ITIL Foundation FAQ

ITIL v3 Foundation Exam 2011 FAQ

ITIL Foundation Exam

In the past, the Official ITIL® Publisher (Office of Government Commerce) did publish an official study guide for ITIL® Foundation Exam aspirants – Passing Your ITIL® Foundation Exam: Study Aid – The official book of ITIL® of which the author is OGC (Office of Government Commerce). However this guide is for the 2009 version of the ITIL® Foundation exam which has been superseded by the ITIL® 4 Foundation Exam.

Currently, with the change in the structure of ITIL® governing bodies, the book is not updated to the current ITIL® Exam edition. Instead, another book titled “Passing Your ITIL® Foundation Exam” which is published by the Stationery Office, UK – the privatized publishing arm of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office and also the official ITIL® publisher, is now considered the official ITIL® 4 Foundation Exam book.

The ITIL® book is endorsed by the Official ITIL® Accreditor. It is currently the only official ITIL® Foundation Exam prep book that is updated in line with the ITIL® 4 Foundation syllabus. The book tries to present ITIL® Foundation syllabus in an easy-to-follow structure. It is suited for both self-study or as a complement for classroom learning. Readers will be able to develop an understanding of ITIL® basic concepts, principles and terminology associated with IT service management.

You can take a preview of the official ITIL® study guide at Amazon.

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For the ITIL® Foundation Exam, candidates will need to get 26 answers correct from a total of 40 questions (i.e. 65%) in order to pass the exam and get the ITIL® Foundation Certificate. This is a remarkably low passing mark compared to other international certifications.

The low entry threshold allows more IT practitioners to begin their journey in the ITIL® Certification and make use of ITIL® best practices in their daily work in order to promote the adoption of ITIL® around the world. ITIL® Foundation Certificate holders are not expected to be able to adopt ITIL® best practices in organizations without additional help.

As a reference, the passing mark for ITIL® Intermediate Exam or above has been increased to 70% as the requirements for the ITIL® Intermediate Exam or above are more stringent. Holders of ITIL® Intermediate Certificates or above are expected to be able to help the adoption of ITIL® best practices in organization with little or no help.

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No. ITIL® v3 Foundation certificate will never expire.

Therefore once you get the ITIL® v3 Foundation certificate, you will be able to include the credential in your resume for the rest of your life.

That being said, the version of ITIL® will change. As you can see, there is a “v3” for the ITIL® Foundation certification scheme which is the short form of “3rd version”. In fact, the full name for the current ITIL® Foundation Certification is “ITIL® 4 Foundation Certification”, the “2011” version is an upgraded version from the original “v3” version (so literally speaking, there are 4 generations of ITIL® Foundation Certification so far).

However, the fact that ITIL® Foundation certificate would not expire would create a lot of confusions as people normally just refer to “ITIL® Foundation” without the edition.

Please be reminded that when you intend to search for exam prep materials for your foundation exams, do make sure the materials are based on the latest ITIL® version.

In the past, there are “bridging programs” provided to help ITIL® Foundation certificate holders to easily upgrade from the previous version to an updated version (e.g. from v2 to v3). However, for the ITIL® 4 Foundation Certification, there is no bridging programs provided, meaning that the certification holder need to re-take the new ITIL® 4 Foundation Certification exam in order to get the most updated credential of ITIL® Foundation Certification.

It is not known when ITIL® v4 will be published as Axelos (the organization behind ITIL®) has not made any announcements on that. But judging from the fact that Axelos does not update the ITIL® from v3 to v4 in 2011 would reveal that maybe the ITIL® is already quite polished that only minor changes would be needed. Maybe v4 will never come.

If you are considering the ITIL® Foundation Certification, v3 2011 version is the one to go for now.

