PRINCE2 Foundation Exam Pass Secrets
The PRINCE2 foundation examination is one hour in length, and the number of questions to answer is 75 multiple-choice questions.
Out of those 75, five of the foundation examination questions will be new questions that the examiner is ‘testing out’ to see if they are fair and well structured.
You will not be marked on these, but you don’t know which those five questions are – so you must go ahead and answer every question!
So, in the PRINCE2 foundation examination, you are actually being marked out of 70 questions.
The foundation examination pass mark is 35 correct answers, which is 50% of the live questions.
The PRINCE2 foundation examination is set by the APM Group, and the trainer, like myself, is authorized to invigilate the exam sessions and to mark your answers. I am given a clear plastic overlay to mark your foundation exams questions quickly and accurately. I can then advise you then whether you have passed or failed your PRINCE2 foundation examination, and give you your mark (quietly and not in earshot of the remaining candidates.)
After the PRINCE2 course is over, I return all the answer papers to the APM Group who check that everything is correctly marked, and it is they who will advise you officially that you have passed your PRINCE2 foundation examination via traditional posted mail.
The PRINCE2 foundation examination is a closed book exam, which means you are NOT allowed to take any notes, reference materials, or books into the exam – and particularly NOT the PRINCE2 Manual!
There is no negative marking, so wrong answers are are not penalized, you are just given a zero mark for that particular foundation examination question.
Sometimes a ‘tricky’ question comes up.
It’s only in your mind by the way, the PRINCE2 exam boards NEVER set ‘trick’ questions, PRINCE2 foundation examination questions will only be based on information within the PRINCE2 manual.
Here is an example generic style foundation examination question for you:
As a Team Manager, you realize that you need extra quality reviewers for the current specialist product that your team is creating. Which of the following options is the correct one to consult with?
A. Project Manager
B. Project Assurance
C. Project Support
D. Senior User
On the face of it, you could meet any one of those at the coffee machine and discuss it, but only ONE of them is correct (trust me!)
Not sure of the answer? Read on and I’ll give you both the correct answer and the reason…
Back to your time management for your PRINCE2 foundation examination.
Are you good at maths? Well, if there are 75 questions and one hour to answer them, how long must you spend on each question in the PRINCE2 foundation examination?
What’s that you say? 48 seconds each? WRONG!
Here’s why:
Each PRINCE2 foundation examination question has four possible option answers given, with only one correct. I suggest going through the foundation examination exam paper from question one to question seventy-five and answer all those that you know first time.
If there are any foundation examination questions that have you scratching your head, then leave them and move on.
At the second pass, spend a minute trying those difficult foundation examination questions again – maybe you panicked, it’s surprising how a new read of the PRINCE2 foundation examination question suddenly makes the correct answer clear and obvious!
Now for your third (and final) pass through the questions. The ones that are left, clearly have you guessing. It may be that the PRINCE2 foundation examination question wording is a little tricky, and you’re trying to understand that; or it might be that the topic of the question is one that you are now realizing you don’t really understand. Don’t panic:
Give your self, a few seconds, if you are going round in circles – GUESS!
Yep, that’s right, guess it. You see, there are only Four PRINCE2 foundation examination option answers – so you have a 25% chance of guessing the right one!
Whatever happens DO NOT, come to the end of the PRINCE2 foundation examination with any question unanswered – guess those that are left – you might get lucky and pick up an extra mark…I’ve seen it happen hundreds of times.
…and what if that made the difference between a PRINCE2 foundation examination pass or a fail?
So it’s worth guessing as a last resort right?
So here’s why your math of 48 seconds per question was wrong:
PRINCE2 Foundation Examination Test Strategy
When your PRINCE2 foundation examination exam starts, do this:
1. PRINCE2 foundation examination – STEP ONE
For your first pass through all 75 questions in your PRINCE2 foundation examination .
Give yourself 25 seconds per question to read and answer each of the questions that you clearly know the answer to.
So far, you will have spend about 30 minutes, and because these were the foundation examination questions you found easy, it’s likely you got 80% of those that you answered correct.
Suppose you had answered (say) 30 of the 75 questions – from experience, I would say that is a reasonable guess…
So you’ve ALREADY got around 25 marks! The next steps ONLY have to pick up another 10 marks in your PRINCE2 foundation examination and you’ve PASSED!
2. PRINCE2 foundation examination – STEP TWO
The second pass of the questions remaining in your PRINCE2 foundation examination
So using the figures from above, you have around 30 minutes to attempt the remaining 40 foundation examination questions.
Optionally (see below) you may like to keep 5 minutes back from the full hour, so this step must not take more than 25 minutes.
Go through the remaining 40 foundation examination questions one at a time. You have around 38 seconds to get an answer to each question.
Personally, I would recommend just guessing at this point if you are not getting the foundation examination question after 30 seconds, and move on to the next.
Remember the odds against guessing?
It’s 25 %
It just so happens that 25% of 40 marks is 10 marks – just what you need to gain a pass mark!
But It gets better!
Because on the second read of your PRINCE2 foundation examination , you WILL have many answers that are obvious when you read them the second time around.
NOTE. The quickest times for completing all 75 questions was around 25 minutes, and after marking by myself, they usually got a great score and passed with ease. This happened at least twice a month when I was delivering and invigilating the PRINCE2 foundation examination!
I tell you this, to show you that the PRINCE2 foundation examination is NOT hard.
Sometimes a ‘tricky’ question comes up.
It’s only in your mind by the way, the PRINCE2 exam boards NEVER set ‘trick’ questions, PRINCE2 foundation examination questions will only be based on information within the PRINCE2 manual.
Want the answer to that PRINCE2 foundation examination question? It was answer b. Project assurance is carried out independent of the project manager, and one of their responsibilities is to ensure that appropriate resources (skills, knowledge, experience, etc) are assigned as quality reviewers to the quality checking of products.
Mentioning it to the project manager first, by the way is no crime, but the project manager may have reasons not to agree, extra delay, extra cost, for example, but the project manager would know that this must be brought to the attention of project assurance (if they are PRINCE2 trained and honest like you and I!)
And I’ve saved the very best bit for last…
You see, because the PRINCE2 foundation examination qualification is so popular and so much in demand, the exam is run every week of the year all over the world.
So guess what?
The exam boards re-use their pool of PRINCE2 foundation examination exam papers. They don’t even mix and match the 75 questions – each paper is given out as an entity.
Now these PRINCE2 foundation examination papers are a closely guarded secret (and quite right too – I don’t want my PRINCE2 Practitioner status to be watered down due to cheats!)
But it does mean that folks like myself get to see them once a week, and this helps ensure that teaching becomes more consistent.
Why?
Suppose I found that folks were getting questions wrong on (say) risk proximity, I would be a poor trainer if I did not note that and ensure that I changed the way I taught that mini-topic. But I would not, and never have, copied or noted questions, so don’t you be tempted either as the PRINCE2 foundation examination qualification is a prestigious one and worth studying for. Enough Said?
Here is a valuable video from me explaining how you can pass your PRINCE2 Foundation examination (and check out my other article and two videos on this website giving secrets to passing your PRINCE2 Practitioner exam too!):
So it’s vital for you to take training from an active PRINCE2 trainer like myself, after all why not give yourself a deadly edge, and one that will give you the best chance of a solid pass. Even if you only wish to study and pass the prestigious PRINCE2 foundation examination…
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