(APM PMQ Blog)

The APMP Exam

The APMP examination is a three-hour closed book examination. The paper contains 16 questions, each related to one of the 37 syllabus topics. You must answer 10 of them. There will be a maximum of two and a minimum of one numeric question(s) on any paper. All topics are examined equally. It is unlikely that you will have to draw a network diagram.

However, you may have to interpret one and draw a Gantt chart, histogram and “S” curve.

Each question is worth 50 marks giving a total score of 500.

To gain a pass you must achieve an aggregate score of 55% – i.e. 275 marks from 500.

If you have any special requirements contact either the APM Qualifications and Accreditation Department, or your training provider, in plenty of time so that the appropriate arrangements can be made. Remember that in some cases a medical certificate may be required.

APMP Exam Key Words
When setting examination questions the APM have standard definitions for these four words: list, state, describe and explain, described below.

List
When a question starts “List four….” you are expected to make a simple list of four items. You don’t have to expand, give an explanation, or discuss the list you have made. If the question asks for a list of four things then give no more than four, if it asks for six, give a list of no more than six. If you give more than the required number they will not be marked.

State
When a question starts “ State..” you are expected to write a single sentence to summarise the point being made. For example if the question was “State 4 benefits of using a Product Breakdown Structure” your answer might be (for one of the benefits): “A PBS helps to defined the scope of the project; if a product is mentioned it is within scope, if it isn’t then it won’t be part of the project – i.e. it would be out of scope.”

Describe
When a question starts “Describe…” you are expected to write a short paragraph summarising each point made. The APM state that this would be more than one sentence. So I would expect you to write 2 or 3 sentences.

Explain
Questions starting with “Explain….” require you to write a detailed explanation of the topic in question. The APM state that this requires 2 or more sentences for each point made. I would therefore expect you to write a paragraph consisting of 2 to 5 sentences perhaps including a relevant example of the point being made.

It may be useful to draw a diagram to help with the explanation. If there are specific points within the marking scheme for a diagram this will be stated in the question, e.g. “include an appropriately labeled diagram in your answer”.

There are occasions where the question asks you to “list” and then “describe”. In this case the best way to answer the question is to make the list first and then describe them in separate paragraphs. Remember to reference each paragraph to the relevant point in the list.

APMP Exam Hints and Tips
Taking an examination is, for most people, a nerve racking and stressful experience especially when one’s job or promotion prospects rely on a successful outcome. This is often the case for candidates sitting APMP.

The following is a list of hints and tips that I have been passing on to my students over the years with some success. They are not listed in any particular order and if you don’t like them, or it goes against your own writing or examination style – ignore them. This is not the time to change your writing style.

Be prepared
This means do any pre-course reading sent to you by your training provider. This may be extensive but we send it for a purpose. So often I have heard the cry “I’ve not had time”, “I’ve been very busy at work”, “I only received it yesterday” – the latter may be forgiven but on the whole these excuses are just that – excuses.

There is a huge amount of knowledge to absorb for the examination and whilst you may already have some experience there are bound to be some areas where your knowledge is lacking in part or in full.

I would recommend that you spend 30 – 60 minutes each day for 3 weeks before the examination studying the material you have received.

Make yourself a revision plan and stick to it. If you are having a break between your course and the examination use the time wisely.

Revision
It may go without saying but the point of revision is to learn and study that which you don’t know. This is a difficult and sometimes depressing activity. I have seen and heard people continually practising the topics they can do well, for example, constructing a network diagram and Gantt chart. Whilst this is very comforting it won’t help you in the exam if you haven’t revised the topics you don’t know.

If you find one topic is just too hard then give it up and move on to another. You will be examined on 16 topics from 37 and you need to know about 10 of them, so you can realistically expect to ignore a couple of topics completely. For example, many of my students have no experience of Earned Value Analysis. As such they find it a difficult subject to master and it involves some mathematics and formulae, which some people find scary in itself. In this instance my advice is to ignore the topic but word extra hard elsewhere.

Remember every time you say “I won’t bother with this topic” you are saying to yourself “I’ve got to answer 10 from 15, or 14 or 13 or 12 etc”, depending how many you ignore.
Try to spend between 1 and 2 hours a day revising. This may mean altering the family arrangements for a short period but it will be worth it in the end.

Time management in the APMP exam

​Within the 3 hours you have to complete 10 questions and that equates to 15 minutes per question plus 30 minutes reading and planning time.

A common failing in an examination is to run out of time. You must discipline yourself to spend a maximum of 15 minutes on each question. When I marked examination papers I noticed that the first page usually scored very well with the candidate getting down all the good stuff s/he knows. Page two was usually about half as good as page one; candidate running out of steam now.

Subsequent pages, if any, scored very little; the candidate had nothing left to say and was waffling, repeating him/herself or summarising, none of which actually scores. It is far better to move on after page 2 and score lots of marks on a new question.

If the question asks for an explanation that requires 5 points to be made then that equates to 3 minutes per point made.

