Preparing for your Foundation and Practitioner Exams
Studying for the PRINCE2 foundation exam and practitioner exam can be daunting, and it’s important to get the best out of your pre-course PRINCE2 training. This Study Aid will ensure you achieve that goal.
First, recognise that the Manual is split into key sections, and should be referenced along with my PRINCE2 Step By Step Guide.
My Recommended PRINCE2 foundation exam and practitioner exam Study Sequence:
1. Read the short introduction chapter, paying particular attention to the six aspects of PRINCE2 project performance and management. Be clear about the scope of PRINCE2.
2. You must grasp the seven PRINCE2 principles – to the point of memorising their names and purpose. These principles are always applied, and will be tested in your foundation exam and practitioner exam. As an exercise after you have followed all my steps. write a sentence on how the Principles are applied for each PRINCE2 Process.
3. Notice the PRINCE2 Manual is split broadly into three sections after the Principles chapter. The first chapters address the seven Themes and the last chapters describe the Processes and the Appendices. So next up, memorise the two-page Theme introduction section , and the same for the short Processes introduction. Thus far, you will have gained a very good high-level understanding of the PRINCE2 Method.
4. The bedrock of PRINCE2 is product-based planning and is aligned with the principle of product focus. Go to Appendix D and spend some time really understanding the technique. I’ve found it’s helpful to think of a simple project you may be aware of, get a pad of post-it notes, and try to re-create the product breakdown structure. Then go on to create the product flow diagram. This is an excellent foundation exam and practitioner exam exercise.
Remember. A product will be described as a noun or outcome (e.g. refurbished room) – whereas an activity – a task, would be described with a verb and noun (e.g. write the report).
Of particular importance in this section, is for you to understand the structure of both the regular Product Description and the one-per-project Project Product Description. To help with this, go to the product-based planning section of the Plans Theme and spend 10 minutes recognising the sequence and purpose of each step.
The PRINCE2 Foundation Exam and PRactitioner Exam Processes
5. Use the diagram below to understand that some Processes are used once per project, some are used regularly at specific points, and that the Directing a Project, once started, is used continually. This alone will start to bring PRINCE2 alive in your mind!
You must now read in detail, the purpose, objectives, and context of each Process as they will be tested in the foundation exam and practitioner exam. This will give you a rock-solid framework of understanding the PRINCE2 Method..
The PRINCE2 Themes
6. See these sections as ‘approaches’. For example, the Business Case Theme broadly describes what a Business Case consists of, its purpose, and when it is used. You can skim read each PRINCE2 Theme in turn, paying particular attention to their ‘purpose’ sections. Note that most of the seven Themes are referenced and applied during most of the seven Processes. Both the foundation exam and practitioner exam will test you on this.
The PRINCE2 Appendices
7. Here is a quick study note on those that you should study now:
Appendix A.
There are two broad categories of products in PRINCE2 – specialist products and management products. The former will depend on the nature and type of the project – if you are building a house, an example of a specialist product would be ‘installed bathroom’.
The Manual makes no attempt to describe the infinite variety of such specialist products – only stating that each project would normally contain many of them. By contrast, management products are created for every project (for example, the Project Plan).
Appendix A contains management Product Descriptions (see them as templates) for management products. Make no attempt to memorize them at this point! It is important to note the three types of Management Products in this section. Both the foundation exam and practitioner exam will test you on this.
Appendix C.
Get a good feel for the eight main PRINCE2 roles, and read these in conjunction with the PRINCE2 approach to organization within the Organization Theme.
I strongly suggest you copy these steps and print them out.
Treat these as your pre-course preparation study tasks, and go through each, crossing them off in turn as you go. This will give you a structured approach to studying the PRINCE2 Method, plus a massive sense of encouragement and achievement. Both the foundation exam and practitioner exam will test you on this.
PRINCE2 Foundation and Practitioner Qualifications
You may well be aware that PRINCE2 has two levels of qualification that is the Foundation Certificate and the Practitioner Certificate.
The foundation certificate covers the basic knowledge needed to use the PRINCE2 method and this includes how the method fits together. Holders of the practitioner certificate show that they are able to apply PRINCE2 to a project.
The foundation certificate does not illustrate any proficiency in PRINCE2 and does not cover the entire PRINCE2 syllabus. However, you must gain the foundation certificate before you are able to sit the practitioner exam.
Even the practitioner certificate does not indicate that the holder understands how to use the method in an effective manner. This is disappointing, since the official PRINCE2 Manual does contain all of the information and approaches to tailor the method to any project in an effective way.
