In my last article, I shared my experience learning “The Standard for Program Management” (SPM) (1), the Project Management Institute’s (PMI’s) definitive text on the discipline. The content was challenging, but by tackling it day over day, I learned the entire body of work without too much frustration or roadblocks along the way.
This next part is NOT that story.
While learning the SPM, I was also practicing for the exam – that 4-hour, 170-question MAMMOTH of a test. The journey was a minefield of challenges, pitting my lifelong struggles with standardized testing against what turned out to be the weakest area of support from PMI and third-party trainers.
Here’s how I trained for the test, what it took in time and money, and a little intro to the warning signs that started to creep in as I got deeper into the training process.
About the “Project PgMP Certification” Series
In this series, I share my journey toward PgMP certification, including my experiences with the application, educational materials, and exam. If you are considering the PgMP certification or curious about a mid-career educational adventure, this series is for you. In Part 8, I describe my experience practicing for the PgMP exam. I hope my account of the process helps you develop your own best PgMP training approach.
While I strive to include accurate details about the PgMP certification process, the PMI is the final authority on all requirements and processes. Make sure to check out PMI’s PgMP website and the PgMP Handbook (2) for updates.
1. How difficult is this exam again?
The answer is “very difficult,” but I digress.
In Part 6 of this series, “What Does It Take to Pass the PgMP Exam?” I give a full description of the setup and content of the test. Similar to its more popular sibling, the Project Management Professional (PMP) exam, the PgMP isn’t an exam to be taken lightly. Particularly before we get too far into the weeds of my training plan, it’s important to reiterate a few details.
The PgMP Certification Exam is:
A 170-question multiple-choice test (nearly twice the length of the SAT)
Administered over four hours (also twice the length of the SAT)
Defined by the PMI’s PgMP “Exam Content Outline” (EOC) (3)
Dependent on the SPM as the core learning material, but not solely restricted to its contents.
Built primarily out of scenario-based questions where you’re given details about a work situation and need to pick the best next action.
This exam is extremely difficult for a lot of reasons, but two stand out: length and scenario-based questions.
The test’s extreme length – the longest test I’ve ever taken – makes mental stamina and speed mission-critical.
Scenario-based questions: There’s no wrong answer here, just a more correct one. That means you need to internalize the knowledge shared in the SPM (like a typical test) as well as align your judgment with the PMI. A much higher bar.
Like running a marathon, you can’t just show up and expect to finish. Passing demands training, and unfortunately, I was coming from a “couch potato” status when it came to testing.
2. My personal challenge
When I first considered getting my PgMP, the thought of taking a standardized test in middle-age made me roll my eyes: “Not again!” Unchanged since high school and college, my learning style relies on my aptitude for analysis mixed with an abundance of diligence and grit. I’ve never been skilled at strict memorization or producing answers under a ticking clock, key skills that helped my student peers flourish on standardized tests like the SAT or GRE while I floundered.
Deciding to pursue a PgMP certification and throw myself into yet another standardized testing situation felt absurd. But I dug into “My Big Why” for resilience. What I had learned about program management so far didn’t work, and if I wanted to avoid the professional heartbreak of another failed program, I needed to find a better way to manage programs.
That unfortunately meant getting out of my comfort zone. And few places are less comfortable in the white-collar workplace than a standardized exam.
3. Finding a training partner
For training, I needed practice exams, and while options are vast, there’s no perfect resource. Unlike the PMP certification, PMI does not directly offer practice exams or anything like the PMP Study Hall - the official digital PMP exam preparation tool. PgMP practice exams are only offered via third-party providers. Like finding my PgMP teacher, the options fall into similar buckets:
Exam simulators from the big project management training companies such as PMtraining, PMTrainingSchool, and PMLearning.
Test questions from more generalized training providers such as TrustedInstitute or Udemy (~$10 - $100).
