About the PMP Exam
First off, you need to be very clear about one thing: the Project Management Professional (PMP) exam is universally recognized as a very rigorous challenge. You will not pass it based on years of experience, college classes taken, or reading "A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK®) Fourth Edition" cover to cover.
Those who pass the PMP exam have combined a well-disciplined program of study with an intelligently-designed, proven testing strategy. The exam has a 39% failure rate by design! That means that the inordinately high passing rate experienced by our students is “balanced” by the inordinately high failure rate of poorly prepared students.
Passing the exam requires project management skills in making a plan, mitigating risk, and implementing the plan. Do it wisely!
What the Exam Tests
The Project Management Institute’s (PMI) exams for the PMP credential and the CAPM certification, rely heavily on "A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK®) Fourth Edition" but also cover similar, authoritative information from a number of other sources.
The good news is that Gr8PM has created a comprehensive, usable, and accessible exam preparation program. One that guarantees YOU pass the PMP Exam... as over 95% of our students do the first time! (And the other 5% say IF they had followed our plan they would have passed too.)
A Passing Grade
In order to pass the PMP exam, you must score at least sixty-one (61%) percent. The exam will have 200 multiple-choice questions but because 25 of them are in a "design and testing phase" they will not count. Those 25 are randomly mingled in the overall exam so you can ideintyf them. That means there are 175 questions that are scored - pass/fail - so you must get 106 correct to acheive the required 61% within the prescribed four (4) hour time period.
The Testing Environment
PMI uses the services of Prometric Inc., a testing services company, to administer the exam. These exams are considered proprietary and are taken very seriously, so it’s important that you know and follow the rules.
When you arrive at the Prometric Testing Center, you must have two signature-bearing forms of identification to be admitted into the testing center. One form must bear a photograph. One form must be a government-issued identification (e.g. a valid driver’s license or valid passport) with a picture.
Photograph identification with signature may include:
- Valid driver’s license
- Valid passport
- Valid military ID
Signature bearing identification without photo may include:
- Credit card
- Bank (ATM) card
Examples of unacceptable identification are:
- Library card
- Social security card
- Driver’s license stating James Ward with a credit card stating Jim Ward.
There is no flexibility on the identification requirements, so bring valid identification!
When you enter the testing area there is no talking and you are not allowed to bring anything in with you – nothing! No notes, books, papers, cell phones, PDAs, pagers, calculators – nothing! PMI considers their exams high-security and therefore Prometric considers it high-stakes. Don’t bet on bending the rules, you will lose.
While you are taking the test, you will be monitored, observed, and audio- and video-taped to eliminate any sort of cheating.
The test itself will be delivered on a standard Windows PC running Prometric’s proprietary testing application.