Subtitles of the Movie

By now you're probably filled with many questions regarding the exam itself. In this movie, we'll cover the structure of the exam, which will help guide you in developing your own personal study plan. To compliment your own plan, you'll also find a movie within this section dedicated to formulating a solid study plan to pass the exam on the first try. The exam itself consists of 200 multiple-choice questions. A hundred and seventy-five of those questions count towards your actual score. The other 25 are what are called pre-test questions. This just means that the questions are on the validation phase and may potentially be used as a scored question in the future. By while you're taking the exam, you won't know which are the pre-test questions or the scored ones. The passing score is 61 percent, so as long as you answer at least a hundred and seven of those questions correctly, you've passed. When you fill out your application, you'll choose between two methods of taking the exam; either computer-based testing or paper-based testing. But the paper-based testing is offered under two special circumstances only. One, you reside more than a hundred 86.5 miles away from the nearest computer-based testing center or two, your employer administers the exam for a minimum of ten employees. As of right now, Prometric is where you will be taking your computer-based exam and you won't be able to enroll for the exam until your application has been approved by PMI. In regards to length, the exam is four hours and 15 minutes long and that extra 15 minutes comes from the tutorial offered at the beginning of the computer-based test, which walks you through how to use the program. The tutorial's nice and thorough and there is really isn't too much in the way of complication in using the program. Something to note here is that you're able to mark questions for review later on, so if you are stumped by an exam question, you can flag it and come back to it later, time permitting. You may take the exam up to three times total within your one-year eligibility period, which begins once your application has been approved. If you fail all three times, you must wait one year to reapply from the last failed attempt. Although you must wait to reapply, you don't need to wait to apply for another certification, such as the CAPM. Here's a snapshot of exam cost and you can see the difference between a member and a non-member. I would like to point out that becoming a PMI member and registering for the exam as a member is actually cheaper than taking it as a non-member. PMI openly gives you the exam blueprint, letting you know how many questions are included from the five process groups and professional and social responsibility. Here you can see that the majority of the questions come from planning, executing and monitoring and controlling. But given that the majority of the processes fall within these process groups, it really makes logical sense that a larger chunk of the questions would come from these domains. Let's take a look at a sample exam question so that you're familiar with the structure. You're presented with a question and four possible answers. You'll never see an option that says all of the above or none of the above or a fifth potential response. If you're currently using other study material that presents you with these options, I don't recommend using that material. The reason is that PMI has you select the best answer out of the four. So as I mentioned earlier in this course, you'll come across some questions that have four right answers, but there will be one that PMI suggests you follow first. Let's take a look at this question here. It says the following are characteristics of a project except repetitive and ongoing, temporary, have a definite beginning and end, result in a unique product or result. If you selected repetitive and ongoing, you're correct. We sometimes have a habit of scanning a question quickly and missing key words. There will be several questions that use the words except or best. Sometimes it'll ask you for the next thing to do. So it's important that you pick up on those key words. Other times you'll get very long-winded questions explaining complex scenarios. These additional details are usually excess information meant to distract you. So make sure you focus on the core question. Throughout the course, we'll look at several examples per section. Practice exams really help you in working through small testing errors and help you become accustomed to the style of the exam questions. I recommend taking at least one full-length practice exam before taking your official exam. This'll give you a better feel for the experience of taking such a long exam and whether you've set a good pace for yourself in finishing within the exam timeframe. And that wraps up our overview of the PMP exam. Be sure to take a look at the movie titled Study Tips at the end of this course, which provide other guidelines and helpful tips to use during the exam.