What to expect on exam day – if you take the exam at a testing center

Here's to hoping the world is back to normal (following the COVID-19 pandemic) as you read this. If not, you can take your exam from home through a proctored process. Pretty much what you would need for a Zoom meeting is the extent of how complicated it will be. But let's go back to hoping the world is back to normal and you can leave the house!

Let's assume you have submitted your application, been approved (avoided an audit), and are ready to schedule your exams. Here are a couple of items to consider:

• If you are a morning person, try to schedule your exam in the morning or in the afternoon if you wake up after lunch. You will be tired and brain strained after taking the exam and it's even worse if you schedule it during a time when you are not alert or at your best. Most hosting sites have multiple time slots and days when you can schedule your exams. Some may even have weekend or evening hours. If not, you'll need to plan accordingly with your work schedule. It's about a 6-hour round trip event if you need to travel to the testing site or a 4-hour event if you take it at home.
• Pearson VUE is the host of the exams and for those taking the PMP® exam, you will need to search your area to find the best location for you and find out whether a center is even open in your area right now. If you are in a large city, you should have several to choose from. If you are on the outskirts, you may have to travel an hour or so. Make sure when you schedule your exam, you take into consideration rush hour traffic and the like. PMI® will provide you with a link and instructions on where to go and what to do to schedule through Pearson's system.

Print out the email from PMI® that states you have been approved to sit the exam.

Note

The exam used to be hosted by Prometric but is now hosted by Pearson VUE. The reason for changing vendors was because Pearson VUE had more locations globally and had the capacity to host more exams online. The Pearson VUE process may be different and/or change as they take on the new exams, so always make sure to read all the information carefully. PMI® will provide you with the information you need after your exam is paid for and you are ready to schedule. It's always best to have hard copies of the communications, whether Pearson VUE asks to see them or not. You're a project manager and you probably already know that being prepared is the way to go.

Make sure you have two forms of identification with you when you go to the exam location. You will need to present these to the person checking you in. I used a passport and driver's license because it had my full and correct name. For some reason, credit card companies and airlines just can't get it right. I suppose it's the J. Ashley throwing them off. J. Edgar Hoover never had these problems! You can't use social security cards as identification, but you can use your company identification badge if it has a current picture and your name, plus you will also need one additional main type of identification.

The night before your exam, double-check your route. I always advise calling the site the day before or checking their website to see whether the parking is on-site or a parking garage. Is there any construction you need to worry about? Maybe even do a drive-by of the site to make sure you know what to expect. Taking an exam is stressful enough without being late, or stuck in traffic, or parking on the 15th floor of a parking garage without an elevator. I speak from experience on that one.

I am chronically early to everything, much to the chagrin of my husband and friends, but for every exam I take and arrive early for (all of them), I am typically able to get right into the testing area. If they have an open computer, they will get you in early.

When you arrive and after your check-in, the front desk will ask you to put everything in a locker. By everything, I mean everything. I literally had two Advil in my pocket, knowing full well I would need to take them immediately post-exam. They made me put them in the locker. Not sure who thinks every possible answer could be documented on two little green gel caps, but I digress for good reason. No smartphones or smartwatches, no food or water in the testing area, nothing in your pockets, no bags or backpacks. Nothing except you and only you can enter the testing room. I know some of you read that no food or water comment and thought I was kidding. Unless you have a medical issue with a doctor's note, you may not have anything to eat or drink with you.

Once you have put your precious Red Bull, Grande Frappuccino no whip, a granola bar, plus your Advil in the locker, you will be taken to another room and swiped with a metal detector. It's a lot like going through security at an airport. You can keep your shoes on, though. You will also have your picture taken. Trust me when I say that this is the most painful part for me. I looked like I had just survived a tornado in my picture. They do this for a reason: so that when you pass, they know for sure it is you, and so you have a terrible picture to remember the experience by.

Note

Something to note is that this was my experience and that I took my PMP® exam and my PMI-ACP® at a Prometric site. I took my CAPM® with Pearson VUE and it wasn't as traumatic... except the picture part. Be prepared either way.

Once you are seated at your computer desk, you will be given something to write on and write with. Don't even think about opening the booklet or starting to write anything down until the exam begins. The proctor will soundly reprimand you.

You will have the option of going through a tutorial before you begin the exam. This tutorial will provide information such as the next button will take you to the next question, the previous button will take you to the previous question, and more. I use the tutorial time to practice deep breathing. While I sound like I'm kidding, I'm totally serious. I had no idea the previous button would take me backward through the exam. Right, I'm kidding. I am trying to make light of a stressful situation so that you know that it can be survived.

The scratch paper is there for you to use for math questions or to jot down information you don't want to forget or to use if something needs to be worked out on paper before selecting the correct answer. Do not spend more than 1 minute of precious exam time writing things down. You may also get a dry erase board, which is a nightmare for lefties like me.

The exam is highly proctored as well. You are on camera, you are being audiotaped, and you have a proctor with heavy shoes walking behind you. You will also be in the room with other test-takers. They may not be so privileged to be able to click a mouse for next and previous, and they may actually have to type their answers. Click, click, cough, sneeze, sigh, cry, snort, and a variety of emotions and human noises will prevail. I want you to know this because if you are easily distracted by noise, this can throw you off your game. Occasionally, they will give you headphones to drown out the noise. Mine were too large and I spent much of my time looking like I was flagging planes in for a landing. I took them off after the first plane landed.

