Lot of times my student tell me that, Varun, I was not able to complete the test on time.
So I thought, let me record this video to quickly give you some
tips and tricks to make sure that you are completing the test on time. By the way,
who am I? My name is Varun and I'm the founder and CEO of EduHubSpot, a training company which
has given thousands and thousands of PMPs to this industry. So let us go right into that.
As you all know, entire PMP exam is divided into three sections, which is your first 60 questions,
then questions from 61 to 120. And finally, questions 121 to 180. The techniques, which
I'm going to tell you, you have to make sure you are applying this technique only in your last set,
which is from questions 121 to 180. Again, these techniques, which I am giving you,
you have to apply only from 121 to 180. 1st 120 questions; we will be doing it in our normal way.
If you remember, if you have already watched my last and final video before your PMP exam,
the link I will give you in the description. I have explained that your entire PMP exam,
which is of 180 questions, is divided into three sections and I have used my 80, 80,
70 rule. Now what do I mean by that? First 60 questions, you should take 80 minutes
second, and then you get a 10 minutes break. If you don't know that, you'll get a 10 minutes break
after 60 questions, and those 10 minutes are not counted in your real PMP exam. Like those are in
addition of the total 230 minutes, which you get. So first, 60 questions, 80 minutes second
60 questions, which is 61-120, another 80 minutes. The last 60 questions, which is from question 121
to 180, you only have 70 minutes to do this. Now, let us say you started the test and
typically, I have seen that people start with the panic mode. They get depressed,
they get tense when they see the quality of the questions, and they are tough questions.
So don't get into that panic mode. Let us assume, let us take a worst-case scenario
that for first 60 questions you spent around, and let us say a hundred minutes,
okay? Now you have 130 minutes left to solve the remaining 120 questions. Let us say you
came back from the break, then you started from question 61 to 120, and let's say now you spend
90 minutes. So total you have spent 190 minutes, and now you are left with only 40 minutes,
you are left with only 40 minutes and you have 60 questions to deal with.
Okay? Now that is a challenge. There are three techniques, which I always tell.
First technique, which is a pretty basic, and just read the question quickly, read the question
quickly, read the answer choices, mark it, don't read it multiple times, and that's it. Move on.
This is an okay technique, but the technique which I am going to tell you is this one.
What we are going to do is, I will be showing this technique in action. I will show it to
you how I applied this technique so that it helps you in your real PMP exam. Once again,
you are only applying this technique from question 121 to 180 and if you are running short of time,
your trigger point is last 60 questions, and you have only 40 minutes to do the test. So
if you are into this situation, then this is the technique which will definitely help you.
So what do you want to do? We will not read the question;
we will only read the answer choices. That is it. We read the answer choices;
we use our elimination technique, mark the answer and just move on. Don't worry,
no need to read the question. Just believe your instincts, believe your preparation, and move on.
Let me show you that technique in action. First option, consult your senior manager
about giving her incentives to motivate her to do the work. Now, if you see this question,
we are talking about motivating the team. We are talking about giving incentives. So
incentives we can give, I am not saying we should not give, but if you ask me,
giving incentives if the team is not performing well, is not the right choice. I am assuming the
team is not performing well. That is why they are trying to give the incentives that may be a wrong
assumption because I have not read the question. But this may or may not be a good choice.
B: Hire a new resource. Definitely, not definitely because I have not read the question. Most likely,
this will not be a favorable choice. Hiring a new resource is most likely an extreme
choice and we do not want to do that. So most likely, we eliminate this choice.
C: Provide training to the team member a good choice. Why it is a good choice.
Because hiring a new resource or before you give incentives, you will make sure that you provide
the team a training so that they can perform the project will. So this looks like a good choice.
Last choice, move her to another module she is more qualified for. This answer
choice may also be a good answer choice, move her to another module.
But let's try to understand, what series of actions we will do one step at a time.
So most likely, first I will try to provide the person with the training. If that does not work,
then I will try to move that person to another module heard. Third, if none of these works,
then I will hire a new resource or I will look for a replacement.
So based off that assumption, we are wearing that PMI hat. It looks to me that first step
at my end would be to provide the team member with a training, which is your answer choice C.
So without even reading a question, if you see, I picked the answer choice,
and this is how you have to think but let us read the question also once again.
