You have studied the A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) and numerous additional materials; you believe you have a solid understanding of project management theories and the application of those theories; and you have taken the steps to schedule your PMP® Exam, there is just one lingering question: how can you make sure you are able to identify the best answers when it comes time to take the PMP Exam?
The exam consists of 180 PMP exam questions that need to be answered in 3 hours and 50 minutes (230 minutes). For most questions, you are provided a scenario along with four answers to choose from. Your job is to choose the correct answer, which can be difficult when more than one answer may look correct. One thing to remember is that no matter what your personal experiences or even other project management training are, the reference materials provided by the Project Management Institute (PMI)® constitute the basis for answering PMP® Exam Questions correctly.
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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 answers provided. There is no need to allow the answers provided to confuse you if you know the answer.
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Return to the more difficult or complex questions after taking care of the questions, answers to which you know. This allows you to obtain the easy points and spend the remaining time on the questions you skipped.
There are going to be times when you will be able to completely eliminate one or more answer choices, thus making the selection of the correct answer easier.
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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.
If any of the answer choices provided do not seem familiar to you or don’t seem to fit in with the PMI® language or terminology, there is a good chance this answer choice is incorrect.
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In the case of two (or more) answer choices that seem to be correct, compare the differences to determine which one better, even if none of them seems or sounds to be an ideal/perfect answer. There will be differences even if they are slight.
Based on your knowledge of the reference materials provided by the PMI, for example, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, (PMBOK® Guide), select the option that seems to be most logical to you.
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There is no penalty for guessing on the PMP Exam. Make sure you select an answer for all 180 questions on the exam even if you guess. In most questions, you have a 25% chance of getting it correct.
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The available answer choices are provided that you can use to work the problem backward to determine which choice is the correct answer.
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Remember, the questions on the PMP® exam are based on the PMP® Examination Content Outline, and it is your job to find the “best” answer to the scenario provided while taking the Exam. It is entirely possible that the correct answer may not seem to be evident even using the strategies listed above. Even if there are a couple of questions that seem unanswerable, make sure you at least guess… in most cases, you have a 25% chance of answering correctly when guessing, where, if left unanswered, you have a 100% chance of getting it incorrect.
The best method for learning how to put the strategies above to use is practice, practice, practice. Using a PMP® Exam Simulator will provide you with that kind of experience. The PMP® Exam Simulator closely replicates the actual PMP® Exam environment, is based on the current PMP® Examination Content Outline, contains hundreds of sample questions, and provides detailed explanations for all answers. When you are ready to put these test-taking strategies to practice , check out our 7-day trial for access to realistic FREE PMP exam questions.
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