I took the Professional Scrum Master 1 (PSM 1) certification exam today. I passed with a score of 100%. I will briefly share how I prepared for the test.
How I Prepared
I have experience using Scrum as a product manager. That proved to be helpful in understanding how to practically apply Scrum. I experienced many of the situations where a question includes a Product Manager.
I read through chapters 1 to 17 of Agile Project Management for Dummies on my Kindle. I found it helpful to understand broad concepts. It probably is more than what is needed for the certification test. Yet I felt very comfortable reading the Scrum guide and sample test questions after reading this book.
I read through some forum posts. This post (https://www.scrum.org/forum/scrum-forum/6156/psm-i-passed-100) was written by another person who passed with 100%. This post (https://www.scrum.org/forum/scrum-forum/7708/passed-psm-i-975-experiences) is more recent and the person passed with 97.5%.
I did the Scrum Open Assessment test about eight times. Several exam questions are similar to what I saw in other practice exams.
I did several practice exams on https://www.techagilist.com/practice-exams/psm-i-practice-test/psm-practice-exam-real-mode-questions/. These seem to be very popular and match what is in the Scrum Open Assessment test.
I spent US$9.99 for one week of access to the Scrum Master Certification practice exam at https://www.capeprojectmanagement.com/agile-exams/. These are provided by Cape Project Management, Inc. I tried about eight sets of eighty question practice exams. The questions are similar to what I saw in other practice exams. There is similarity between questions in each practice exam. However, I liked the questions and I think that they helped me pass.
I read the Scrum Guide about 12 times. I would take one or two practice tests and then read through the Scrum Guide. This process helped me find the answers to practice questions that I got wrong. I kept doing this until I felt that I could answer correctly and explain why the other answers were wrong.
I read through the exam tips on https://www.volkerdon.com/pages/psm-1-exam-tips. I took the sample exam, too. I read through parts of the available course material. I thought that the course material was good; but I had a good understanding of the Scrum framework by the time I came to this website. It is probably a good idea to read through their course material if you have not read anything else but the Scrum Guide.
The Test
I had some concerns that the real exam would be more difficult than the practice exams. These concerns were based on some forum posts that I read. However, I thought that the actual exam was similar to what I had seen on practice exams; but not identical. I think that this is because I had worked through about 25 full practice exams. I also had experience, read a book on Agile, and read through the Scrum Guide many times.
I could answer most questions quickly. I returned to review a small number of questions. I changed answers on three questions after reading through them carefully again.
Recommendations
I agree with the forum posts that I read. However, I recommend that you take a couple of practice exams and then read the Scrum Guide. Repeat this process several times. Read a book on Scrum and/or Agile if you don’t have experience or knowledge.
Good luck when you take the PSM 1 test!
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