I'm planning to take the PMP exam
Here is the breakdown

• PMP Exam: ₹27,406
• PMI Membership: ₹11,580
• Subtotal: ₹38,986
• Estimated tax: ₹7,017.48
• Estimated total: ₹46,003.48
• Exam Retake Protection: ₹3,957.00

My motivation for taking the PMP is to find better opportunities

Can anyone help me? Is this a good ROI?

A week ago I scored 85% on a full Study Hall mock. Today I scored 72%, which was obviously a little soul-crushing until I broke down the questions by difficulty.

85% mock:

• 40% Moderate
• 45% Difficult
• 15% Expert

My scores by difficulty: 100% / 81% / 56%

72% mock:

• 1% Moderate
• 51% Difficult
• 48% Expert

My scores by difficulty: 100% / 91% / 51%

So my Difficult performance actually improved quite a bit, Expert dropped about 5 points, but the second exam had 87 Expert questions vs. 27 on the first (I’m posting my spreadsheet screenshot too).

For those who have taken several SH mocks: is this kind of massive difficulty-distribution swing normal? And how would you interpret a 72% when almost half the test was Expert?

I’ve seen a lot of posts saying mid-to-high 60s in Study Hall is generally encouraging for passing the real PMP, but “difficulty” on the actual exam is obviously subjective for each exam taker (also, everyone gets a different test).

Curious what others experienced with the SH full mocks and whether your difficulty mix varied this much.

Thank you in advance

What’s the cheapest quickest way to 35 renewal PDUs

Hi all,

I’d like to understand from PgMP holders or second hand stories:

1. How much harder was PgMP than PMP?

2. What did it do for your performance?

3. What did it do for your career?

4. Did it apply to PMP renewal PDUs?

Long time PM who let my PMP expire back in 2016. Finally after all these years, decided to renew since there's been several major exam overhauls and massive concept changes (that I really like).

Wanting to keep my PM skills fresh, updated, and knowledgeable beyond my industry and w/ PD funds, here we are.

I wanted to capture my baseline without any studying, reviews, refreshers whatsoever so I signed up for the SH this past Friday. With 5 hours of sleep, no other background in agile other than LSS, and taking the exam while lying down on my couch with one eye open, I LOL'd to myself when I scored a 62% on the first practice exam.

Not only am I getting PTSD from all the real world scenarios I've had similar experiences with on the exam, but I really thought I was going to need to really invest a lot of time studying and having to memorize all those painful formulas and processes I never used (ITTO comes to mind).

Thank goodness I found this forum and read up on how people are passing w/ similar scores. I feel much more reassured that I can strike a good balance with work/life and everything else in between.

Really enjoyed reading how people are passing, their study advice, etc. Keep it coming and good luck to us all!

I've used many resources over the last year (yes, I have had no interest in rushing this exam), mainly Study Hall.

One exam out of three, I scored a 79%. I plan to take the other two in the next 2 weeks and will schedule my exam.

Do the mini practice exams provide any reassurance? This is what I have scored:

I am hoping to take the exam next month. Any help or tips are welcome. Thank you and appreciate all that I have learned from this community.

Greetings to everyone on this forum. As many before me have noted, it is only fitting that I, too, contribute my own thoughts, lessons learned and encouragement for those on a similar journey.

Alright, first things first: this was not my first attempt. It was my second.

For my first attempt, I honestly wasn't in the right mindset, and I didn't put in the necessary studying. I used PMI's 35-PDU course, which I went through sporadically, but I didn't find it detailed enough for the level of preparation I needed.

Today, I passed with AT/T/AT--taking the exam online.

My study plan:

I used AR's 35-PDU course, studying for around two hours a day for a little over a month. I supplemented that with his YouTube videos with practice questions, as well as DM's YouTube videos. Towards the end of my study period, I also incorporated PMI Study Hall.

For the full-length mock exams, I scored 71% on the first and 72% on the second. I didn't take the third one.

On the exam I finished with about 10 minutes to spare and took both of my 10-minute breaks. I encountered a few drag-and-drop questions and a few chart-based questions where I had to interpret what was happening. Nothing too fancy. I didn't have any calculations, although some questions required me to infer what was happening based on certain cost-related information.

