Last updated on March-2024 by Nilotpal Ray, PMP
How long is the PMP Exam and how to manage TIME in your PMP Certification Exam?
Imagine a scenario:
You have been preparing for the PMP Exam over the last 2-3 months relentlessly. You have been scoring between 70% to 80% in the mocks, revising your mistakes and you are pretty confident that you are going to ace the exam. You know that the PMP Certification Exam length is 230 mins and within that 230 mins, you need to answer 180-Qs. That’s about 1 min 17 sec/question. That shouldn’t be too difficult!
However, as soon as the exam starts on the D-day, things start to go berserk.
Halfway into the 2nd set (60-Q), you notice that you have consumed quite a lot of time over Set-1 (60-Q). You do a mental calculation and find out that you have ̴ 45 secs/question now.
You start to rush!
Halfway into the 3rd set (60-Q), the ̴45 sec/q has come down to ̴ 30sec/q.
It’s a PANIC mode for you now and you start to mark answers randomly to make sure you at least finish the exam.
The clock strikes 00:00:00 and you hit SUBMIT.
The results page refreshes. You have FAILED the test 🙁
So, what went wrong here?
- Were you under prepared? No.
- Did you not study Agile, Waterfall, and Hybrid? Yes, you did.
- Were you not scoring well in your mock simulators? Yes, you were.
As you have rightly guessed by now, the problem was not in preparation, it was in how you MANAGED YOUR TIME in the PMP Exam.
So today, in this article, I will discuss the detailed processes that will help you to manage your time successfully in your PMP Exam. I will also provide you tips & tricks for how you can avoid being in a situation (as above) where inspite of having a great preparation, you can find the PMP Exam extremely difficult and fail the PMP exam due to lack of proper time management strategy. So, keep reading!
How long is the PMP Exam? Understanding the exam time structure
The PMP exam consists of 180 questions that need to be solved in 230 minutes.
Out of these 180 questions 175 are the scored questions and 5 are test questions (as they are randomly distributed you won’t be able to differentiate among the test one and the scored ones, so let’s stick to 180-Qs in 230 mins). That’s roughly 1min 17 secs/question.
Next, note that the PMP Exam is divided into 3 sub-sets of 60-Qs each. After Set-1 (60-Qs), there is an optional 10 min break. Same applies for Set-2 (60-Qs) before you move to Set-3 (60-Qs). No question of any break after Set-3 since the exam ends after that 🙂
Now, a couple of VERY important pointers to note:
- The 2 optional breaks of 10 mins are NOT considered within the 230 mins. So there will be a new break timer starting at 00:09:59 and counting all the way down to 00:00:00 when you are in the break
- When you complete Set-1, you need to SUBMIT the same and then move to SET-2. You cannot go back to Set-1 once you have started Set-2. Same applies when you transition from Set-2 to Set-3
- Note that the exam clock will start at 03:49:59 and will count backwards all the way to 00:00:00, pausing only when you manually initiate a break. So that means the system will NOT tell you when you should move from Set-1 to Set-2 or from Set-2 to Set-3. So, Eg. If a candidate uses 200/230 mins in Set-1, the system will not give you any sort of flag or warning. In this scenario, the student will need to finish Set-2 and Set-3 within the remaining 30 mins
That’s all we need to know for now regarding the exam structure.
What should be the TIME MANAGEMENT Strategy for tackling PMP Exam?
Now that we have understood what the exam structure looks like, let’s plan how to manage our time during the entire 230 mins.
Strategy 1: Treat the whole exams as three sub section exams of 60 questions each and then tackle them individually.
Strategy 2: Have the following time distribution across the 3 sets:
- Set 1: 80 mins
- Set 2: 70 mins
- Set 3: 80 mins
Strategy 3: Try to build 5-10 mins buffer within each set for review before submitting the set and moving onto the next set. Mind that you will NOT be able to come back to a set once you submit the same. Hence Strategy 2 may be updated as below:
- Set 1: 80 mins (70/75 mins solving + 5/10 min revision)
- Set 2: 70 mins (60/65 mins solving + 5/10 min revision)
- Set 3: 80 mins (70/75 mins solving + 5/10 min revision)
Strategy 4: Develop time-milestones along the full length of the exam and hold it sacrosanct. If you have planned to complete set 1 in 80 minutes (70/75 mins solving + 5/10 min revision), do whatever it takes it to be true. That might also mean doing some guesstimates within a section for questions which you are not 100% sure of. That’s OK because this way you control the # of questions which you are guessing across the entire exam. These timestamps or time milestones can be divided as follows-
- Finish question 1-60 within 1 hour 10 mins.(Give last 10 mins for revision)
- Finish question 61- 120 by 2 hours 20 mins.(Give last 10 mins for revision)
- Finish question 121- 180 by 3 hours 40 mins. (Give last 10 mins for revision)
Strategy 5: This milestones or timestamps will require practice. To get to the required level of perfection, you can practice this habit while writing your mock tests. It will not only help you to act faster and quicker while being in the examination hall but will also help your mind to develop its analytical and logical skills.
Strategy 6: Make the 10-min breaks to help you de-stress. When practicing time milestones during your mocks, give yourself a refreshing break. You can try to meditate, listen to music, do some stretching…whatever suits you, but try to move out of that exam seat for those 10 mins. That way you come back to attack the next set of questions with new energy!
So, that’s it guys. Keep it simple. Practice, practice and practice and I am sure you will have ZERO issues while managing time in your PMP exam.
Also, you may wish to checkout my entire video on PMP Exam Time Management as below to get a more in-depth understanding of the strategy that I discussed.
Hope you enjoyed reading the article. If you are preparing for your PMP Exam, don’t forget to check out my Udemy Courses and PMP Masterclass Sessions as well:
The last one is the best if you are struggling to learn EVM during your PMP and CAPM preparation.
Cheers and I will talk to you soon!
Ray