 

Further reading: get my ITIL® study tips, notes and resources for FREE here (I passed the ITIL® Foundation exam with 95% in first try)

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Yes. ITIL® Exams are provided in many other languages other than English. The ITIL® 4 Foundation Exam has been translated into most number of languages among all ITIL® Exams including:

  • Arabic
  • Brazilian Portuguese
  • Chinese (Simplified)
  • Czech
  • Danish
  • Dutch
  • Finnish
  • French
  • German
  • Hungarian
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Polish
  • Romanian
  • Russian
  • Spanish (EU)
  • Spanish (Latin American)
  • Swedish
  • Vietnamese

This list should cover most languages where ITIL® is in active practice.

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The ITIL® 4 Foundation Exam 2011 on Prometric website is sponsored by Exin (an authorized ITIL® exam administrator), you may simply go to the following URL to register for an ITIL® 4 Foundation Exam session:

https://www.prometric.com/en-us/clients/exin/pages/landing.aspx

On the ITIL® exam registration page, simply click on the top banner with the words “Ready? Click Here” button. You can then find an exam center near you to sit for the ITIL® 4 Foundation Exam as well as schedule the exam, re-schedule the exam or even cancel the exam. You can select your preferred exam session in all the exam centers will free slots.

 

The first step is often to find an exam centre that carries the ITIL® 4 Foundation Exam and to look for the seat availability on the preferred dates you would like to sit for the exam.

Once found, you can proceed to schedule the ITIL® v3 Foundation exam online by choosing “Exin” as the “Client”.

Please note that the ITIL® v3 Foundation certificate obtained though Exin on Prometric website is digital only (i.e. you will be able to download a digital certificate). You will need to pay for the hardcopy certificate if needed.

The exam code for the ITIL® v3 Foundation exam is “EX0-001 ITIL® Foundation (Syllabus 2011)”. You can choose the language for taking the ITIL® exam from the list including: German, U.S. English, Castillian Spanish, French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese Brazil, Lat-American Spanish and Russian. The net price for the ITIL® exam will also be shown which will need to be settled online in a later step.

Further on, you are requested to create an online account or sign into your account on Prometric website in order to book the exam seat, pay the ITIL® exam fee as well as confirm the booking. You will be able to re-schedule the exam later on with the same account.

The cost for the ITIL® 4 Foundation Exam (2011) is around US$230+, depending on where in the world you are writing the exam as the actual cost of the exam is not listed on the Axelos ITIL® website.

Discount Tips: 10% discount offer for GreyCampus ITIL® v4 Foundation Training + Official Exam Fee! (with coupon code) Please click here to find my first-hand review.

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In the unfortunate case that one should fail the ITIL® 4 Foundation Exam, you are allowed to re-sit the ITIL® 4 Foundation Exam by booking another exam session with paying the ITIL® 4 Foundation Exam fee. You can resit as many times as you need to pass the exam as there is not a limit on the number of resits in total or per year. Once you have passed the ITIL® 4 Foundation Exam, your certification will never expire, meaning that you only need to pass the exam to be ITIL® v3 Foundation certified.

That said, it is sometimes advisable to study at an accredited training course instead of self-study in order to increase your likelihood to pass the ITIL® 4 Foundation Exam. You may also take reference to my ITIL® 4 Foundation Exam study notes which should contain all the basic stuff required for the ITIL® 4 Foundation Exam.

Wish you ITIL® success!

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ITIL® v3 Foundation and PMP are two of the most popular project management certifications in the world. Every year, thousands of exam aspirants would prepare and sit for the ITIL® and PMP exams. Some holders of PMP would study for the ITIL® 4 Foundation Exam while some ITIL® holders would aspire for the PMP credential. Below we will outline the similarities and differences between ITIL® and PMP.

Similarities of ITIL® v3 Foundation  and PMP

  • You will need to pass an exam consisting of multiple choice questions in order to be certified.
  • ITIL® and PMP provide best practices to implement projects (though ITIL® focuses on projects in the Information Technology field).

