Understanding the Duration of the PMP Exam: A Complete Guide

Understanding the duration and structure of the Project Management Institute (PMI)®’s Project Management Professional (PMP)® certification exam is crucial as you prepare. This guide provides a comprehensive overview of the PMP exam’s structure, including the time allocation and question types, to help ensure success.

How Long is the PMP Exam?

When planning for the PMP exam, there are several factors to consider: preparation time, logistics on exam day, and the exam itself. Thorough preparation and effective time management, both before and during the test, are crucial for performing well on the PMP certification exam.

• Prepare for the exam: Prior to taking the exam, be sure to schedule an adequate amount of time to study.
  • Depending on your experience and understanding, expect to study between 2 – 3 months, or longer, to be best prepared for the exam.
• Logistics on the day of the exam:
  • If you take the exam at a PMI-authorized Pearson VUE exam center, you must know when you must arrive. To ensure you give yourself adequate time, plan to be at the testing center 30 minutes before your scheduled start time.
  • If you take the exam as an online exam, complete your system test 30 minutes before the scheduled exam time.
• Take the exam: The PMP certification exam is 230 minutes long, including breaks. If you pass, PMI will provide your results and mail your certification to you later.

Understanding the PMP test structure.

PMI manages the Project Management Professional (PMP)® certification exam as part of global standards for project management.As of 2024, the PMP exam consists of:

• 230 minutes (3 hours 50 minutes) with two 10-minute breaks
• 180 questions – a combination of multiple choice, multiple responses, matching, hotspot, and limited fill-in-the-blank

PMI’s sample PMP certification exam reference sheet provides examples of what to expect. The 180 questions cover traditional and Agile project management across three domains:

1. People (42%): leading and building teams, managing conflict, supporting virtual teams, mentoring, and other related topics.
2. Process (50%): Potential topics in this domain include managing budgets, scheduling, managing change, and determining the best methodology for the project.
3. Business (08%): General business acumen, including, but not limited to, compliance, delivering value, and supporting organizational change.

Prospective PMP Certification holders can take the PMP exam up to three times within a year to earn a passing score.

PMP Exam Structure and Timing

The exam contains three sections, each with 60 questions per section. The section breakdown, including breaks is:

• Section 1 | questions # 1 – 60
  • Break 1 | optional (maximum 10 minutes)
• Section 2 | questions # 61 – 120
  • Break 2 | optional (maximum 10 minutes)
• Section 3 | questions # 121 – 180

You have 250 minutes, including two optional 10-minute breaks, to complete 180 questions.

Breaks During the PMP Exam

There are two optional breaks—the first break is available to you between Section 1 and Section 2, the second break is between Section 2 and Section 3. If you choose to not take a break, the next section loads and your exam continues. If you choose to take a break, you do not have to take the full 10 minutes if that is what you prefer. Taking breaks is a good idea as it gives you time to relax between exam sections. Consider these options during your break:

• Get up, stretch, and walk around
• Rehydrate
• Have a light snack

If you are taking your exam in a testing center, do not violate the testing center rules or engage with other exam students during your break.

PMP Exam Question Types

About half of the PMP test questions test knowledge of traditional project management (waterfall), and the remaining questions assess understanding of Agile or hybrid approaches. The types of questions on the PMP exam include multiple-choice, multiple-response, hot area, drag-and-drop, and fill-in-the-blank.

PMP Exam Question Type: Multiple Choice

The multiple-choice question has one correct answer and three incorrect answers (distractors). The correct answer is sometimes the most obvious, but not always. The distractors are usually more complicated or less evident than the correct answer; however, they can sometimes be nearly identical to the solution. Remember, since there is no penalty for guessing, you should answer all questions.

PMP Exam Question Type: Multiple Response

Multiple-response questions make up roughly 15% of the PMP exam. You are given a scenario and then asked to choose the best responses from several possible answers. There may be more than four choices and more than one will be the correct answer.

These can be tricky because they require you to use all the information provided to select your answer. Review each option carefully and understand how each one works with the other options. You can select the answers that provide more correct information than others.

