PMP Exam Day – Ultimate Guide to Dos and Don’ts on the The D-Day

PMP Exam day is an important day to remember in the career. PMP Exam day is the day to show your potential, all the time and efforts you have spent so far in preparation.

Just look back, how far you came on this journey. Yes! It was fantastic. You are just few miles away, to achieve your goal, passing the PMP Certification exam. You have done well on your preparation, attended a lot of mock tests and made yourself confident. Now it is time to win the battle.

PMP Exam Day – The D-DAY

Just before your PMP Exam

• To make ready for the PMP Exam day, you need take a day or two off from your office and keep the business or office things completely away from you. Also inform your family and friends about the exam, keep all the family concerns or tasks away from you.

• Have a very good sleep the night before the exam day and avoid over studying.

• Wear clothes that are comfortable to you, so as to feel fresh and comfortable all the time. In the exam hall, there would be good amount of air conditioning, hence if you are not comfortable with this kind of whether, do not forget to get a sweater with you.

• Have good healthy breakfast or food, as this is a 4 hour exam. Do not take too much of water, just before the exam, to avoid too many bio breaks. Keep yourself away from the distractions such as hunger, thirsty, too many bio breaks.

On the PMP Exam Day, before you start the PMP Exam

• Come by a taxi or any other transportation with which you would comfortably reach the exam center.

• Plan to arrive a bit early (an hour before) than the exam slot timings. PROMETRIC centers will have lot of other exams going on. So coming late to the slot is not at all an option.

• Once you are ready to the exam before 30 minutes to your exam slot, register yourself at front desk. They will a lot you a locker, where you can keep all your belongings including your wallet, mobile, food, keys etc… You must go to the exam hall with empty pockets.

• You need to show you ID proofs. Name in Your ID proofs should match with the name mentioned in your application.
• PROMETRIC test centers will accept only specific ID proofs. It is always better to call and check with PROMETRIC test center before a day or two on which ID proofs will they accept. You can bring your passport, driving license or any other two valid ID proofs. Also you need to bring your PMI authorized letter for the exam.

• There would be security checks where you need to show the empty pockets in front of the camera and then prometric staff will confirm your entry to the exam hall.

On the PMP Exam Day – Inside the PROMETRIC center, But before the PMP exam

• After you clear the security checks, you will be taken to the exam room, into a cubicle with a computer. You will be given the following things
  • A pencil or two
  • A scratch paper
  • A Physical calculator or a calculator tool on the computer that appears, once the exam is started.
  • Optionally you will be given ear plugs in some cases.

• Use the scratch paper properly, so that you can utilize this paper for all the questions sufficiently. If the current scratch paper is full, you can exchange this with new one.

On the PMP Exam Day – When your PMP Exam starts

• Before you start the exam, take a deep breath and be confident.

• As soon as the exam starts, you will be asked to go through a 15 minute tutorial on the exam which is important for sure. After this, when the PMP exam starts dump all your formulas, ITTOs, any other stuff which is difficult to remember, on to the scratch paper. This way you would free up your mind, by not holding lot of content to your brain.

• After this, your exam starts, and your name will be displayed on the computer screen and one question will appear per screen on the exam. With respect to the question, you can do one of the following things.
  • Navigate backward and forward to go to previous and next questions
  • Mark a particular answer for review
  • Mark the answer.

On the PMP Exam Day – When you answer Questions

• Read every question carefully and answer each question. Since it is a 4 hours exam with 200 questions, it is natural to get distracted or tired. Take deep breaths, whenever necessary and try to focus on the exam.

• Plan for not more than 2 breaks and keep the breaks evenly. Do no waste your time here. Remember the computer clock will keep ticking, while you are at your break. At every break, security checks will be there before you enter into the exam hall. So this would occupy some more time, at each of your break.

• Do not panic, if you getting few difficult questions consecutively, which you are unable to answer. This happens to everyone, and is absolutely normal. Easy or direct questions will follow later to balance this out.

• Most importantly, do not spend more than a minute or two on any question. This would make sure you traverse through all the exam questions. At any point of the exam, you will see easy and direct questions also.

• For the difficult questions, use elimination method, or use your best quest to choose the best answer you think. Do not leave any question unanswered, irrespective of whether you mark it for review or not. If you are doubtful of the answer, even after your best guess, mark it for review to come back to it later.

On the PMP Exam Day – After you complete the PMP Exam

• Once you complete your first round of answering all the question, use the remaining time for reviewing the marked questions.

• Do not leave early from the exam, even if you have completed all the questions much ahead of your time. Remember this exam took your hard earned effort, time and money. Do not take a chance.

• Once you complete the exam, at the end you will be asked to fill up a survey. The survey is optional. After the survey, the screen will go blank for a while and you will see a magic screen appearing your result saying “Congratulations!”, if you pass in the exam. Otherwise you will be shown your next steps on reappearing for the exam.

• In the test report, PMI provides the 3 levels of measuring your performance in the exam. They are Proficient, Moderately Proficient and Below Proficient.

• Finally you need to go to the prometric test center staff, to collect your printed report card. Hard copy of the certificate will come to your address given during the application process.

Conclusion

That’s it! We are done. So hope this explained you every event on the PMP exam day. Please let us know, your feedback on this post or if I miss some things in this post pertaining to the exam day. Hope you enjoyed the post.

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