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Friday, June 8, 2012

When to Take The First Mock Exam?



By Makarand V Hardas, MBA, PMP



 Mock exam plays vital role and one of the key element while preparing for PMP. There are several benefits in taking mock exams and most of the times test scores act as a confidence boosters, if taken at right time. Yes it’s very important when you take the mock exam.

I know few people who have passed the PMP exam without taking any mock exam, well that’s not really a point of discussion here.  In my opinion, it’s an essential ingredient and would like to be in the favor of taking mock exam as part of the preparation.
There are several mock exams available with varied quality and standard. It’s better to take mock exam from multiple sources.

Being human there is a natural tendency to see where one stand as of now during the study and its natural to look back how much distance is covered and how much more to travel and mock exams acts as milestones in this journey.


The preparation process starts with training to earn 35 PDU to become eligible for PMP. Most of the times there is a gap of few months to a year between training and actual exam. Thus in order to get prepared, it becomes apparently important to refresh the concepts, knowledge and solve few mock exams.

Many times PMP aspirants go for mock exams quite early in the preparation and it’s kind of mistake because though by experience we know many things but when it comes to answering the questions one need to be in different mode and follow the PMBOK’ism to answer the question. Poor score due to non-preparation or premature attempts to mock exam could make you feel frustrated and could make you disoriented as well. Upside is you will realize where you stand and how far you need to go.






In my opinion before taking any mock exam one has to read the PMBOK (All Chapters + Appendix) at least once and one more book. There are several PM concepts which are not being practiced in day to day work, which has to be understood well and visualized. Example : Per PMBOK, there are several conflict resolution techniques which a PM needs to apply based on the given situation. Most of the PM’s though follow some/all of them but when answering questions one must know the formal terms. Such holes can be easily plugged with the formal study.

The first round of reading sets the base for entire journey toward PMP, second reading (may be from other book) makes the concepts concrete.
 

List of things to do before taking First full mock exam: 
  • Make the prep plan
  • Have at least one round of reading of PMBOK and one more book
  • Ensure you have good insight into PMBOK page 43
  • Read and understand ITTO’s thoroughly, until you see the logical connection or process interactions
  • There are several resources available like quiz, flashcards for ITTO’s. Go for them, it works 
  • Develop the good fundamentals around numerical problems from
  •  knowledge areas like Time, Cost, Quality, Communication, Procurement, Risk
  • Try solving minimum 15-20 numerical on each type. This will help to acquire you the required speed in number crunching.
  • Many times we don’t need to derive the final answer with practice you will able to identify the right answer without going till the end.
  • Take knowledge area wise
  •  practice questions and then go for process group level
  • Steps 1-9, will bring you to the logical conclusion of preparation. You are now ready for FIRST mock exam.
Its good practice to review questions you got wrong and do some power reading around those before appearing for the next mock exam. This iterative approach will set your mind frame in the right tone and with every next set of exam questions, your natural instinct will help to reach out to the best answer.

All the Best!






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