Revising for the APM PMQ Exam – Where to start

In this episode of Project Management Insights, host Neil offers valuable advice on how to effectively prepare for the PMQ exam (Project Management Qualification). Whether you’re just starting your journey or already have the exam in sight, Neil provides a structured approach to revision that can help you succeed. From understanding the syllabus and assessment criteria to mastering your revision techniques, he shares tips on how to study efficiently, focus on the most important topics, and practice with sample questions. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to ace the PMQ exam and enhance their project management skills.

The full transcript is available below. Enjoy listening!

I’m often asked how best to approach revising for the PMQ exam by people who are thinking of going for it and somewhat expectedly from people who are sitting the course with the exam booked and in the forefront of their minds. I have had to think about what kinds of advice I give to people and decided to try and consolidate it a bit so that you can have a read through and see what elements may or may not work for you when preparing for or thinking about doing the PMQ. First things first, you must prepare before attending any workshop or course with the PMQ as the goal.

Having a good bit of understanding around things like processes, buzzwords and tools that the exam will ask you about prior to attending the course then it will mean during the week you can focus more on the explanations or reasoning behind the processes rather than trying to memorize a new process or language from scratch. To give yourself some structure to your revision I’d recommend having a look at the syllabus documentation. The syllabus is broken down into 11 learning outcomes and each learning outcome has several assessment criteria.

I think using this document as a kind of checklist can be a really good way to give yourself some structure to your revision. So what I do I mean by this, the exam will almost certainly cover all 11 learning outcomes that will be the theme of each question which means that part A and part B will be based on assessment criteria that are tied to that learning outcome. For example, one of the learning outcomes is 11 understand quality in the context of a project which will be written at the start of a quality question in the exam.

Then the part A and part B of the question will be based on the two following assessment criteria. 11.1 explain what is meant by quality planning and 11.2 differentiate between quality control and quality assurance. Notice that the assessment criteria also include a command verb that will be used in the real question during the exam such as explain or differentiate from quality giving you an idea of how they will expect you to provide the answer to.

This means that by reviewing the learning outcomes and assessment criteria you can effectively identify what the questions in the real exam will be at least to an extent and test your knowledge against each of these assessment criteria. If you can jot down something or recall something about one of the assessment criteria easily and in detail then great the knowledge is probably in there. If however you encounter one you don’t remember or is a bit vague to your memory then you have a couple of choices.

First choice you can revise it and my recommendation would be to open the supplementary document called the source document as it contains the essential facts about each of the assessment criteria in the syllabus and can be an effective way to get the essence of what the exam requires without doing too much digging. If you need additional context then that would be when to look at our e-learning, your notes, our resources or speak to your trainer for more depth. Second choice if you feel like one or maybe even a couple of the assessment criteria aren’t going in and you feel like you’re spending too long trying to make sense of it and getting nowhere then don’t revise it anymore.

The exam cannot ask a question on every one of the single assessment criteria so it won’t be the end of the world if you decide to bin one or two of them as the exam will give you a choice of questions. 16 to be precise and you only need to answer 10 of them. Something to keep in mind though each of the 16 possible questions will be drawn from the learning outcomes and as there are 11 learning outcomes this means that the exam will likely ask a question from all of them so you can’t really afford to not ditch any of these.

Finally your style of revision will be down to you. I for example like to write everything down diagrams and notes are how I retain information. I then like to type up my notes as part of my revision so that I am forced to read through them again with fresh eyes and try to tidy them up.

This also means that I have a nice and tidy version to read through later in my revision time. However I know some people like to use flash cards with key highlights and summaries of topics on them to capture the key details in a bite size, bite size format for them to recall during the exam. Others on the other hand like to have walls coated in papers with diagrams and monomonics so that as they walk into their office or workspace they are always amidst the content.

I think this side of things is going to be down to you to establish for you to work out a technique that suits your brain and how it retains information to recall for an exam. Either way something I would strongly encourage is to have a go at sample questions. There is an element of exam technique needed with this exam as you will be expected to present your knowledge in an essay style format within that three hour 15 minute timing.

Check out the annotated answers document. It has some sample questions in it along with some pass answers and fail answers for the same questions. This is a great way to gauge which style your own sample attempts align with.

If they are similar in detail and content as the pass answers then brilliant. If your sample answer is closer in detail to the fail answers then try and identify what the differences are between the pass and fail in the document to see what extra content has been included to secure that pass. If you can practice a few sample answers and if you’re on a course then I’d expect your trainer to give you some guidance on these two then you will at least have had some time to develop them before the exam.

Good luck with your APMPMQ exam.