The Project Management Professional (or “PMP”) Certification Exam represents the final component of earning certification from the Project Management Institute, or “PMI.” There are several requirements leading up to the final exam, but to help get you oriented, the focus of this resource is to prepare you for the exam itself.
We know that there are several different types of guides, courses, and related curricula (both online and offline) that a student can enroll in while preparing to earn their PMP Certification. With a variety of providers and approaches available, it is important when preparing for the final exam to know what is (and what is not) included in the exam itself.
To help you in understanding what to expect, let’s start by looking at what will not be included in the examination itself.
PMP Certification Exam Requirements
If you’re looking to acquire your PMP Certification, you can’t simply go online and schedule a PMP Certification Exam. Eligible test participants must have demonstrable career experience that fits the following requirements.
For participants holding a Bachelor’s Degree:
- 4,500 hours of project management experience
- 35 hours of formal project management education
For participants not holding a Bachelor’s Degree:
- High School Diploma (or equivalent)
- 7,500 hours of project management experience
- 35 hours of formal project management education
You will note that aside from an educational achievement (in the form of a degree or diploma), professional project management experience is a requirement. It’s important to distinguish that these hours, accumulated during your ongoing career, do not require you to have a “Project Manager” title. Hours worked in a professional capacity that have you serving in the role of managing staff, resources, or tasks that contribute to a project are counted against this balance. If you’ve served as a project coordinator, representative, or even an individual contributor managing project delivery and outcomes – your experience here is applicable.
Another requirement regardless of your level of educational achievement is the 35 hours of “formal” project management education. Self-guided study of the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) will not suffice here, so you should look into various local or online educational programs available to you. As an alternative, you can also study under the tutelage and guidance of an already-certified PMP Professional provided that they have formalized a tutoring or training program. For these opportunities, reaching out to your neighbors, or local groups (like a professional network or Chamber of Commerce) can be helpful as the one-on-one format allows for you to spend your time on the areas of PMBOK familiarity where you need it most.
Recommended Path to Certification
As noted above, there are already a wealth of formal training programs and resource guides online that can help you to study and prepare for the PMP Certification Exam. Programs vary and may (or may not) include membership with the Project Management Institute (PMI).
In our collective experiences, we recommend that candidates looking to achieve PMP Certification consider the following (whether as part of a formal program or completed independently):
Project Management Institute (PMI) Membership
There’s a little nuance here, as PMI does offer free registration for individuals to join the PMI community. While we wouldn’t dissuade you from registering, there is significant value in becoming a member of PMI which (as you may expect) comes with a fee.
In addition to a $10 one-time registration fee, PMI Membership carries an annual fee of $129 per year. Membership extends beyond the community registration and includes a host of benefits including:
- A downloadable copy of the current PMBOK® (Project Management Book of Knowledge)
- Access to PMI’s digital content environment known as PMIstandards+™
- Online access to thousands of project management templates and tools
- Free (and more frequent) opportunities to earn Professional Development Units, or “PDUs”
- Discounts on career-relevant and advancement certifications (…like the PMP Certification you’re reading about here.)
- Access to PMI’s PM Job Board
- Updated access to the most recent versions of PMI publications and resources
- A digital downloadable copy of the Disciplined Agile “Choose Your WoW” book
- Opportunities to join local chapters for educational and networking opportunities (Note: these may require a separate and additional annual fee.)
The key here is that PMI Membership (at the time of writing) provides you with a $150 discounted cost on the PMP Certification Exam. So PMI Membership effectively pays for itself if you’re able to complete your PMP Certification Exam in the first year.
Formal Training or Education
While we’re grateful to have you here as a reader, interested and eager to learn about PMP Certification – there is no substitute for formal educational training. There are several different routes you can take including online training, local courses, or mentoring under the tutelage of a PMP Certified project manager. It’s important to note that in order to qualify to take the PMP Certification Exam, you must have completed a minimum of 35 classroom hours in the first place.
PMI Certification Exam Application
This sounds pretty simple, and in theory – it is. But the application process can be both intimidating and complicated, particularly for candidates who have not become a PMI Member in advance. Membership affords the discounted exam cost as well as an easier application process.
Applying for PMP Certification Testing
As best as we can to try to break things down in layman’s terms, there is a sense of rigidity when it comes to PMI and their processes related to PMP Certification. As we’ve already covered, applying to take the exam is easier (and cheaper) for PMI Members, but regardless of your membership status, here’s what will happen.
After applying to take the exam through Project Management Institute, you will receive one of three responses. These responses come in the form of an Approval, a Denial – or a message indicating that More Information is Required.
When more information is required, you will need to follow up with PMI directly from that correspondence in order to receive a final decision which would either be the approval or denial.
Once you have been approved to take the PMP Certification Exam, PMI will provide you with an opportunity to select and confirm a testing date and location. At this point, you will be provided with a “Certificate of Eligibility” which is a requirement that you must bring with you to your scheduled exam appointment.
PMP Certification Testing Environment
The PMP Certification Exam represents your opportunity to earn a level of accreditation that many aspire to achieve, but relatively few accomplish. There is an abundance of hard work invested over years by each individual leading up to the exam, so the exam environment is appropriately outfitted.
The testing environment in which you will take the exam is formal and protected. Testing environments are under constant video and audio surveillance to protect the integrity of the examination.
As a candidate taking the exam, you are permitted to bring two things with you. Those two items are your photo identification (such as a driver’s license or government-issued ID) and a non-programmable calculator.
