Prince2 - The 3 week study plan

Taking exams is never a pleasure but if managed with a good planning and managing the things appropriately it can become an experience less painful, and more successful.

Now, specifically talking about taking PRINCE2 examination, which is all about managing projects, it becomes a necessary point in managing the preparation part as well. In this article we're going to discuss a little about the PRINCE2 exams and tips on how to crack them in less than 3 weeks.

What is PRINCE2 Certification: PRINCE2 is a project management system, short for PRoject IN Controlled Environment. The qualification needed for PRINCE2 certification is to pass the two exams.

  • Foundation level

  • Practitioner level

The examination pattern is made by APM Group along with the Office of the Government Commerce and The Stationery Office.

Make a working schedule: You cannot crack this exam without proper planning as I said earlier. Now, this proper planning starts with building a Study schedule. The examination days would be at your head before you know it, and if you're not well prepared, you'll be in for quite a disappointment. Remember PRINCE2 examination is not easy; they test your skills so thoroughly that in order to pass you must be an expert already.

After you've made your 3 weeks study plan, make sure you're going to stick to it. Make space for the self-reading and for the accredited training in case you're going for it. Place the last few days as revision days, and also keep some extra time in case something goes off course. If organisation isn't your thing then find an accredited training organisation (ATO) that'll do most of the thinking for you.

Foundation Exam Pattern: The thing to remember is that you're given a total of sixty minutes to get thirty-five marks out of seventy to get the 50% passing marks. There are a total of seventy-five multiple options questions in a paper that also includes five questions for trying whose scores are not included.

Foundation Exam Details: The Foundation examination is intended at testing if you are capable of acting as a well-versed member of the project managing team by utilising PRINCE2 in a setting that backs it. To gain success you would require proving that you know the terminology & principles of the process. So you need to demonstrate you've gripped the resolve and main component of roles, 8 processes, the 8 components, and the sub-processes & techniques. You should state which managing products that input to & output from, main purpose & main contents of main managing products and the eight processes, and you should state the relations between deliverables, processes, roles & the management extents of the project.

Practitioner Exam Pattern: This is one of the toughest exams you've attended. There are nine questions in each paper and twelve marks for each question. You must score 59 from a total of 108 so as to get 55% passing marks in 2.5 hours in objective test format examination making use only of the PRINCE2 manual.

Practitioner Exam Purpose: When you're preparing it is easy to get in on details of the course & out of whatever the examiners need. They are looking forward to establish that you recognize and may comment on descriptions of processes, techniques and themes in addition to examples of the PRINCE2 products with concern to definite settings in the given state. You must demonstrate that you recognize how processes, techniques, themes and PRINCE2 managing products intermingle and such that you may use that information. They want substantiation that you've grabbed the motives behind processes, techniques and themes and can customise PRINCE2 to various project settings.

Prepare yourself before taking a course: It may sound ridiculous and unreasonable to you to pre-read yourself to the course. But, what it really does is that when you're at going through the tutorials you'll know what you're doing. Also, you have an opportunity to note down the topics that you might want to discuss with the tutor for better understanding, and making notes for on-going review & revision. Most ATOs provides required books in their price. While some of them may even give them for free.

Perfect PRINCE2 Manual: Some candidates may believe that it is useless to remember the book by heart since you're going to have the manual available to you during the exam and also it not actually possible to remember everything. What we suggest is that never have such an assumption and carelessness come to you. True, that you'll be allowed to use the manual, but under the time constraints it is beneficial if you know your way around the book. If you haven't mastered the book then you would find yourself wasting a lot of precious time in just going through it all.

The manual should only be used as a reference during the exam and not for reading through it. You might even want to highlight the important things while you're mastering it for later references.

Practice Exam Questions: It is said practice makes a man perfect. I'd say it is true too. If you give a good time in your schedule to practice questions, then you chances at success increases drastically. Since, the practitioner examination is more practical based in that it requires you to handle a scenario in best possible way, practicing before hand gives you an edge through the exam.

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