Importance of Test Simulators in Passing PMP Exam

By Makarand Vinod Hardas, MBA, PMP

PMP Test simulators are one of the important and unavoidable milestones in the PMP preparation. By and large most of aspirants touch this milestone en-route to the final destination. Looking at various forum posts and mock test scores, it seems candidates preparing for exam using simulator gains more confidence after 2-3 mock exams.  

The matter of fact is, the time, money and energy involved in passing the PMP exam is substantial. The project which has high value at stake must be pragmatically and systematically planned for the success. As part of the prep process to pass the exam , there are various steps which need to be considered . The PMP prep is like any other project, it also has various types of risks which certainly warrants prioritization and what-if analysis by the aspirant -

• What if, I fail ?
• What if,  I can not complete all 200 questions?
• What if, I could not maintain the momentum
• What if, I do not get the time to review questions, which were marked for review
• Breaks during exam will help to improve the efficiency or will lose the momentum.  
• In spite of reading the PMBOK and other books few times, one cannot figure out the type of questions would you face during your PMP exam?
• How will be the look and feel of final exam software?
• How I will be able to manage to answer 200 questions in 240 minutes?
• Will I able to handle the long tough situational, time consuming and confusingly wordy questions?

Responses to the Risk

The good news is all above risk can be mitigated or managed by opting for a  good question bank and PMP exam simulators. Now to address above risks that an aspirant may face before appearing for the PMP exam the simulator comes very handy. PMP simulators is the software which keeps close proximity to user interface, functionality and user experience which is available at Prometric centre while writing the PMP exam. There are many vendors who offers and claim to have same kind of user experience like an aspirant get at Prometric entre. Though there are many software which have very close experience to Prometric centre but no one has exactly same. The bottom line here is, the very purpose of any simulator should be to prepare aspirant for the final exam by throwing the toughest possible questions on all knowledge areas. That invokes  the deep analytical and logical thinking to answer the questions while keeping the time constraints in the hindsight.

Now to put names brainbok, pmzilla are few among several others good simulators with quality questions. As mentioned earlier, simulators will benefit you in preparing well for the final exam and there is no downside only upside. PMFastrack from RMC is another good software which works offline. 

The smart and hard study with the effective usage of test simulators along with feedback loop in place could work wonders for aspirant. Good preparation for 8 to 9 weeks followed by around 4 to 6 tests from different sources within 2 to 3 weeks time could give you the required confidence to pass the final exam in first attempt with the caveat that aspirant score consistently around 80% in each test. 


Caveat Emptor
Please note that this is a generalize statement and observation based on LL's from various candidates who has passed the PMP in first attempt and does not necessarily hold true for every individual due to various environmental factors and unique traits and personalities. I would  advice aspirant to effectively use this information for reference / guidance only and form your own plan for the final exam.

Happy Preparation!