You need to score about 70% marks in Oliver Lehmann practice questions and about 75% marks in Head First and Christopher Scordo (PMTraining) mock tests to successfully pass the PMP certification exam.
I have compiled this post by using the notes from a Brad Ferrell. He passed the exam in his first attempt. So, this post will give an indication on what is a good score in various mock tests.
IN this post, you will find Brad scores in Oliver Lehmann 75 questions, Headfirst, and Christopher Scordo tests. He also attempted Oliver Lehman 175 PMP questions test just before the certification exam.
Brad Ferrell is part of the PMP prep Linked group that I moderate. He shared his PMP experience notes on the group. I requested him if I can share his notes with the blog readers. He kindly acceded to my request. I wish him good luck for the future. Here is Brad’s experience in his own words.
Note: You can refer to my post on PMP sample tests to find Oliver Lehmann PMP and many other free practice questions in pdf & online formats.
Mock Tests Scores Before the PMP Certification Exam
Since I felt my base knowledge of the PMBOK was adequate, my game plan for the next five weeks was to:
1. Continue to take any exams I could get my hands on. It would be considered a bonus if these exams were at least two hour duration or 100 questions.
2. Re-take exams to measure my improvement over time.
3. Study my notes and the PMBOK to processes that were giving me trouble. By far the process group which was giving me the most trouble was Monitoring & Controlling.
4. Take a deeper dive into topics which were still unclear to me. I came across many of these such as positive vs. negative float, resource leveling vs. resource smoothing, the three different types of PMO’s.
My confidence continued to grow when I retook a few of Scordo’s exams, particularly the exams which I scored poorly the first time. See the improvements below:
| Christopher Scordo Mock Exam | 1st Attempt | 2nd Attempt |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | 52% | 76% |
| 14 | 50% | 72% |
| 18 | 66% | 80% |
And for those wondering, my improvements weren’t based on memorizing specific answers on low-scoring questions, but by applying better logic between the question and given answers.
I also retook the practice online exams to measure my progress from the last few months and here’s how I performed:
| Mock Exam | 1st Attempt | 2nd Attempt |
|---|---|---|
| Head First Labs – 50 questions | 68% | 74% |
| Oliver Lehmann 75 questions | 52% | 69% |
The Final Step Of PMP Exam Prep
Over the last few months, I felt like my breadth of project management knowledge had expanded to levels which seemed impossible six months ago. Personally I was very proud of my improvement, but knew that moral victories were not going to get you PMP certified. I was honest with myself and thought it was basically a coin flip whether I would pass the exam or not. It was obvious to me what my strong and weak areas were. It was possible my final exam could resemble the mock exam where I scored 96% or the Oliver Lehmann exams where I initially scored 52%. At this point I could not leave any stone unturned and made it a priority that my weak areas were addressed and my strong areas did not lose ground.
A week leading up to the exam, I did some mental exercises by imagining some scenarios that I could come across during exam. This could be any of the following:
- What do I do if the exam is more challenging than expected and feel that several of the last questions answered are incorrect?
- What if my mind is racing (nervousness?) and my mental focus is preventing me from reading the questions clearly and completely?
- What if I’m cruising through the exam and feel a strong majority of my answers are correct, is this too good to be true? Should I go back and re-read some of the previous questions again?
- How many questions are too many to mark for review later and will I have time to review them all?
- What should be my strategy if I’m in a time crunch and there are still many questions left unanswered?
Even if you didn’t pass the PMP exam the first time, I think it’s a great idea to imagine some worst case scenarios and draw up some contingency plans in overcoming these. Besides being proficient in project management standards, a large part in passing the PMP exam is psychological. Being bogged down by work and life demands can play a key role whether you’re ready to go on exam day.
One Last Push With Oliver Lehmann PMP Questions
Two days before exam day, I took Oliver Lehmann’s 175 question exam timed at 3 hours 30 minutes as my final warm-up. I wanted to get as close to the real exam experience as possible and knew from taking the 75 question exam version, Oliver Lehmann would show no mercy. In fact, reading various PMP blogs, many of them indicated Oliver Lehmann’s exam were tougher than the real exam. I thought this exam would humble me a bit, which would be preferred as opposed to walking into the exam over-confident. One of my biggest fears was expecting to “breeze” through the exam, then after the first 10 questions, seeing the dear in the headlights look on my face. I expect this is common for examinees unfortunately. Moving along, I proceeded with the 175 question exam. If my memory serves me correctly, I used about 2 pages of paper for notes, formulas, eliminating obvious incorrect answers for some questions, in addition to marking about 50 questions for review. I completed the 175 questions with 8 minutes left to review my marked questions, not a whole lot of time to review but there were 4-5 questions which I did change my answer. When finally tabulating my score after my 210 minutes ended, I ended up scoring 117 out of 175 questions correct = 67%. If curving this against the real exam, I was hoping this would be enough to successfully pass. As mentioned a few paragraphs ago, my confidence level in passing the exam was comparable to a coin flip.
The day before the final exam, I reviewed some most of my answers from the previous day but didn’t dive in too much. Honestly, I was still exhausted from answering 175 questions. It was best that I decompress by clearing my head and try to get a good night sleep. Tomorrow will be here sooner than you think.
Study Material Used
PMP Exam Prep: Questions Answers & Explanations by Christopher Scordo
Over To You
Which PMP mock exams did you do? What were your scores? What was your comfort level after doing a few mock exams?
Please leave a comment.
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For all aspiring project management professionals (PMPs), it’s well known that the PMP exam includes a lot of “trick questions” where you really have to be careful about the wording and cut through the noise in the question to find what the really important answer is. This is meant to simulate project management in the real-world, where day-to-day you have to cut through the noise and make decisions based on what’s truly important. There is also lots of terminology, acronyms and references to names of theories and principles that you need to know.