[PMI-ACP Exam Lessons Learned] All Exam Questions are Situational!

Below is the PMI-ACP® Exam lesson learned from a recent PMI-ACP® Certification holder, Angelo Supe who is so kind to share his exam journey in 2018:

I wanted to say thank you (again!) for the PMI-ACP® study notes and the links to the sample exams that you published. I successfully passed my PMI-ACP® certification today, with an overall Above Target mark (I got Needs Improvement though for the Adaptive Planning domain).

I am not exaggerating, but ALL the 120 questions that I got were situational – not even a single question on definition of terms. I must admit that I got disheartened after the first 20 questions, because the questions that I got were not in any of the sample exams that I took. Unlike what I read from other passers, to me, PMI-ACP® is tougher than PMP (I got Above Target for all domains when I took PMP last year).

To help other PMI-ACP® aspirants, here are some situations/scenarios that appeared several times in my exam:

• How should the Scrum Master/Product Owner/Team think and decide midway through the release/iteration
• How to communicate updates to stakeholders, and when to involve or escalate to them
• What are the roles of the Product Owner, the Agile Coach and the Sponsor
• What to do when there are issues/risks/dependencies/changes

Because of the difficulty of the exam, I did not take any break during the three-hour limit. I reviewed ALL my choices after answering the questions for the first time, and changed at least 10 of my original answers.

I advise the PMI-ACP® takers to truly understand the roles of the Agile Practitioner, and think beyond the traditional waterfall project delivery.

Thanks Supe for sharing his PMI-ACP® lessons learned! It is especially important to note that all questions now are “situational” which asks for analytical thinking rather than reciting from memory.

Wish you PMI-ACP® success!