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I want to reflect on my whole experience for this PMP exam and what it was like to take the Pearson VUE exam from home. So I’ll reflect on each one separately:
Let’s start with the exam itself first and how I studied for it.
I must admit the exam was considerably difficult even though I practised sufficiently enough on question banks and practice exams. After completing my 35-hour pre-requisite course for the exam, I purchased on Skillcertpro (USD 20.00) the questions pack for PMP. In total, I practised 5 sets of test sets (each consisting of 65 questions). I felt demoralised after practising here as my score was always in the 40-50% range. After finishing the 5th question set, I realised that the questions were all testing on PMP 6th edition but the exam I was taking was already on the 7th edition. This was when I decided to make a switch and went ahead to purchase the PMI Study Hall Plus (USD 79.00) instead.
In Study Hall, I began going through the guidebook essentially thinking that reading content would help, but it was kinda dry and not enjoyable, so I went ahead to do the practice questions provided. There was a total of 200 practice questions which essentially makes up to be one full-length exam. My score was 65% and I felt a confidence boost. The 7th edition questions were largely on Agile concepts and highly scenario-based instead of the older format in the 6th edition which focused on predictive (waterfall) methods. At this point, I was two weeks away from my exam. In the days before the exam, I redid the practice questions and went ahead to do 2 full-practice exams in an exam setting (meaning a 4-hour time limit for 1 full exam session without help). Both the practice exam results were 73% and 70% consecutively.
Having read on Reddit that if you are getting 65-75% on Study Hall, you're good to go ahead with the exam. That made me feel confident that I was ready.
Came the exam itself and my honest opinion of it was - damn it's difficult. Many Reddit users wrote that it was moderately difficult and answers were clearer than on Study Hall, but in my case, I felt the opposite. During the exam itself, I had a hard time deciding between 2 options and often stared at the question blankly. One issue I have is that the questions were very wordy, and even though I have done numerous practices, none of the questions appeared the same - it was always a fresh question, or repeat question with fresh options. To me, the difficulty was almost like the expert-level questions I did in Study Hall. There were even questions where it asked of topics that I had never seen before - too bad I cannot remember anything any longer.
My advice is to get Study Hall and just practice it inside out.
I'll share now about my experience with the exam-from-home using PearsonVUE.
The experience was horrific for lack of a better word. My exam was scheduled for 10:00 am and I was allowed to check in for the exam 30 minutes earlier. So earlier I did and did the pre-exam requirements of taking photos of my room and showing my IC at 9:30 am. This took about 10 minutes and by 9:40 am I was ready and waiting. The screen showed that I was 3 in the queue. I patiently waited and stared at the screen not being able to use the computer or my phone due to 'exam conditions have started'. At 10am, I was finally attended to by the proctor. He asked if I could see my face on the screen because he couldn't. I clearly could and told him so. He still maintained he could not see my face and told me to restart the app.
I restarted the app and got back into the queue once again and waited. It was 10:15 am by this time. Bear in mind I have already waited staring blankly at a screen since 9:40, which means around half an hour of mindlessness. Another proctor appeared in the chatbox once again, and this time round asked me to move my webcam around the room. My damn webcam only has a short cable so I could not extend it much but this guy kept insisting I step further back, further back to show him my table, my left, my right. He saw storybooks and told me to put them away behind me. He saw my bag and told me to put it away. The latency of the connection was so bad I could barely understand what he was saying, plus the fact they were outsourced manpower from India so that accent was really heavy. Not to blame them or what, but c'mon at least have some empathy for people who are taking their exams and just speak a little slower and clearly.
The exam adrenaline faded to become fatigued and got a little sleepy by then. At 10:30 am, I was finally able to begin my exam.
Throughout the exam, I was praying hard that nothing would get in the way of the exam. I was so worried that some technical issue might arise causing the system to crash or my internet would break halfway. There were 2 instances where the software froze and turned into a blank screen for a moment, which got me really anxious, but thankfully recovered after a short while. Fortunately, I completed the exam all 180 questions successfully and submitted the exam. It was kinda weird because upon submitting the exam, it just says you can close the app and when I click it, everything just disappears suddenly. Poof! Not even a goodbye with the proctor, the software just closes.
All I could say is if I had a choice again, I would have chosen to take the exam on-site.
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I am glad that this phase is over. I have finally officially completed the 6 months journey of improving myself in my career development in Project Management. I attained a total of 6 certifications and can now go ahead to find myself a higher-paying job.
Certifications:
- Project Management Professional, PMP
- Certified Scrum Master, CSM
- Certified SAFe 6 Agilist, SA
- DevOps Leader, DOL
- ITIL v4 Foundation
- Power BI Associate