PMP Exam Question Type: Hot Area

A hot area question requires clicking on a graphic to select your answer. As with other questions, choose the option that best answers the question.

PMP Exam Question Type: Drag and Drop

With drag-and-drop questions, you will be asked to arrange items in a particular order by dragging them. For example, you may have multiple project phase descriptions to organize according to their lifecycles.

PMP Exam Question Type: Fill in the Blank

Fill-in-the-blank questions may occur on the exam in multiple ways. For example, the text of a multiple-choice or multiple-response question may contain a blank filled in by your selections. Actual fill-in-the-blank questions will have a paragraph or table missing some information and a box for you to enter that missing information. You must fill in the blanks with your answer to complete the question. For example, you might be given a table of information and then expected to type in the row number of a row meeting specific criteria.

Time Management Strategies to Help Pass the Exam

Employ your project management skills of time management to help you pass the PMP exam. Within 250 minutes, including two optional 10-minute breaks, you must complete 180 questions. That gives you about 76.6 seconds per question, hence the importance of studying and preparing before exam day.

• Approach to pacing your progress. Use the exam’stimer to track progress and ensure you spend about a minute (not more than two) on questions in your first pass. Tracking your progress will help you develop a rhythm that prioritizes questions you are more likely to get correct and saves time to use on questions you found difficult at first.

• Approach to answering questions to stay on schedule. A strategic approach to answering the questions helps with time management.
  • read the question thoroughly
  • identify key terms and phrases
  • eliminate incorrect answers
  • select the best answer that reflects PMI’s best practices and frameworks
  • guess if you need clarification and mark it for review if time allows.

• Approach to answering difficult questions without falling behind. Do not spend more than two minutes on a question, or you will fall behind. If you do not feel confident to answer, mark it for review and move on. In this way, you complete the questions you feel more likely to have the correct response first (and hopefully gain those scoring points!) before returning to those questions you have doubts about.

Regularly check your progress against your planned timeline to prevent time crunches and reduce stress.

PMP Exam Prep

The average of 30-40 hours of exam prep reflects a combination of PMP training, PMP practice exams, and PMI content studying. As a PMI member, you gain access to the knowledgebase and other resources in support your exam content study.

Free PMP Exam Practice Questions

Project Management Academy’s free PMP exam practice questions are based on relevant topics from the A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide). Project Management Academy students who purchase the PMP exam certification course can access 2,000+ questions using PMP exam simulator software.

Complete a PMP exam prep course.

As a Premier partner of PMI’s Authorized Training Partner (ATP) Program, Project Management Academy teaches the PMI Authorized Exam Prep course materials with exclusive lessons to ensure PMA students are prepared to pass the PMP exam.

PMI Resources to Use to Prepare for the PMP Exam

The Project Management Institute (PMI®) produces A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK®Guide) for PMP exam and stay current with project management standards.

The PMBOK® Guide 6th edition outlines five process groups, ten knowledge areas, and 49 processes. Use a Project Management Process Group and Knowledge Area Mapping matrix to enhance understanding of their interconnectedness.All ten knowledge Areas and all five Process Groups listed in the 6th Edition PMBOK are examinable.

The PMBOK 7^th edition builds on the foundations in the 6th to enhance your skills as a modern project manager who may need to apply different project management methodologies for various projects.

Refer to the PMI®’s handout comparing the 6th to 7th edition PMBOK® Guide for a point-by-point comparison.

Understanding PMI’s PMP Exam Content Outline is the best way to determine what could be exam content.

Common Challenge: Skipping the Break

Many candidates rush through the sections to see how quickly they can finish. If you skip the breaks, you increase the risk that your exam performance suffers. Use the test breaks wisely so that you maintain your focus.

Conclusion

Fulfilling the certification requirements and passing the PMP exam are milestones for becoming a project management professional. To effectively manage your time, you must know what is needed before the exam (prep and logistics) and how long the exam is (3 hours and 50 minutes, including breaks). You can develop a question-pacing approach to ensure you answer 180 questions without feeling rushed. Use the allowed breaks to reduce fatigue and support your performance overall.