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7 SECRETS
TO PASSING THE
PMP EXAM
®
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Thank you for downloading the “7 Secrets to Passing the PMP Exam”.

This document is a preview of our broader PMP® Exam Strategy Guide, which is a Project Management
Academy (PMA) exclusive resource included with your PMP Exam Prep course. The PMA PMP® Exam Prep
Strategy Guide is a key study resource that has proven incredibly useful because it outlines several critical
areas: formulating a good study plan, what to expect on exam day, additional study aids, a PMP exam
readiness checklist, the 25 most common confusions students encounter and the 10 most
common types of testing tricks on the PMP exam.

This document assumes that you will take a PMP Exam Prep course with Project Management Academy,
the most trusted name in project management training® and have access to the many resources that we
provide to help you sufficiently prepare to pass your PMP exam. All of our PMP exam prep courses include
the following with 6-months of access to our online training portal immediately upon registration:

Instructor-led PMP Certification Training Post-class tutoring and application resources

100% Money-Back Guarantee Practice PMP exams and questions

35 contact hours required by PMI PMP® Exam Prep Strategy Guide

Supplemental deep dive video lectures Additional exam prep exercises, games, & training aids

Mock PMP exam and instructor-led review The PMI® Authorized PMP Exam Prep Student Manual

Project Management Academy is the industry standard for PMP exam prep training. With the most in-
person Live classroom locations nationwide and the largest variety of Online classroom options, you'll
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To learn more and register for a course, visit our website.

1. Allow Sufficient Time to Prepare .................................................................................. 2

2. Understand the Big Picture ........................................................................................... 2

3. Use the PMBOK® Guide Strategically ............................................................................. 3

4. Identify and Fill Gaps in Your Knowledge ..................................................................... 3

5. Understand Inputs, Tools and Techniques and Outputs ............................................. 4

6. Study Terminology, Formulas and Charts/Diagrams ................................................... 4

7. Take Practice Exams ...................................................................................................... 5

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7 Secrets to Passing the PMP® Exam

Sometimes students struggle with how to effectively allocate study time between the course completion
and exam day. While there is no “one size fits all” approach, the following is a framework that will help
ensure you are prepared and confident when you sit for the exam.

1. Allow Sufficient Time to Prepare

Some training providers set an expectation that you should take the exam immediately after
completing the course (i.e. pass on the fifth day). That method may have worked many years ago when
the PMP® Exam was much easier. Unfortunately, the exam is much more difficult these days and thus
you will need extra preparation time. Therefore, we strongly suggest that you take a few weeks to
study on your own before taking the exam. There are a few reasons for this.

First, you will likely feel mentally fatigued after the boot camp training, and therefore not in a position to
perform your best immediately following the course completion. Second, the exam is difficult, and you
will need time to solidify your understanding of the materials. Finally, you will want to take additional
practice exams after the class to ensure you are truly prepared to take the exam.

Some students choose to ignore this advice and try to take the exam within a couple days of the course
completion. The success rate for these students is dramatically lower than for those who allow at least
a week of individual study time. Sometimes students feel constrained by their schedules, and feel they
have no choice but to take the exam immediately. However, scheduling concerns should not force you to
take the exam prematurely, because if you fail the exam you will have to find time to re-take it anyway. It
is much better to put yourself in a strong position to pass on your first attempt.

2. Understand the Big Picture

Our course provides a large amount of information over a fairly short period, so your first step should be
to solidify your understanding of the course materials. To do this, we recommend reviewing the in-class
course materials, including your handouts and notes to make sure you understand the broader concepts.
Make sure you are familiar with each of the 49 processes, and that you can describe in one sentence
what each process is meant to achieve. By doing this, you should be able to see how certain processes
interrelate with others, and hopefully recognize how each process is used to maximize project success
and avoid project failures.

You might begin this process by memorizing each of the 49 processes and the process groups to which
they belong. You should refer here to your Process Map sheet showing all of the processes in a grid
format.

Along with memorizing the names of the processes and where they fit in, you should also be memorizing
the outputs of each. Don’t get hung up on inputs and tools and techniques just yet, as that will come
later on. Understanding the outputs of each process will go a long way towards helping you later fill in
the inputs and outputs.

As you work towards memorizing each process and its outputs, make sure you understand why that
process is important. You will likely be given scenarios on the exam where certain failures have occurred,
and the question will then ask you how they may have been avoided. Therefore, think about what types
of problems may occur if certain processes are skipped over or performed improperly. For example, if we
created a deliverable which functioned properly but did not include all of the functionality the stakeholders
were seeking, then we likely had some type of breakdown during the Collect Requirements process, or
perhaps we did not properly define or control our scope.

Once you have a basic understanding of the 49 processes, then you can start filling in details.