Differences between ITIL® v3 Foundation and PMP

  • PMP exam is about general project management knowledge while ITIL® is about information technology service management (i.e. for people working in the field of information technology).
  • There are no pre-requisites for sitting the ITIL® 4 Foundation Exam while PMP exam will require the aspirants to have 35 Contact Hours and at least 4500 hours of working experience in project management over a period of at least 3 years.
  • The PMP Exam is much longer and consists of more questions, it is generally considered that the PMP Exam is much more difficult than the ITIL® 4 Foundation Exam.
  • ITIL® 4 Foundation Certification will never expire while PMP certification holders will need to re-certify every three years by accumulating enough PDUs.
  • PMP Certification holders will need to earn at least 60 PDU during every 3-year re-certification cycle in order to be able to renew their PMP Certification status. Holders of ITIL® 4 Foundation Certification will not need any mandatory continuous education.

ITIL® v3 Foundation and PMP: Recommendation

If you have not begun your journey on getting ITIL® 4 Foundation Certification and PMP Certification, it is highly recommended you study for and pass the PMP Exam first. Afterwards, you will be able to claim the time spent on studying and preparing for the ITIL® 4 Foundation Exam as PDU for your PMP re-certification in either Category A or Category B PDU (by taking courses provided by accredited training institutes) or Category C PDU (by self-study). In this way, one can kill two birds with a stone!

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ITIL® 4 Foundation Exam 2011 is based on the updated version of the ITIL® v3 which was originally published in 2007. The updates made to the publications of the ITIL® v3 in 2011 includes:

  • Errors and inconsistencies in the original text and diagrams in the 2007 version are corrected to achieve greater consistency in both content and presentation.
  • Improvements have been made for a number of issues raised by readers and reviewers of the ITIL® v3 after publication. The publisher of ITIL® v3 received a lot of suggestions after the 2007 version and intend to improve the ITIL® publications with greater clarity, consistency, correctness and completeness.
  • The Service Strategy publication has been reviewed to allow the concepts involved to be explained in a more easily accessible fashion.
  • A number of changes have also been adopted with suggestions by the training community of ITIL® to make it easier to teach ITIL® concepts.

As you can see, the ITIL® v3 2011 version (and hence the ITIL® 4 Foundation Exam 2011) is largely an update / improvement over the ITIL® v3 published in 2007. There are no major change in the concepts of IT Service Management. That’s why the current edition of the ITIL® is still called as Version 3.

Holders of the ITIL® v3 Foundation 2007 need not retake the ITIL® Foundation Exam to be certified in the ITIL® 4 Foundation.

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Free IITL Training Courses: Good or Bad?

Since there is no an official training required for the ITIL® Foundation Certification Exam, many websites have tried provided free training courses (as they are not required to pay the fee for accreditation). A random search through Google for “free ITIL® foundation course” would yield the following results, to name but a few:

Before investing your efforts into these free ITIL® Foundation resources, you should at least first ask the following questions:

  • Are the training materials based on the most current version of ITIL® Foundation exam? 
    There are 4 versions of ITIL® (ITIL® v1, ITIL® v2, ITIL® v3 and ITIL® v3 2011), the study materials must be based on the latest version ITIL® v3 2011 in order to really help you with passing the exam. Note that most of the free ITIL® Foundation Training courses online may be based on ITIL® v3. Though the changes from ITIL® v3 to ITIL® v3 2011 may not be considered drastic, there are a number of important changes such that if you base your education on the obsolete version, you will get quite a number of questions WRONG in the new ITIL® 4 Foundation exam.
  • Do the ITIL® free training courses free from errors?
    Unlike professional training courses provided by leading training institutes, the free training courses are often written by a single instructor — there is a high chance for careless errors and typos. For more serious trainers, they will have their course materials proofread by a team of professionals in order to ensure it to be as free from error as possible. In professional exam, a typo in the training materials may mean a pass or fail!
  • Do they provide quality learning aids (e.g. flashcards, summary notes, etc.) and mock ITIL® Foundation exams?
    Anyone having taken a professional exam would know, one of the most important study resources for the exam is mock exams. ITIL® Foundation is no exception. Finding free training courses is important, but finding quality training courses is even more important for the ITIL® Foundation Exam. You would need want to save a few dollars for the ITIL® Foundation exam prep only to find that you need to re-take the ITIL® Foundation exam for another US$250.