The exam itself is conducted on a PC with participants being allotted a total of 4 hours to complete the exam. The 200 questions require multiple-choice responses, and upon completion of the exam, a candidate’s results are immediately available.
PMP Certification Final Exam Grading
It’s always important to have proper expectations, so if you’re on track to take the PMP Certification Exam, you should be aware of how the exam is graded as well as what is (and is not) known about that process.
Based on our experiences with the PMP Certification Exam, we have observed that the exam consists of 200 questions, but not all of those questions are graded. We have learned that 25 of the questions included in the exam are experimental which leaves us to assume that they may be used in rotation on future iterations of the exam itself. The important consideration here is for you to be aware that 25 of the questions will not be graded, and like it or not – you will not know which questions those are.
The exam is simply a “Pass” or “Fail” scenario for candidates.
The Project Management Institute (PMI) has not published formal criteria for passing, but the lowest “passing” grade that we are aware of was a score of 61%. If you’re doing the math, that means that at a minimum, you will need to correctly answer 107 of the graded questions on the exam.
Finally, if you’re thinking that a 61% grade is “easy,” think again. The exam questions are designed to challenge your knowledge and application of PMI’s guidance and have been carefully created to force you to make judgments based on that criteria. They are not easy, at all – which is why it is encouraged that you consider taking preparatory exams in advance.
What is Tested?
As you can probably predict, the Project Management Professional Certification’s Final Exam tests the participant’s knowledge of the Project Management Institute’s Project Management Processes.
Based on personal experiences, we tend to think of this as a test of how “book smart” you are, as opposed to the accumulated “street smart” experience you may have already accumulated.
Said in more direct terms: In order to pass the PMP Final Exam, you must be able to demonstrate familiarity with PMI’s instructional curriculum.
Next, you should expect that the exam will test your knowledge of project management process terminology. Being familiar with the foundational terms of the PMI curriculum and being able to recite their meanings as PMI presents them will be crucial to your ability to pass the exam.
The exam also presents a series of “What If” scenarios. These situations will require you to assess the provided factors and objectives, work through related and applicable processes, and apply these project management processes to resolve issues and effectively manage the presented project through to completion.
Finally, if you’re preparing for the PMP Certification Exam, you should be familiar with the scheduling, cost, and estimating formulas that PMI presents and able to identify which of these formulas can be applied to resolve a host of challenges presented in the exam.
What is Not Tested?
While individuals can accumulate a wealth of project management experience in their educational and professional lives, those experiences aren’t particularly applicable to the PMP Certification Final Exam.
The first thing that the PMP Final Exam will not explicitly test for is your project management experience. That may sound a little harsh, but keep in mind that your experiences are not (at this point) in full alignment with PMI’s governing concepts of PMP Certification. Every individual will have varying experiences, applications, etc. so your experience (while it may be helpful for building your confidence and career experience) will not be called upon during the final exam.
If you’re already familiar with the Project Management Institute (PMI) or Project Management Professional (PMP) accreditation, you have likely become aware of the Project Management Book of Knowledge, or “PMBOK.” While the PMBOK serves as PMI’s governing resource, we do not recommend that you use the PMBOK as a study guide or resource when preparing for the PMP Certification Exam. The PMBOK is a reference document, not a learning resource capable of aiding you in passing the final exam.
Similarly, whether in the classroom or in the office you will undoubtedly have developed patterns of awareness, instincts, and behavioral approaches that become routine to the point of being mental muscle memory, in a sense. While that’s an indication of your awareness of managing projects – “common sense” is not part of the PMP Certification Exam.
Back on October 6th, 1984 at PMI Philadelphia, 56 aspiring professionals took the first PMP Certification Exam, with 43 participants passing to earn their PMP Certified status. In the 28 years since that first exam was conducted, hundreds of project management software tools have been developed, refined, and made commonplace in the new digital world of project management. While these software tools have helped to improve project management practices, it is important to note that your familiarity or knowledge of software skills will not be tested in the modern PMP Certification Exam.
Number of Questions by Concept
As noted above, the PMP Certification Final Exam is inclusive of 200 multiple-choice questions. Our experience with the exam has proven that questions correlate with foundational concept groups of project management and vary in number.
Here is our best-guess breakdown of what you should expect to see in the exam. Keep in mind that 25 of the questions you will see are not part of the graded results, so the numbers below are based on 175 graded questions.
- Project Initiation: 23 Questions (13% of graded questions)
- Project Planning: 42 Questions (24% of graded questions)
- Project Execution: 52 Questions (30% of graded questions)
- Project Monitoring & Controls: 44 Questions (25% of graded questions)
- Project Closing: 14 Questions (8% of graded questions)
Wrap Up & Final Recommendations
If you’ve made it this far, thank you! We’ve put a lot of time and effort into making your journey to PMP Certification more approachable and easy to understand. In wrapping up, we recommend that you keep the following in mind:
- The Project Management Institute (PMI) is the governing body that issues Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification.
- PMI provides authoritative resources and direct access to PMP Certification.
- PMI Membership will run you about $150 for first-time members, but the cost is made up in exam discounts and resources.
- PMP Certification is a significant achievement that comes with rigid requirements and testing environments. Become familiar with those to reduce anxiety building up to your certification exam.
- There’s no substitute for professional learning and development, and it’s a requirement for PMP Certification. Be purposeful and aware of the choices you make and how you invest your time.
- The exam consists of 200 questions, 175 of which contribute to your final grade. Grades are provided on a Pass or Fail basis and while they are multiple-choice, they are not easy.
- While the PMBOK is the most popular resource and governing document produced by PMI, it is not a good study tool for exam participants.