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 7 Secrets to Passing the PMP® Exam

3. Use the PMBOK® Guide, Agile Practice Guide, and PMI Student Manual Strategically

Some of you may have read the PMBOK® Guide, Agile Practice Guide, or PMI Student Manual before class and
that hopefully helped you better absorb the material. Unfortunately, these publications can be somewhat
confusing to many students because they do not follow any chronological order, and because it uses
terminology which may be very different than what is used in your workplace. If you read the PMBOK®
Guide before class and found yourself scratching your head, then this would be a good time to go over it
again. By now you should have a pretty good sense of the broad concepts, chronology, terminology, etc.,
so it should make more sense this time around.

For those who did not read these key resources before class, this is the time to do so. Because the
PMBOK® Guide is not organized chronologically, you may want to read it in conjunction with your PMA®
student portal resources. It may also help to read the PMBOK® Guide chapters in the order presented in the
PMA® student portal shown in the "Topic Review Video" tab, so you get a sense of context and chronology.
Just make sure you check off each chapter as you read it, so you can make sure you have covered the
whole PMBOK® Guide.

The material in the PMBOK® Guide, Agile Practice Guide, and PMI Student Manual will form the basis for
much of the exam (the examiners test on items they also expect you to have learned from your work
experience). As such, you should spend a good deal of time reading and understanding the lessons in
these publications, but you should not spend all your time simply re-reading them. Once you have read
and understood the these books, you should then use them as reference guides to help reinforce your
understanding of key concepts, and to fill gaps in your knowledge. For example, when you miss a practice
question and realize you are a little hazy on that topic, go right to that section of the book and read up on
it. Then put a flag on that page as a reminder you had some confusion on that issue, and perhaps keep a
separate log showing areas of confusion you need to clarify before exam day.

4. Identify and Fill Gaps in Your Knowledge

Since this is a pass/fail examination, you will be able to pass without knowing every single detail for every
topic in Project Management. It would be great if you did achieve this level of understanding, but we need
to be realistic and use our time strategically. Instead, you should make sure there are no significant gaps
in your understanding of the material, as these can very easily cause you to fail the exam.

The best way to identify gaps in your knowledge is to do lots of practice questions. Sometimes you will
miss the question because you didn’t read it carefully or because it contained a trick. When you miss a
question because you don’t understand the material, however, you need to fill that knowledge gap.

Sometimes reading the answer explanation is sufficient, but oftentimes you will need to delve deeper
into the material to make sure you really understand the topic in question. There is nothing wrong with
missing a lot of practice questions. Indeed, you should view a missed practice question as a good thing,
because it identifies gaps in your knowledge which you can now go back and address. Make the mistakes
during your preparation, not on the exam. The key here is to review every practice question carefully,
whether you got it right or wrong. Sometimes you will get the answer right, but you chose it for the wrong
reason, or maybe you just got lucky. Remember, answering the practice questions is only part of the
exercise. The learning occurs when you closely review every question and answer.

To help you identify areas of weakness, you should keep a log showing the type of questions you missed.
This log will identify trends in your performance, thereby allowing you to focus your study efforts on those
areas where you are weakest. Try to be specific when you create this log. For example, instead of simply
noting a missed question on risk management, note that you missed a question about the difference
between qualitative and quantitative risk analysis.

Remember that you have online access to video lectures covering every topic from the PMBOK® Guide,
so you should use these as needed to help clarify your understanding. Sometimes this will be the most
efficient way to fill the gaps in your knowledge, as the book often glosses over certain areas or uses
confusing language.

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7 Secrets to Passing the PMP® Exam

5. Understand Inputs, Tools and Techniques and Outputs

You will likely get a handful of questions on the exam requiring you to identify inputs, tools and techniques,
or outputs (ITTO’s) for a given process. For many students, these may seem like the hardest questions to
answer, because many processes have so many ITTO’s that it is nearly impossible to memorize them all.
You should instead consider a more strategic approach to the ITTO questions.

As mentioned earlier, you should start by memorizing the outputs to each process. This is important for
other types of questions as well, but it also puts you in a good position to handle questions asking for
inputs to a particular process, since we know that outputs to one process nearly always become inputs
to later related processes. Memorizing all outputs often allows us to use chronology to help us navigate
through these questions. For example, we know that Quality Control Measurements are an output of
Control Quality. Since we know we must perform the Plan Quality Management process before we can
actually perform the Control Quality process, we can easily eliminate Quality Control Measurements as an
answer to a question asking for the inputs to the Plan Quality Management process.

