How Difficult Is Pmp Certification? How Long Would It Take To Prepare For It

How difficult is PMP certification? How long would it take to prepare for it

Nowadays, PMP becomes a stronger opportunity for individuals to establish a career in, but it comes with a lot of responsibility when an individual grows in this special field, especially when it attains to planning, handling, and managing huge projects, they do need to have good organization, technical, interpersonal skills. There is no doubt that numerous certification training programs are out there to better assist apprentices in learning about management.

The project management field is a profession involving a deep understanding of skills, processes, deliverables, tools, and techniques to project-specific tasks, events, activities, or duties towards the completion for ensuring the ideal path to present success by meeting aimed goals with fulfilling all the requirements. The skills of Project management are highly appreciated and valued in every industry as this field is all about planning, processing, leading, and executing projects on stringent budgets before meeting deadlines.

Now the question is, How Difficult Is the PMP Exam is? Needless to say, PMP examination difficulty is guaranteed for most, if not all, PMP aspirants. Let’s look at a few things, which make the PMP exam difficult and what steps should be taken to overcome and pass on your first attempt.

How Difficult Is The PMP Exam?

Before taking the PMP examination test, applicants have to pass an authorized official prep course of 35 hours that prepares them for both the practical and theoretical knowledge areas of the exam. The primary reference text will be the PMBOK that contains the project management standard by PMI. This textbook, also usually referred to as the PMBOK guide, should be studied thoroughly.

Additionally, the questions of the exam will specifically cover 5 domains which are: Initiating, planning, monitor-control, performing, closing a project.

13% of questions will focus on the Initiating domain
24% of questions will focus on the Planning domain
31% questions will focus on the Executing domain
25% of questions will focus on the Monitoring and Controlling domain
7% questions will focus on the Closing domain

Who should take this course?

The PMP Certification is ideal for IT professionals who are willing to make professional career in managing project field

Beginners or newbie
Leaders
Managers
Entrepreneurs
Software Developers
Project workers
Senior project manager
Team Managers
Project Executives
Assistant/Associate Project Managers

PMP Certification Prerequisites

4 years of degree or equivalent education having either 4500 hours project experience or 7500 hours of secondary degree related to project managing experience
Mandatory training of 35 hours
Online examination after paying the fees
It takes 4 hours 30 minutes to complete 200 objective type questions to score above 70 to pass the examination and qualifying for the certification.

Experience plays a crucial role as it shows leadership and managerial skills with the understanding of an individual’s accountability and responsibility. Some required skills are critical thinking, creative mindset, analytical skills, problem-solving skills, creative mindset, leadership skills, accountability, multitasking skills, etc.

What Makes the PMP Exam Difficult?

Nevertheless, Learners encountered difficulties and found that earning PMP certification was not easy to reach the threshold for them if they didn't have professional assistance; that's why Wissenhive personally puts a lot of effort into preparing pupils for examination. Here are the difficulties that applicants ran into.

Length of Materials
The complexity of Exam Structure
Difficulty of Questions

let's find out in detail

How Hard Is The PMP Certification Exam?

The PMP examination is considered both long and challenging, which covers a ton of information and tests for verifying the individual's abilities to understand and apply their knowledge the way it would in original project management situations. Apprentices can’t expect to pass by simply memorizing PMP concepts, terms, and formulas.

The part of the PMP exam that makes it so hard is the volume of information you need to understand and the process to implement it. The individual should have a strong understanding of best practices commonly used in project management that are designed modernly as their knowledge base should include:

3 PMP Examination Content Outline (ECO) domains: Process, People, and Business Environment
35 types of tasks relating to these domains
Various skills required for qualifying project managers post in any industry
Predictive or waterfall, Hybrid, Agile, and project management approaches
Relevant mathematical concepts and PMP formulas

This information is covered from the PMI-approved resources such as the PMBOK® Guide (A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge), Exam Content Outline, the PMP Handbook, coursework, and other material developed by Premier PMI ATPs (Authorized Training Partners) such as Project Management Academy.

Difficult Questions

The questions of the PMP exam are demanding because they test your understanding and skills, not just your memory, where apprentices will be presented with realistic project management scenarios and asked for utilizing effective and ideal principles, methodologies, and artifacts from the PMBOK Guide and other approved resources for determining and coming up with the best solution.

There can be more than one correct potential answer to the question. If you managed to find the correct one, you shouldn’t simply check it and move on. It would be great if you determined which answer is the best for a specific situation: the most logical.

The PMP exam questions may also belong, meaning you have to read every part carefully, which can become harder as the exam progresses since staying patient and focused for almost four straight hours and coming up with the best solutions is a little confusing and frustrating for applicants. You may have to pick through extraneous information for focusing on what isn’t relevant to the solution.

Complexity of PMP Exam Structure

Pupils need to understand the 3 domains of project management, as we mentioned earlier, including People, Process, and Business Environment. The questions about each of these domains are divided into different sections as follows:

People (42%) - This domain includes 14 tasks focusing on the individual ability of building, coaching, and directing the team working on the project.
Process (50%) - This domain includes 17 tasks focusing on the knowledge of project management processes, how to leverage and apply them throughout the project life cycle efficiently.
Business Environment (8%) This specific domain includes 4 tasks, but it is the smallest domain and covers the smallest percentage of the PMP Examination. It covers how projects can be influenced by the organization running them and delivering value.

Length of Exam

The PMP examination covers 180 multiple-choice questions. However, PMI carries 5 “pretest questions” on every exam to evaluate a question's actual quality. There is no means to determine whether a question is unscored or scored; aiming to answer all the questions correctly is must-must we say. Some of the complex questions may end up being pretest questions, but many of the “real” questions are just as challenging.

Applicants will have 230 minutes for answering all 180 questions, averaging 1 minutes and 16 seconds per question. There are 2 scheduled breaks, so applicants can use the bathroom or get water during these times. You can also make unscheduled breaks, but remember that the timer will never stop during these period.

Don't panic if you run out of time on the exam as the actual test is harder than practice experiments of PMP. It is clearly noticed that many people have run out of time before they finish all the questions, but have still managed to successfully pass the exam. However, applicants shouldn’t rely on this possibility: Wissenhive suggests you give your best and answer all the questions correctly, or try to attempt all the questions which you are not sure about, leaving it blank as there is no negative marking system. Even one incorrect answer can lead to the difference between failing and passing the exam.