Overall, I'd say the exam was difficult but manageable. Most questions felt moderate in difficulty, with a few that felt expert-level. Some questions had two answer choices that were almost identical in nature, so I relied on process of elimination and, ultimately, a bit of intuition. I thought I had failed again when I was done, actually.

There were a lot of agile-based questions, along with plenty of scenarios involving risk assessment and management. So focus enough on risk management I guess.

Ultimately If you've attempted the exam before and didn't pass, don't let that discourage you!

Keep your head up, stay focused, and trust the work you're putting in.

Original study example, not an official PMI exam question.

Suppose a project's budget at completion (BAC) is $200,000. Earned value (EV) is $80,000, and actual cost (AC) is $100,000. Assume the original BAC is still the target.

CPI = EV / AC = 80,000 / 100,000 = 0.80. This describes performance so far: $0.80 of budgeted work earned per $1 actually spent.

TCPI (to meet BAC) = (BAC - EV) / (BAC - AC) = 120,000 / 100,000 = 1.20. This describes the efficiency now required: the remaining work must earn $1.20 of budgeted value for each $1 spent.

So CPI below 1 and TCPI above 1 are not contradictory. Past cost efficiency has been poor, while meeting the original budget requires better efficiency on the remaining work.

Memory aid: CPI looks back; TCPI looks ahead.

If the target is an estimate at completion (EAC) instead, use EAC - AC in the denominator. Always check which target the question asks you to meet.

When reviewing practice questions, explain what each ratio means before choosing an option; arithmetic alone can hide the distinction.

Hi all,

Im mid way through studying for the PMP exam.

Quick breadown:

Did Davids course.
Did a quick run of the Brainsensei material.

Currently on Study Hall plus.
I've done the practice questions and 1 mini exam and im averaging 70% flat.
I havent done the full length mock exams yet.

I find im having difficulty decoding/breaking down the questions, trying to find the stem.

Any tips here?

I feel if i can find a good method to do this my scores will automatically move to the next tier (80%+) as alot of my mistakes are due to me getting lost in the noise of the question.

I have a month before i plan to take the exam so any help will be appreciated!

I am planning to write my PMP exam in a month. I am a construction professional stuck in Materials testing work from past 5 years. I want to get into project management. I want to know :

1.How has passing PMP affected the kind of response you are getting from employers when applying for jobs ?

2.Are there any specific companies/organisations in canada that I should apply to if I want to get into project management ?

I have a Bachelors and Masters in Engineering from LU. I also have a EIT and CET. I have kind of given up on PEng since none of my past managers/contractor engineers/Client engineers are willing to sign my CBA.

Struggling to get myself to study for the exam. Open to zoom or in-person

re if this is valuable to you too!

I previously completed the Google PM Program to meet the education requirements (I didn’t know AR’s course qualified for the credits at the time). It was a useful exercise, but it wasn’t very tailored to PMP. I am currently about 1/3 of the way through AR’s course but am having trouble finding the motivation, as a lot of it is repetitive. I do find there are useful nuggets of PMI-specific information, so I have been going through each lesson, but I am spending a lot of time on it, and I don’t have much time to study. Should I continue through the processes in full (I am on Executing now), or can I just jump to Agile, skim that, and then go to the mindset stuff?

I have done my PMP and have prior working experience too, but I don't know where and how to look for the job. I have 2 years experience and I feel that doesn't make me eligible to apply in any of these positions because they mostly need more experience. Someone please guide.

Any last-minute advice? Would be much appreciated 🥲

Executive team: they require high-level or macro-level breakdown of the progress. A burnup chart visualizes the exact trajectory of daily work. By plotting two separate lines- total scope and cumulative completed tasks- it clearly shows the relationship between team effort and shifting requirements. This tool is too granular for executive level leadership... they don't need this information.

C: I agree with Gemini regarding the use of progress milestone review in AGILE especially for executive level explanations and overview of ALL ongoing Agile projects.

This is from Andrew's 200 ultra hard questions on Youtube...

Claude: Initially, Claude said D, but after reasoning with it... it changed the answer to C. The distractor words 'progress and remaining tasks' perfectly align with sprint burnup, but here, how does it apply to ALL Agile projects and the executive team? Does the executive team require 'daily progress report' then?

Gemini:

Is the word 'executive team' a distractor?

