a prep course, gone through the PMBOK guide; spent few days to review the process maps and formulas; took mock exams to access their readiness and weak areas; improved the areas where they found they were weak; took the real exam and PASSED the exam in the first attempt, and saved the retake fee. I have conducted poll surveys in few PMP blogs, and the result revealed that most of the certified PMPs have used mock exams before writing the real exam. Likewise, PMP blogs and getting input from PMP certified professionals can also help you to understand the areas where you need to concentrate, and to find the shortest route to pass the exam. I did not get this opportunity when I wrote the exam few years ago. Now more information & opportunities are available for candidates who wanted to become PMPs. Only thing is they have to fully exploit these opportunities to pass the exam.

Best of luck on your exam!