In the past few years, I have been involved with hundreds of professionals who would like to have the CAPM certificate. The frequently asked question was: How to study for the CAPM certification exam?
The detailed CAPM study plan explained below was created by me relying on my own experience preparing my students to pass the CAPM exam, and from the lessons learned I received from the students I guide, you can think about this plan as the CAPM study guide. Take less than an hour to read this study plan for the CAPM exam carefully, this plan will save a lot of your time and efforts!
Step one: Do you want to be a CAPM certified?
First, you should have the serious intent to be CAPM certified. This intent might come from the career path you have in the project management field or from your passion to improve your knowledge in this field. Wherever it’s coming from, the CAPM® certification offers recognition to practitioners who are interested in, or just starting, a career in project management, as well as project team members who wish to demonstrate their project management knowledge
This certification indicates knowledge of common practices used by an associate-level project manager. Once you have this intent, and you are willing to invest your time and money, you can be a CAPM certificate holder with a CAPM study schedule of 4-6 weeks.
Are you eligible for the CAPM exam? As per the PMI standards, you must have a secondary degree (high school diploma, associate degree or the global equivalent, and 23 hours of project management education.
The CAPM exam fee is $225 for members and $300 for non-members. Therefore, it’s better and money saving to register on the PMI website with the fees of $129 and $10 of application fees, if you are willing to have more than a certificate from the Project management Institute. For more details about the PMI requirements for the CAPM exam and the exam fees, you can check the PMI.org website.
The total cost of this journey will include the exam fees, reference books cost, 35 contact hours course, and miscellaneous costs of supportive documents. If you have the self-learning ability, I will guide you on how to get 100% prepared for the CAPM exam with only $200 including the 23 contact hours, reference book, and high-quality exam simulators.
Therefore, the total cost of the CAPM preparation journey will be around 550$ (Including exam fees). If you prefer going to a live classroom in your city to get the educational 23 contact hours, then the cost of the journey might reach $800.
Most of the project management practitioners can afford the $800 to get ready for the exam and apply for it; the real issue is the time investment! Like most of us who have a full-time job and family commitments, you want to find the most effective way to get ready. The step-by-step study plan I prepared based on my experience will save you time. No need to search the web for tons of useless data, 10 hours per week for 4-6 weeks following exactly this plan will guarantee your success from the first attempt.
Step Two: Get your reference books
Pick your reference book! You will hear from other CAPM aspirants that having the 23 contact hours of education before reading the CAPM reference book is better. In my opinion, reading the reference book you selected at least will be much more effective, this is what I advise my students to do before they attend my workshops.
Why? Once you start reading the reference book you will start pointing out the topics where you have weaknesses, you will have a good general knowledge of the content, what are the project management methods and techniques you want to focus on during the 23 contact hours training, this is the reason why I advise you to read the book.
You will be aware of the content of the training before you join it, highlight all topics you need to improve your knowledge in then go for the educational training. The best reference book you should use is the PMBOK® guide–Seventh edition, it’s the best resource as a CAPM study guide.
Including both The Standard for Project Management and the PMBOK® Guide, this modern edition presents 12 principles of project management and eight project performance domains critical for the effective delivery of project outcomes. This book is mandatory for passing the CAPM exam in the first trial, specially that 50% of the new exam questions will be around the Agile and Hybrid project management approaches, which are covered in the PMBOK 7th edition. .
This book is a must-read for the CAPM exam preparation, and you can have a look at it through the link here. Through amazon, the price of this book starts at $71 which is the best price in the market, or you can download a soft copy for free from the PMI website if you are a PMI member.
Step Three: Attend the 23 educational contact hours (Live class, webinars, or self-learning paced)
Nowadays, getting the 23 contact hours is very easy, it’s your call! Do you prefer attending a live class? do a simple search in the place you are living in and register for a live class training, usually it costs from $500 to $1,000 depending on the place you are living in, currency, and instructor repetition.
The issue of attending such classes is that you need to fit your timing to suit the instructor's timing, and it’s usually intensive. Instructors are giving the whole material of the CAPM exam within 3-4 days, usually students cannot acknowledge this amount of data within such a short time, but still, I know students who prefer having a live class/workshop.
The second option is registering for an interactive online workshop, the instructor will do the 23 contact hours of project management education through online webinars while having 10-15 students, it’s money saving and more flexible, for attending such live interactive webinars you can search the web and usually prices for such live webinars are from $500 to $700, and at the end of the course you will have a certificate of completion with 23 contact hours of project management.
In my point of view, if you have the self-learning ability, you can be eligible for the exam using the CAPM course I created, which can be considered as the ultimate CAPM study guide, and at the end of the course you will have 23 contact hours completion certificate which you can use to fill in your exam application.
This training should improve your knowledge in the project management field and prepare you to pass the exam. It’s a huge save of money compared to the upper prices, you have more flexibility attending the course content, and whenever you have a question, you can post it on the course Q&A section or directly contact us through the website here.
Our course will fully prepare you for the CAPM exam, and it will increase your chances to pass from the first trial. You can enroll in our course for a price of $199 including four high-quality mock exams which are very close to the real exam questions.
Now it’s your decision, you can attend a live class, online interacting class, or a self-paced course provided by Elite Minds. The most important thing is to take the maximum benefits out of the course, understand the exam content and structure, risk management processes, and take a certificate of attending 23 contact hours of project management education at the end of the course.
Step Four: Read the PMBOK 7th Edition again
The PMBOK® Guide–Seventh Edition – Including both The Standard for Project Management and the PMBOK® Guide, this modern edition presents 12 principles of project management and eight project performance domains critical for the effective delivery of project outcomes.