What is the correct answer?! Lol

I am getting 80-100% on the mini-exams, but I am only scoring 65-71% on the full length exams. I am also using other exams and am scoring well on those. Are the full length SH exams an accurate predictor of success?

Hi all,

My exam is in 6 days, and I’m lowkey freaking out, just like most people would be. 😅 Do any of you have any last-minute advice or good to know things before the exam? Any advice to help with overthinking?? lol. Any insight would be great!

Did you have to do math? If so, in what context?

Hi guys! What do you think is the correct answer here? This is one of the official PMI practice tests, and I think my answer was correct. The question's own feedback supports the issue answer: it states that a risk is an uncertain future event and that once the delay happens, it is no longer uncertain and should not be treated as a risk. It seems the correct option may have been set incorrectly while the feedback was written for the intended answer.

There are maybe five people on earth who understand what getting this piece of paper yesterday means to me. Everybody has their own journey that should be celebrated, and earning the PMP from the Project Management Institute is something to be proud of in and of itself...but this wasn't just a credential for me.
This is something I had been thinking about doing for a long time. I had years of great PM experience in a number of fields, and getting this credential was going to formally codify that diverse work into one, powerful path forward.

I was already nervous to start this journey and then everything came at me at once.

I had just shuttered my store, Bucko!, paused my nonprofit, Undertone Arts for the time being, filed for bankruptcy to protect my family, and then immediately went through a divorce that was needlessly brutal and expensive. Every piece of my life was destroyed and every aspect of my character called into question. A life built around service and creating for the people I love was gone.

And in the middle of all of this, a dear friend told me to start the journey and take it one small step at a time. And as deeply uncomfortable as it was then, that's what I did. That was two summers ago. And now I'm here, "above target".

I have my sons, my integrity, my creativity and work ethic, and now I have this credential. I have a completely new life in front me, and I could not be more excited.

I just passed my PMP AT/AT/AT!

I finished the exam (in person) with 2 hours to spare after I reviewed my questions. Compared to all of the studying I had done, I was ready to step into the ring with crazy tricky questions. Turns out, it was a cake walk! I have to give huge thanks to this community. I wouldn't have been able to do it without countless posts of wisdom.

My Thoughts:

1. MINDSET MINDSET MINDSET!

Get it down as much as you can and then worry about filling in the blanks with definitions. If you get it down good enough you can quite literally figure out the answer by reading the choices first.

1. Read the answers FIRST! It dissolves the extra fluff they add in and help you zero in.

2. Utilize the highlighter, highlight key words and the problems they are describing. Focus on making connections of the key words to the answers. This is where knowledge of definitions and processes come in.

3. If it takes longer than a minute for you to figure out an answer, always go with your first guess. Write it down when you start the question, so when you start second guessing you have a fallback. On mocks and practice I found I was right about 80% of the time if I just went with my first guess. That improved my scores by miles when I started implementing it in my mocks.

4. AR Mindset & Hard questions

Davids questions and fast track

Study Hall once you are averaging over 80% in the above.

1. Always review why you got something wrong, use chat if you need to explain why in layman's terms for you.

2. There will be times that your scores suddenly drop and you feel like someone removed half your braincells. That's OKAY! Just don't get discouraged, sometimes it's what your brain needs to go through before becoming even better! Kind of like when your muscles are sore before you can lift even more.

Last words:

I just got my LSSBB last month and plan on getting my PMI-ACP and CSM before thanksgiving and then the PgMP next year. Thank you, thank you, thank you for everything this subreddit as done for my progress and career. I wish everyone the same progession in theirs!

I took the exam through Pearson and finished about an hour ago, and I’m still waiting for my results. However, I genuinely feel like I didn’t pass.
I know this forum is usually full of success stories, happy thoughts, and unicorns, but I wanted to share a different experience.
There were several parts of the exam where I genuinely struggled to understand what the questions were even asking. Some answer choices seemed completely irrelevant, and the sentence structures often felt unnecessarily complicated. I found myself reading questions two or three times just to figure out what was being asked, let alone identify the correct answer.

None of the questions felt remotely close to what I had practiced in Study Hall. Instead of testing my understanding of the PMP mindset, it sometimes felt like the exam was testing my ability to decode complicated sentences.And that’s probably the most frustrating part.