The tools and techniques present a tougher challenge, because some processes employ so many of them,
and because some tools and techniques are used in multiple processes. Spend some time understanding
each tool and technique you come across, just as a general matter without worrying about the process per
se. Take “Make or Buy Analysis” for example, which falls under the "Data Analysis" techniques. We know
this is used to determine what we can produce ourselves versus what we need to acquire from outside
the organization. We could therefore eliminate Make or Buy Analysis as an answer choice to a question
asking for tools used in the Control Procurements process. Naturally, we would have already made our
Make or Buy Decisions before we entered into the procurement relationship, so it simply does not fit.

You might grab a notebook and simply jot down in your own words a one sentence summary of each
tool and technique you come across, then refer back to these notes frequently during your preparation.
Having a basic understanding of what each tool and technique accomplishes will help you effectively
navigate through these ITTO questions (and others) without having to memorize every tool and technique
used in each of the 49 processes.

6. Study Terminology, Formulas and Charts/Diagrams

By this time you should have a pretty good understanding of the material as a whole, so you should focus
now on the more discrete items such as unique terminology, charts, formulas, etc. To do this, you should
rely heavily on the course handouts. If something is listed in the handouts, you should understand it.
Therefore, keep those sheets handy and refer to them often. If you take the train or bus to work, study your
handout sheets on the way. You might also want to look at them during your lunch break, or other times
when you want to study without committing a large block of time.

Pay special attention to the charts, as you likely will see several questions asking you which type of chart
will assist you in a given situation. Along with the handouts, there is a helpful summary of each chart
(located in Chapter 5) which you should understand thoroughly. In particular, make sure you understand
the following items for each chart: 1) the information it contains; 2) what it looks like; 3) the purpose of it,
4) the area(s) in which it is used, 5) the specific name(s) used to identify the chart, and 6) why as a project
manager you would use it.

Let’s use the Cause and Effect Diagram as an example. First of all, we need to know that it shows all factors
we believe may be causing a particular outcome or defect, and the factors are lined up along diagonal
lines which connect to a horizontal line leading up to the outcome in question (hence the “fishbone”
structure). Because we are looking at factors causing certain outcomes, we will use Cause and Effect
Diagrams both in Control Quality ("Data Analysis") and Identify Risks (Root Cause Analysis). Finally, we
need to know that this chart is also called a “Fishbone Diagram”. Keeping track of synonyms is always
important on the exam, because if you see two answer choices that mean the exact same thing, you can
eliminate them both, since there is only one correct answer.

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 7 Secrets to Passing the PMP® Exam

You should also understand all of the formulas and when to use each one. The earned value formulas are
especially important, and you may see questions requiring you to perform these types of calculations. In
some rare cases, you may simply need to plug the numbers from the question into your formulas and do
the math. More likely, however, you will need to determine which formula is appropriate based on the facts
provided in the question. For example, if a question is asking about EAC and it states that the project has
faced unexpected financial obstacles which are now resolved, we know the variances are atypical and we
would therefore use the following formula: AC+(BAC-EV).

Apart from memorizing the formulas, make sure you understand what a particular earned value
measurement means to your project. For example, you may be told that your project has a Cost Variance
(CV) of $1,000 and a Schedule Performance Index (SPI) of 0.8, and you must identify what that means for
your project. In this case, those values show you are under budget (since CV is a positive number) and
behind schedule, since SPI is less than 1.

You may also be given an earned value figure and asked what that means for another earned value
measurement. For example, if the question states that your Cost Performance Index (CPI) is 0.5, you must
know that your Cost Variance (CV) will be negative. Again, remember that simply memorizing the formulas
will not help you much if you don’t understand what the values are telling you.

7. Take Practice Exams

In addition to the mock exam from class, you should do at least three (and often more) full-length practice
exams online. Since these questions are shorter and more straightforward than those you are likely to
see on the real exam, it is imperative that you score above 75% on a full-length, online practice exam
before you sit for the real thing. If you happen to score above 75% on your first try, take another one to
validate the first score and get more practice.

Of course you need to understand the materials to succeed on the exam, but you also need to get
comfortable with taking a long exam. It is not easy to keep focused and alert throughout a 200-question
exam, so you should work on conditioning your mind so it will hold up during what is likely to be a long
and challenging four hours.

When you are taking the practice questions, especially the online questions, keep in mind these are not
always designed to mimic what you will see on the exam. Instead, many of these questions are designed
to help you learn the material as efficiently as possible, and to help you identify gaps in your knowledge.
As such, the online practice questions can be a bit shorter and more straightforward. Do not assume the
questions on the real exam will be like this. It is a difficult exam, and you should therefore be prepared for
longer, and perhaps more confusing questions.

If you want to practice with some of the longer and trickier questions, you should refer back to the in-class
or scenario practice questions, which are provided in the online training portal. Many of these questions
are designed to be trickier and more complex, and the explanations will identify the particular tricks being
used so you can be prepared to spot them on the exam. You may also want to review your mock exam
from class, as this also contains longer and trickier questions.

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