If the question has two or more parts then the marks will be split between them and each 10 marks is worth 3 minutes of your time.

Thus answering the questions will take 2.5 hours. The remaining 30 minutes should be used firstly to read the paper thoroughly and select your ten questions – say 10 minutes. Use a further 10 to read through your answers, which leaves 10 minutes for anything you like!

How good do I have to be?
Remember 100% or 55% still result in a pass. It is not graded. There is no need to get every question 100% correct, neither should you aim for the bare minimum. I would recommend that you aim for the 75% mark.

This is a good pass and is “comfortable”, that is, you can still drop a few marks and pass. This relates closely to the next tip – choosing your questions.

Choosing your Exam questions
I recommend the “tick, tick, query, query” system or “√√??”

First read the paper thoroughly and when you read a question that you just know you can do well put a “√√” against it.

On the second pass put a “√” against your second choice.

Third time around put a “?” against the question you would have a go at if you were really pushed.

That leaves the rest as “??” – those you wouldn’t try under any circumstances.

By now with any luck you will have 4 – 5 question with a “√√” where you can hope to score about 80% each; 2 or 4 with a “√” where you can hope to score about 60% and 1 – 4 with a “?” where you can hope to score about 45% each.

If you total that up on the optimistic side you should have:

5 at 80%, 4 and 60% and 1 at 45% giving an overall score of around 68%.

Pessimistically you’ll have:
4 at 80%, 2 at 60%, 4 at 45% giving an overall score of around 62%.

In other words you don’t have to be brilliant all round!

If you are really struggling and you have to choose a couple of “??” from your paper do a little mental arithmetic on the marks and go for the one where you think you will score best.

Answering the APMP Questions
It is not necessary to write volumes to pass but you must take note of the guidance issued by the APM, given above in Key Words. On average each question will cover between 1.5 to 2 sides of paper, about 15 to 20 sides in all.

Start each answer or part answer on a new page, it makes it easy to mark and keeps you on track.

Don’t keep writing! Each point you make should be a new paragraph and that means leaving 2 or 3 lines gap between the paragraphs. This stops you waffling on about a single point, keeps you on track, and makes it easy to mark (no bad thing if you need the benefit of the doubt!)

Make sure any diagrams have a title, are clearly labelled and have a key if appropriate (e.g. on a network diagram). If you have drawn a graph, clearly label each axis and state the scale you have used.

Be as neat as you can but don’t waste time. Use a ruler when appropriate. Freehand boxes are perfectly acceptable on a network diagram, for example, but keep them neat; using a ruler wastes valuable time.

Use short sentences and simple words. Avoid all use of jargon and acronyms. If you are tempted to use them then explain what they mean.

Remember the examiner can only mark what you have written – s/he does not know that you meant something else as well. If your statement means more than one thing explain them all.

Avoid using “etc”, if there is something to say, say it.

Use your own experience when answering the questions. For example, there are as many project life-cycle definitions, as there are industries and organisations. They all have a beginning, middle and end but will be phased differently to suit the organisational needs. So you could start your answer to a question such as “State the purpose of a divided life-cycle and give an example” by stating something like:

“I work for ABC Company and our life cycle has the following phases: inception, definition, delivery, handover, benefits realisation”. This enables…….

Finally, answer your “*” questions first, you will gain confidence and you may realise that one of your “?” is in fact a “*”.

Lists of things
One of the most difficult things to do under examination conditions is to make a list, especially if the list is greater than five. I call this the “seven dwarf syndrome”. Ask anybody to name the Seven Dwarfs (from Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) and most people will easily get to four. After that they just go into a loop and come up with the same names again.

If the person then thinks about something else the brain carries on working, somewhere in the subconscious and later on more names will pop into the consciousness. It’s also like trying to remember you PIN at the cashpoint. The harder you try the worse it gets.

For example there may be a question such as “list and briefly describe ten sections of the project management plan”. Questions that ask for a list are easy, but only if you can remember the list!

Questions on the APMP are relatively easy to answer but it is hard to make such a long list, five is a lot easier, so I suggest that you read the exam paper – there will be topics in the paper that will have an entry in the APMP, e.g. there may be a question on stakeholders leading to stakeholder management strategy and communications plan; there may be a question on risk and that leads to a risk management strategy and so forth.

Carry on with your list until you can think of no more entries and then move on to answer the other questions. As things come to you add them to the list and by the time you come to answer the question the list will be complete (or almost so). If you can only get to nine don’t worry – that’s 90% if you answer it properly.

(By the way the dwarfs were called – Dopey, Doc, Bashful, Happy, Grumpy, Sleepy and Sneezy!)

Final APMP Exam Point
Remember to READ THE QUESTION. So many times I have seen people answer the question they thought they had been asked and I’ve done it myself, even though for years I’ve been saying: “read the question carefully”!
Read the question at least twice and analyse its content. They should be clear, and it should be obvious what is required.

Good luck!

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