How to prepare for the PMP exam over seven weekends

Most people preparing for the PMP work full time. A weekend rhythm suits that: one long block for new material each week, and short weekday sessions to review it. The plan below follows PMI's current exam outline rather than a textbook's chapter order.

Start with what the exam measures

The PMP exam has 180 questions in 240 minutes, with two 10-minute breaks. Ten of those questions are unscored pretest items you cannot identify, so treat every question as if it counts. PMI's exam content outline splits the exam into three domains: People 33%, Process 41% and Business Environment 26%. About 40% of questions reflect predictive approaches; the rest cover agile and hybrid ways of working.

A seven-weekend outline

Weekend 1: read the exam content outline and answer a short diagnostic set of practice questions. Write down where you are weakest.

Weekends 2 and 3: Process, the largest domain, with ten tasks — planning and delivery, scope, value, resources, procurement, finance, quality, schedule, status and closure.

Weekends 4 and 5: People, with eight tasks — leading the team, managing conflict, and engaging and aligning stakeholders.

Weekend 6: Business Environment, with eight tasks — governance, compliance, change control, issues, risk, continuous improvement and organizational change.

Weekend 7: a full-length timed practice exam under exam conditions, then a review of every question you missed or guessed.

Weekday habits that make the weekends work

Short, regular review beats one long session. Keep an error log: for each missed question, note which task it tested and why the correct answer is correct. Many scenario questions turn on what a project leader should do first, so practise explaining the order of actions, not just the right term.

The last two weeks

Once PMI approves your application, you have one year to pass and up to three attempts. Book your exam when your practice scores are steady, not before. You can test at a Pearson VUE test center or online; our guide to taking the exam online or at a test center compares the two.

Education Edge runs its live PMP course over seven Saturdays, with 60 hours of instruction — more than the 35 contact hours PMI requires. See the next PMP cohort.