One of your team member is underperforming on a recently assigned module, as I told you,
something may not have been going right. The reason is that she lacks experience for this
type of work. However, she is the only resource on your team that is available to work on that
module. What is the best solution to the problem? So if you read this question, first of all,
couple of hints. First of all, she's the only resource. This means you cannot move over to
another module. You want to make sure that you are using that resource and if she is not comfortable,
provide that person with the training. So the correct choices, answer choice C,
See how quickly I was able to find the answer to this question without even reading the
question. So we have to use this technique only if we are running short on time. Please,
please, please don't use this technique if everything is working out in your favor.
Next technique. Read the last statement of the question and then your four choices and try to
find the answer. That is it. So let us see. This is the question in front of us, I will just read
the last statement of the question. “How can the project manager accelerate the approvals and build
customer trust at the same time?” So they want to accelerate the approval so that probably less
time is spent on unnecessary things, and most importantly, build that customer trust. Okay,
so this is, I understood kind of what the problem is. Let us read the answer choices. A:
invite the customer to send representatives to witness the team's testing to pre-approve
the test. Now wear your PMI hat, when you wear your PMI hat, you as a project manager have to
resolve the problem defined in the question. Now, if you see this answer choice, it says,
invite the customers to send representatives, we are kind of trying to delegate our project
management work to someone else, which we typically don't do. So this answer choice,
maybe correct answer choice because I have not read complete option,
but this is not giving me that wow feeling. So most likely this is not the correct choice.
B: Work out an arrangement with the customer to defer as many tests as possible to the
final release. No, this is definitely a No, I don't even have to read the question. B is
definitely out. Why? Because I don't want to wait for the test at the last moment. If there
are issues I want to resolve that issues in the beginning. And more importantly,
this question is about first accelerate the approvals. This
choice may accelerate the approval, but will not necessarily build the customer trust,
which was the last statement of the question. C: Propose new terms for team members to work
aside the customer testers to run the test in their environment. So first of
all what you are doing, so if I read the answer choice, it looks like that your testing team and
their testing team are working together, like building together, so when working together, you
are building trust. That is a very good choice. Secondly, if the testings are one after the other,
this means it may take more time but if you're doing the testing together, this means you are
kind of building the trust and most importantly, you are cutting the time, unnecessary time, which
it might take. And that was the question asked. Also, let's see the last statement. How can the
project manager accelerate the approvals and build customer trust at the same time.
So this looks like a very good choice. Let's see the fourth option. But don't just pick the
answer choice because you want to make sure you read all the four answer choices properly. D:
Allow the team members to progress at their pace while the customer continues to test and approve
the earlier builds. Now, if you read this answer choice, you're saying allow the team to progress
at their pace. If there is no problem in the question or if there is no issue defined in
the question, then this might be an answer. But most likely, most of your questions in PMP exam,
they define a problem and you have to resolve that problem. If the team is progressing at the same
pace, this means you have accepted that problem and you are not finding the root cause of that
problem. Therefore, D does not look like a right choice. So the correct choice should be answer C.
Now let me read the question also so that we can make sure, but again, in the real PMP,
you don't have to read the first few statements because mostly it can be termed as garbage
statement. You don't have to do that. Just read the last statement, mark the answer,
you are short of time and move to the next one. Our primary goal is to finish the test on time.
Let me read the question. A medical equipment vendor is running a hybrid project, which
includes some customer software development by an agile team. See no point. Important point was
that it is a hybrid project, but once again, the team progress is good, but slow customer
approval causes the delays. The customer insights approval can only be given after repeating all the
test cases in the target environment. How can the project manager accelerate approvals and
build the customer trust at the same time? So the problem was that unnecessary delays
were being caused. So you wanted to resolve that problem, which was by accelerating the approvals
and the correct choice was answer choice, C. So see how quickly I was able to solve two
questions in such a short amount of time. So this is exactly what you have to do. Guys,
use this technique only if you are running short of time. And, if you need more techniques like
this, I have explained the entire more than a thousand questions on my website;
www.eduhubspot.com. Not using these techniques, but my different, different techniques like Neil
Armstrong technique, Einstein Techniques, I have used all these techniques to come up with the best
answer choice. And these techniques, which I've explained in this video, they're only used if
you are running short of time. Once again, check out my website for more than 1000+ questions and
course videos to pass PMP in your first attempt. Thank you.