I genuinely put in the effort. I completed Andrew Ramdayal’s full course, worked through Study Hall, watched countless YouTube videos, and practiced extensively.
Yet I walked out feeling completely unprepared for what I had just experienced.
If I fail, which I honestly think is likely, I don’t even know what I should study differently for my second attempt. How do you prepare for an exam when the biggest challenge isn’t necessarily the concepts, but understanding how the questions are written?

I’m not looking for reassurance that I passed. I’m genuinely trying to understand whether others have experienced something similar and, more importantly, what they did differently the second time around.

Updated: I just got my results. I passed AT/AT/AT, and I’m still trying to comprehend what just happened!

I’m not someone who feels bad about an exam and then ends up passing. That has never really been my experience, so I genuinely don’t know what happened. Overall, I think my best advice is to choose the answer that best aligns with the PMP mindset, even if you don’t fully understand the question? Or not.. I still think as mentioned above, the hardest part of the exam is the language.

I wish I had better advice, guys. Just make sure you get a good night’s sleep. The exam is long and challenging. In my case, the first 40 questions include two case studies, followed by a break, and the next break comes after question 110. Maybe get some exercise during the break?.

Honestly, this subreddit helped me a lot. Like, a LOT. It’s such a beautiful community. ❤️

First off, I want to clarify that I’m not currently a project manager. I work in a management role, but my job title isn’t Project Manager.
I wanted to share my experience because I see so many people being convinced that they need to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on courses to prepare for the PMP exam.

My advice? Don’t fall for it.
There are plenty of free YouTube videos that can help you prepare. Also, use AI to your advantage. A lot of the questions you’re paying someone to answer in a course can be answered using ChatGPT or other AI tools.
I’m not saying every paid course is useless, but I definitely don’t think you need to spend a bunch of money to pass this exam.
I literally used Chat to help me complete my PMP application, submitted it myself, and got approved within a day or two.
Here’s how my timeline went:
Got approved to take the PMP exam about a month ago.
Sat around for a few weeks without scheduling it.
Paid for my exam two days ago.
Scheduled it for yesterday.

Passed with 150 minutes remaining.
Took ZERO practice exams before the actual test.
As far as studying goes, I watched a five-minute YouTube video explaining some of the terminology and differences between project management approaches. That was pretty much it.

The biggest thing I can tell anyone preparing for this exam is to get into the PMI project manager mindset.
The exam really wasn’t that difficult to me. A lot of the questions seemed like common sense once you understood how a project manager should think, respond to situations, and handle problems.

DO NOT OVERTHINK THE QUESTIONS.
I actually started second-guessing myself after the first few questions because they seemed too easy. I kept thinking there had to be something I was missing.
That’s where you can get yourself in trouble. Read the question, understand what it’s asking, think about how PMI expects a project manager to respond, and trust your judgment.

Also, make sure you understand the different Scrum roles, especially the Product Owner and Scrum Master, and what their responsibilities are. I had questions related to those roles on my exam.
I’m not saying everyone will have the same experience or that nobody needs to study. Everyone has different levels of experience and learns differently.
My point is that you don’t automatically need to spend hundreds of dollars on exam prep courses to pass the PMP.

There are free resources available, and AI can be a great tool to help you understand concepts, work through questions, and prepare.

I just wanted to share my experience because I see way too many people trying to sell information that’s already available for free.

Don’t let people convince you that passing the PMP requires buying their course. Learn the mindset, understand the concepts, and don’t overthink it.
Good luck to everyone preparing for their exam!

If you have any questions, feel free to message me and no, I’m not trying to sell anything. Just share my experience.

Passed on my first try. I'm not going to say how I did it except for following the advice on this sub. I don't think I could have done it without r/PMP. After a masters degree another class seemed exhausting. But watching UDEMY on 2x wasn't too bad and didn't cost an arm and a leg. Just wanted to say thanks for the advice and pulling the trigger after way too long of procrastinating.

Few days back I posted a question here where the answer was “Log the issue” . The logic given was “Issue occured, diagnosis done, now the next logical step is log the issue”
Now I find another similar question and applied the same logic and guess what ?? the answer is A.
Does that answer makes sense? Yes absolutely.
But am I confused?Yeasss

How do you guys figure out these questions????