You will be given access to a calculator for math questions, and that calculator is probably embedded in the math questions. You will click the calculator button and use your mouse to navigate the math questions. (What?? Math?? Yes, I'm sorry. I mean I'm really sorry.) There isn't a ton of math, so that is the good news. The better news is you don't have to do the calculations in your head. I can hear the cheers from the mathematically challenged. Oh wait, that was me…

You will have a timer so that you can see how much time you have left. Try not to be a clock watcher as it tends to stress you out, but be sure you know how your pace is going. The good news is, you will have studied super hard and will have taken practice exams. You will know how long it takes you to answer 180 questions. Also, in case you thought you could take a break during the exam and slam your Red Bull, take two Advil, and cram a granola bar in your mouth, unfortunately, you cannot. There are two 10-minute scheduled breaks but you cannot go to your locker. If you need a bio break before then, you can raise your hand like at kindergarten and go through the preceding process in reverse and then forward again. The clock will still be ticking. I try very hard not to leave the terminal until the bitter end.

You can mark questions for later review. I marked about 25 on my PMP® exam. Some I marked because I wanted to review the question again to make sure I selected the correct answer. Some I marked because I literally had no idea what the answer was. The rest were math questions I chose to ignore until I was running out of time. I'm the type that prefers to eat ice cream before green beans. I'm weird like that! Whatever your strategy is, you can click a button to return to just the marked questions – unless, of course, you want to use the highly touted previous and next buttons, but that can be a major time-waster.

The exam will not take away credit for incorrect answers. You only get credit for correct answers. Woohoo – they don't cancel each other out! The exam is also not adaptive, meaning it doesn't know you aren't that great at math and then give you more math questions. It may feel that way to you but the 180 questions you get are the 180 you get.

Now, the big question of the day. What is the passing score? This is a more difficult question than you might think. The PMP® exam used to be scored with a percentage. You got 82%! Since 2007, things have changed a bit. Now, the exam is scored using proficiency levels in each domain. I'll let PMI® explain. Insert legalese here...

"The PMP® passing score for all PMI® credential examinations is determined by sound psychometric analysis. PMI® uses subject matter experts – project professionals from around the world and many different disciplines – to determine how many questions you must answer correctly to pass the exam. Each scored question in the exam is worth one point, and your final score is calculated by totaling the points you have earned on the exam. The number of questions you answer correctly places you within one of the performance rating categories you see in the report."

To explain that a little bit more, the questions you will get are different from someone else's questions, as mentioned earlier. If you get a ton of easy questions, they are weighted less than difficult questions, meaning the easier the questions are, the more you need to answer correctly. The more difficult, the fewer you need to get correct. Which is a good thing, I think.

The score and proficiency ratings are weighted toward the different process groups. The following table shows the current breakout for the exam based on the percentage of questions in each domain:

Here is some good news. The exam score is based on 175 questions, not 180. "So, why the heck are there 180 questions?", you may be asking yourself. Five questions don't count for your score and are considered pre-test questions, which actually is a misnomer because they aren't the first five questions you get. They are mixed in with the rest. The reason why this is done is to test newer questions in the test bank and to gain data on how people respond. It helps PMI® build out their ever-growing test bank and to test new concepts. You will need to answer all 180 questions though because you don't know what counts and what doesn't.

Even if you don't know the answers, you have a 25% chance of getting them correct, so go for it! There may also be some out-of-the-blue questions. Real head-scratchers. They may be the pre-test questions you were looking for. They also may not be the pre-test questions. Either way, you will know whether you have passed within about 30 seconds after submission, provided you choose to skip the survey.

There is a survey at the end that you can choose to take to give feedback about the exam. I would love to be a fly on the wall when those are read out loud. "This beep, beep, beepity, beep exam was too hard!" and other such proclamations of an exhausted test taker. Your choice! If you choose not to take the survey, you can submit your exam for scoring. If you are like me, you will stop breathing for about 30 seconds while the blue screen of death hits your terminal and then… Congratulations, you have passed! (That is my assumptive close.) While you burst into tears and fist pump or whatever works as your celebratory happy dance, the proctor will be printing out a piece of paper with a "you passed" statement on it, a breakdown of your target/proficiency levels, and the awesome (driver's license-like) picture of you, plus a handy-dandy notary stamp making the pass totally legit. Now, you can take your Advil, call your boss, change your email signature to include PMP (you don't need the registered trademark symbol after if it represents your PMP designation), dump the melted Frappuccino, and head out to grab a large adult beverage to celebrate your success! Congrats in advance!

What to expect on exam day if you take your PMP® exam online at home… in your pajamas…

You will need a very quiet place to take your exam. By quiet, I mean no kids running in and out of your room, and no cats on your keyboard! A dedicated quiet space. You will need everything you would need for a Zoom call. A microphone, a webcam, and a computer with internet. Best to be plugged in and not wireless.

You may be asked to take everything off the walls behind you. Anything that looks like it may help you pass is a no-no.

You will have a proctor staring at you, which can be unnerving for some. Be prepared for that.

You will have a calculator and an online whiteboard. Most people hate it, so make sure you can work with something like that. No scratch paper.

Plan about 5 hours for the entire experience. The exam is 4 hours with two 10-minute breaks, yes; however, there has been some chatter that the proctors may not show up on time. It's frustrating but you need to expect the worst and hope for the best.

Do NOT, I repeat do NOT, whip out your phone to take a picture of your passing score. They will cancel your exam and you will have to take it again. True story.

Follow ALL their rules and you should be fine. I prefer taking my exam in a center but ya know, COVID-19 and such. You can determine whether there is a center near you that is open and how safe you feel going there. You have options. Yay!