The reasons for this apparent lack of knowledge and skills from PRINCE2 Practitioners can be traced back to the training they received, and is normally due to one or more of the following points:
- The training company focused the information given during the classroom training on how to pass the exam rather than on how to use the method in an effective manner on their projects
- Ineffective preparation and pre-reading before attending their training course
- To keep costs down, most training companies teach PRINCE2 including the taking of both exams, in a five day course. This normally means that the poor delegate has less than three days (and nights!) Before taking the foundation exam, and then only one day to prepare for the practitioner exam.
- Most training courses have around 15 delegates with one trainer to push the official syllabus down their throats, usually up to the afternoon of the third day which is when the foundation exam is sat.
- The classroom training delegates usually have interruptions either from their boss or their customers back in the office.
- In order to cover the syllabus in only 2 to 3 days, the slide presentation material is brief and a high-level resulting in not enough time being given to fully absorb the information, nor to ask sufficient questions.
As a result of the above points qualified PRINCE2 practitioners know little about using the method apart from its structure and documentation. Therefore, when implementing the PRINCE2 method back in the office, it tends to be implemented in a bureaucratic and document-heavy manner.
Sample foundation and practitioner exam papers are available from most training organizations, but these will not be past papers. The reason for this is that there is a finite pool of past papers which are often reused.
The PRINCE2 Foundation exam
The foundation exam lasts for 1 hour and comprises 75 multiple choice questions. Of these five will be new questions being checked out by the examiners, and as such they don’t count towards your marks. In addition you won’t know which those five questions are. That means that there are 70 questions that you need to reach the pass mark of 35.
The foundation exam is a closed book exam which means you can’t have help or refer to the PRINCE2 Manual.
There is no negative marking so that wrong answers are not penalised but will score zero marks.
The foundation exam is a simple multi-choice exam, so a good strategy is to go through the exam paper answering all of the questions that you think you know the answer to, and then with the remaining time to go through those questions which you did not answer.
You will often find that a second reading of a difficult question now becomes better understood and that you can choose the correct answer.
If you are still unsure about the correct answer, then just take a guess, usually by a process of elimination you can get the right answer by default. Whatever happens, do not leave any questions unanswered because you will not get any penalties for wrong answers.
You will probably told at school as a young child that you should read the question very carefully of any exams that you’re about to take. As an adult that is still a good advice, and many PRINCE2 candidates lose marks because they did not read or understand the question correctly.
The PRINCE2 Practitioner exam
The practitioner exam lasts for 2 ½ hours and is also in a multiple choice format. However, the multiple choice questions styles vary, so although some of the more simple questions have several options and ask for you to choose the most obvious one, there are several different styles which you will encounter:
Matching questions; here you will have two columns with different information in each and the question asks you to match the right information in one column with the right information in the other.
The practitioner exam contains nine areas of questions, each on a different part of the PRINCE2 method. So that each exam paper will not cover the whole of the method.
The practitioner exam is open book, so you can take your PRINCE2 Manual into the exam with you.
It is vital that you understand this means only the PRINCE2 Manual and does not include any extra information for example loose sheets of paper or sticky notes inserted into the Manual.
However, this does mean that you can write any extra information directly into the PRINCE2 Manual itself, such as the work list points or summary diagrams, or reference to other page numbers pertaining to the information.
You can however, sticky page tabs for key areas and quick reference during the exam.
Each area is worth 12 marks giving a possible total score of 108 marks. The pass mark varies from one exam paper to the next depending on the question standards, but will typically be between 50 and 55% meaning that you will have to score 60 or more to be safe.
This core will be across the whole paper so that you may actually score below the pass mark for an individual question but providing the remaining questions aggregate to around 60 marks then you will still get a pass. In this way you can compensate between weak and strong answers.
The practitioner exam includes a detailed scenario, usually covering 1 to 2 sides of the exam paper. In addition, some of the nine questions will include extra information, usually to set the scene for a specific question type.
An example of this could be a question on risk. Here the additional information may include details of a situation which gives clarity or data for the risk questions to be set against. This extra information is normally contained in the exam paper and regionally after the scenario information.
Each of the nine questions will normally include sub questions such as part A, B and C. Some of these sub questions will be about the nature and structure of the PRINCE2 method itself and reference to the scenario will not be required.
An example here might be the question regarding the reasoning behind the PRINCE2 roles and responsibilities.
The practitioner qualification is valid for five years and you must take a top up exam between three and five years after your first exam. This top up exam only lasts 1 hour and is 1/3 size of your original practitioner exam which includes just three sections instead of nine.
Good luck with your PRINCE2 Foundation Exam and Practitioner Exam!
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