This book is mandatory for passing the CAPM exam in the first trial, specially that 50% of the new exam questions will be around the Agile and Hybrid project management approaches, which are covered in the PMBOK 7th edition. Also, you should give attention to the agile practice guide which is an appendix of the PMBOK 6th edition.
Step Five: Be aware of the CAPM exam structure and each domain share in the exam
Knowing the exam structure will help you highlight the important domains and processes, it’s a key aspect of your CAMP study plan. You will know where to focus, and from which domain the biggest share of questions will come. CAPM exam contains 150 multiple choice questions.
There are 180 minutes to complete the exam. Now to get my point out of this step, below is the list which shows the domains percentage as per the PMI latest CAPM exam content outline: Project Management Fundamentals and Core Concepts (36%), Predictive, Plan-Based Methodologies (17%), Agile Frameworks/Methodologies (20%), and Business Analysis Frameworks (27%).
For the CAPM exam, there is now a 10-minute break in the exam. The break will appear after completion of questions 1–75 and you have reviewed all your answers. Please note, once you review your responses and start your break, you will not be able to return to the questions from the previous exam section.
Step Six: Highlight your weaknesses and CAPM Exam hot Topics
Now you know how the real CAPM exam will look like, and you have been through the reference books and the 23 contact hours training course. It is normal to have a few weakness points which you need to give more attention to.
In addition to the points you highlighted, I am listing below the CAPM exam hot topics where the majority of the exam questions come from: Agile principles, iteration planning, risk response strategies, work breakdown structure, cost/duration estimation techniques, Scrum framework, information radiators, projects and programs, Agile tools and techniques, earned value management, user stories and story points, and stakeholder register.
Step Seven: It’s the time to test yourself
At this stage, you are almost ready to go for the real CAPM exam, and you are almost done with your CAPM study plan. One step remains before you schedule your exam date, test your readiness for the real CAPM exam. At this stage you are done with the 23 contact hours, read the reference books needed, highlighted the hot topics of the exam, and familiar with the exam structure.
I have created a CAPM exam simulator, that contains four simulated tests each with 150 questions which you need to complete in three hours. Overall, the course contains 600 questions, my practice tests questions are like the real CAPM exam questions. CAPM exam questions are short and direct to the point. The concept of this step is to check if you are ready to schedule your exam or not.
You can enroll in the CAPM exam preparation package, or you can buy only the four exams set only. Set in your room, open the laptop, have a plain A4 paper, with simple calculator, off your mobile and be away from any possible interruption, you must finish the 150 questions in 3 hours with a passing score of minimum 80%.
Go for practice test # 1, you will practice the other exams of the course in later stages. It’s ok if you were not able to complete the 150 questions within exam time frame in the first attempt, what’s important is to get a score of +80%, if you got this result, move to next step, if not, don’t worry, just refer back to step four of this study plan and repeat tell you reach this step again, and this time use practice test # 2. Go forward with this study plan once you get a result of 80% or more.
Step Eight: Schedule your exam 1 week ahead
Now it’s the time to schedule your exam date, go for the PMI.org website and follow steps below to fill your application online:
Visit the website pmi.org, select membership from the home page upper bar. Choose the individual membership type which will cost you 129$ + 10 $. Press on join now, fill in your information and create your account.
Now once you are done with the PMI login and membership process, go back to the home page and select certifications from the home page upper bar and choose Certified associate in project management (CAPM) ®then press on apply now.
- Fill in your address and work address, then fill your contact information (Email address and phone number).
- Fill in your attained education information (bachelor’s degree or diploma).
- Fill in your project management educational hours, title of the course, institute name, start and end dates of the course, and the number of hours.
- Mention your name as how you want it to appear on the certificate.
- Read the agreement then click the box “I agree “.
- Review your application then submit.
- Pay the Exam Fees.
Wait for the notice authorizing you either to schedule your exam or to inform you that your application will be subjected to an audit before it’s approved. Once your application is approved, you can schedule your exam date two weeks ahead by checking parametric centers available in your location and their availability. Note that once you receive your authorization notice; you must pass the exam within one year.
Step Nine: Practice, practice, practice
From my experience helping students pass the CAPM exam, one of the core reasons why people fail in their first trial is the shortage of time. Solving 150 questions within 3 hours’ time frame isn’t easy! The best practice to overcome the timing challenge is to practice as much as you can. Practicing the exam questions will get you closer to the real exam environment, you can have an idea about the exam questions through the free resources I include in this blog.
The next stage shall be practicing timely tested simulation exams, practice the real exam environment, through the course you enrolled into in step eight! Have a plain A4 paper, with a simple calculator, off your mobile and be away from any possible interruption. You must finish the 150 questions in 3 hours with a passing score of minimum 80%. Practice the second, third, and fourth exams of the course and be ready with the real exam circumstances.
Step Ten: Go and Pass
One night before the exam, relax and have a good sleep. In the morning, have a good breakfast, and be at the testing center 1 hour before the exam. Once you enter the examination room, you will have your own desktop with a simple calculator, a few white papers, and a pencil.
Read the exam tutorial which will appear automatically on the screen, it will explain for you that the exam includes 150 questions, and that exam timing is 3 hours. Start your exam, you will be able to mark the question you are not sure of its answer to review later, do not keep your eyes on the timer, take a look at each 50 questions only.
Don’t get confused during the exam, just highlight questions you are not sure of their answers and go for the next question. Once you are done, click finish, they will ask you to do a short survey about the testing center; once you are done you will have your exam result with a short report of each domain score.
Good luck with your CAPM study plan!
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