I personally would not trust free online ITIL® Foundation training courses unless they are backed by a lot of testimonials (though testimonial may be made up……). If budget permits, I would search for quality ITIL® Foundation training to really ensure that the exam prep materials can really help me to pass the ITIL® Foundation Certification the first try.

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The ITIL® Foundation website has undergone a revamp recently, the information architecture (i.e. the structure) of the website and all the URLs have been updated. Previous URLs pointing to the ITIL® Foundation Sample Exams are no longer valid. That’s why it is now so difficult to download ITIL® Foundation Exam sample papers.

It took me much time to search for the download page. The good news is that Axelos still provides the exam sample papers for free. But Aspirants would now have to find and download the papers at the following URL:

https://www.axelos.com/qualifications/itil-qualifications/itil-foundation-level

On the page, you will need to scroll down to around the middle of the page to find the “Examination Format” section. There you will find a sub-section named “Sample Papers” and a link below in the sentence: “Practice for your ITIL® exams by testing yourself with these Sample Papers.”

Clicking the link will lead you to a page where you will need to log in before being able to download the ITIL® Foundation Exam sample papers.

If you have not previously created an account on Axelos, you will need to “Create User Profile” there.

Luckily, creating an account on Axelos website is simple and free (no need to ask for your secrets or credit card information). You will just need to fill in your name and email address only to complete the registration process.

A verification email will be sent to you to verify your email address. Afterwards, you will be able to log in and download one ITIL® Foundation Exam Sample Paper together with the answer key and rationale for the answers at the Axelos website below:

https://www.axelos.com/qualifications/itil-qualifications/itil-foundation-level

Actually, there were two Sample Papers in the past. Don’t know why Axelos has left only one there now. There are also many online ITIL® training courses that would have the official sample papers (historical and current ones) included in their exam prep resources package.

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Below is the step-by-step instruction on how to input the discount offer codes for GreyCampus online courses to get the discounted prices for the ITIL® Foundation, PMP Certification, PMI-ACP® Certification and PRINCE2® Foundation Certification online courses. Many Certification Aspirants have asked me to show them how to apply the coupon codes as they cannot find the location to enter them. This step-by-step illustrated guide is made to help fellow Aspirants to enjoy the discounted course fee with ease.

Step 1: Go to go to GreyCampus online course website

Please go to the related GreyCampus pages through the webpage: the most updated GreyCampus discount offer codes  (remember to make use of the coupon codes there to get heavy discounts off the retail prices of the certification prep courses)

  • PMP Certification Online Self Learning
  • ITIL® Foundation Certification Online Self Learning (Official ITIL® Exam included)
  • PRINCE2® Foundation Certification Online Self Learning (Official PRINCE2® Foundation Exam)

Step 2: Click the yellow “Enroll” button to go to the payment page

Just take the GreyCampus ITIL® Foundation Certification Training as an example. Below is the landing page of ITIL® online training courses for GreyCampus. Just click the blue “Enroll Now” button.

You will be presented with a choice of several different delivery modes for the ITIL® Foundation Courses (i.e. online, online live, classroom, etc.). Just chose the left one which is the online ITIL® course option.

Step 3: Check the “I have an offer code” box

After clicking the red “Enroll” button, you will be redirected to the course order page. Do not worry, the price given there is the original list price before discount.

On the right-hand side, under the payment details, you will find the “Have an offer code to redeem?” box- click on it. Enter the coupon code in the box that appears and click “Apply”.

 

Step 4: Apply the Coupon Code/Offer Code

After you input the coupon code in the box, make sure to click the “Apply” button beside it. The final price of the course will only change after you click on the “Apply” button. Make sure you do this before you pay for the course.

Step 5: Check the updated price on the left before submitting the payment details

Once the coupon is applied successfully, the green text will appear below the coupon code box; it will read- “Coupon applied successfully, you will get USD 41.00 discount”. Please also check for the discounted price details on the right side of the page.

After you have ensured that the correct discounted course fee is listed on the right-hand column of the order page, you can then enter your payment information including name, card number, expiry date and CVV. Then click the red button “Pay Now” to make the purchase.

Congratulations! You have just applied the GreyCampus offer code successfully. You should now be able to access the online training course (including the lecture videos, mock exams as well as many downloadable study resources) instantly.

Wish you Certification success!


FAQ on GreyCampus Coupon Codes

  • After pasting the coupon code and clicking the “Apply Now” button, a red sentence reads “The coupon code is invalid” show up. Now what?
    • Please check carefully if you have entered the correct coupon code (note: without spaces at the beginning and end of the coupon code). The best way to ensure the correctness of your coupon code is to copy directly from the coupon code page and paste it there.
    • Please check the validity period of the coupon code, in most cases, an invalid coupon code means that it is expired. Usually the validity period between the first and last day of a month. And the coupon code and discount percentage may vary from month to month.
    • Under the rare case of the GreyCampus website having some technical errors, please let me know so that I can communicate with GreyCampus to resolve the problem.
  • What to do if I have purchased the training course at the original list price instead of the discounted price?
    • I am sorry to learn that you cannot enjoy the discount successfully. But there is hope. GreyCampus online courses offer money back guarantee for several days depending on the types of course.
    • You can just write to GreyCampus to cancel your order first. And your payment will be refunded to you as soon as possible.
    • Then you can come back to the enrolment page to enrol again. Remember to follow the steps outlined above as close as possible and verify that the discount has already been applied to your order before hitting the “Pay Now” button.
  • Where to find the latest GreyCampus Coupon Codes?
    • As I have a working relationship with GreyCampus team, every time when a new coupon code is published, they will let me know at once. I will have the most current GreyCampus coupon code published at this page.
    • If the code for the online course you are looking for is not there, don’t worry, you can still try the coupon codes listed there to see if they are valid.
  • Will I get a better discount later?
    • May or may not. That depends on GreyCampus. However, I would highly suggest you to strike the iron while it is hot. If you have already make up your mind to go for the certification and if your budget allows, why not go ahead and purchase the online course at the current discount and begin your certification right away? Time is the most precious element for all of us.
    • Also, the certification cost may go up year by year owing to inflation and rising costs etc. The training costs may actually become more expensive later on.

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I have received a number of enquires stating that some ITIL® training providers would indicate that they have training courses for the ITIL® v5.5 Foundation Exam. Many Aspirants are confused with the versions of the ITIL® exams and training courses, fearing that they are not taking the most updated and correct version. To them, the most important info to help them get started with the ITIL® Foundation Exam is the correct ITIL® version.

To clear any doubts, the latest and most current ITIL® Foundation Certification Exam version is ITIL® 4 Foundation Exam 2011. The ITIL® 4 Foundation Exam 2011 is based on the the 3rd version of ITIL® (i.e. v3) published in 2007 with updates made in 2011 (and hence the 2011 at the end).

Why the ITIL® v5.5?

The version 5.5 is somewhat a misleading term when used in the “ITIL® v5.5 Foundation Exam” exam. The current version of the exam syllabus for the ITIL® Foundation Certification Exam (The ITIL® Foundation Certificate in IT Service Management SYLLABUS) is v5.5 as can be read online on the Axelos website, this only indicates that version of the exam syllabus (NOT the version of ITIL® it is based on) for the ITIL® Foundation Certification Exam.

And Axelos may make small amendments to the ITIL® exam syllabus from time to time to correct any typos or clarify any confusion. And a version or sub-version may be added (e.g. v5.4, v5.5, etc.). But the exact exam syllabus, which is based on the ITIL® v3 2011, rarely sees huge changes when the ITIL® does change.

Therefore, if you are preparing for the ITIL® Foundation Exam now, you should base your studies on the v3 2011 version of ITIL® (not ITIL® v5.5 which is yet to be published in the distant future). After the publication of the ITIL® v3 2011, ITIL® has not made any announcements on the review and update of the ITIL® to version 4 and beyond. It is now safe to begin ITIL® preparation based on this version.

All the online courses that are based on ITIL® 4 Foundation Exam 2011 is still applicable for your exam studies.

 

Wish you ITIL® success!

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