Sample questions in books or flashcards (~$30 - $50)
In picking a training partner, my selection criteria included finding something that a) didn’t cost much, b) closely mimicked the actual test environment, and c) I trusted was an accurate reflection of the real test questions. Unfortunately, many options had user reviews that said the opposite. Common criticisms were that the questions didn’t match the style or complexity of the actual exam, or that they had frequent spelling and grammatical errors.
Ultimately, I signed up with PMtraining for practice exams. Given the high variability among practice exam providers, I went with the organization advertised directly on PMI’s website, figuring that was a signal - however weak - of alignment with the actual exam. To its credit, PMtraining provided digital practice exams in a format that appeared to closely resemble the test. Finally, the price was right at $68 for 90 days of access (price as of Fall 2025).
So I had a training partner in PMtraining’s practice exams. Next up was actually practicing.
I’ve included links to many PgMP exam prep options to give you a sense of the broad array of options available on the market. That said, I don't endorse or recommend any single resource for PgMP study prep. That includes PMtraining, which I used for my own practice.
My understanding is that PMI does not provide any third-party training provider with a sample PgMP exam or any more insight than what’s publicly available in the Exam Content Outline (ECO) (3). With that gap, there’s no definitive way to verify that any testing material fully aligns with the exam, and unfortunately, that means there’s no ideal training partner on the market right now.
4. My practice schedule
Ideally, I would have focused solely on learning the content in the SPM and mastering the material, then transitioned to exam practice for a month or two. But it was August 2025, and I wanted to earn my PgMP before the New Year. This timeline meant I needed to learn and train concurrently. So while I read the SPM over lunch, I also set aside time for exam training too.
Like anything new and challenging, I started slow on practice exams and sped up. To share my practice schedule, I threw my testing dates into Google Gemini, which came back with the following assessment (a.k.a., I’m readily admitting that the following section was fully analyzed and written by AI).
Google Gemini’s analysis of my practice schedule
With the fully updated dataset, your testing strategy shows a clear progression from spaced bi-weekly diagnostic testing to a weekly rhythm, culminating in an intense 6-day daily marathon in mid-December.
Phase-by-Phase Breakdown
Phase 1: Spaced Baseline (Sept 25 – Nov 5)
Pace: 1 test every 7 to 14 days across 5 separate testing sessions.
Volume & Duration: Averaged 2.1 hours per session, completing 225 total questions over 10.5 total hours.
Format: All sessions were completed in standard (non-tutorial) mode to establish an unassisted baseline.
Phase 2: Mid-November Double-Header (Nov 20)
Pace: A 15-day study pause followed by 2 full mock exams taken on the same day.
Volume & Duration: Completed 100 questions in 2.5 total hours.
Phase 3: The December Marathon & Daily Streak (Dec 3 – Dec 17)
Pace: High-density testing with 18 tests packed into a 15-day window, concluding with an unbroken 6-day testing streak from December 12 to December 17.
Volume & Duration: Logged 825 questions and 27.5 hours in December alone, with peak single-day efforts reaching 4.5 hours on both December 11 and December 17.
Tutorial Integration: Expanded “Tutorial Mode” to 8 tests (13.25 total hours) between Dec 4 and Dec 17 to review explanations and refine target areas alongside full timed runs.
Overall Pacing Summary
Cumulative Totals: Across all 25 tests, you completed 1,150 total questions and logged 40.5 total study hours.
Evolution: You shifted from gradual bi-weekly pacing (1–2 tests per month) to a heavy end-of-prep push, completing over 71% of your total question volume in the final two weeks.
Thank you, Google Gemini; now back to my writing.
5. Self-Coaching
While I tried to address my speed issue through exposure (i.e., taking a lot of timed tests), another big part of the process was figuring out how to actually get to the right answers. Learning the SPM thoroughly didn’t automatically translate into correct answers. With scores that wildly deviated test over test, I had to train my brain on the question style and judgment – at least PMtraining’s interpretation of PMI’s judgment.
One of the most helpful tools I used was “tutorial mode” in the exam simulation. This mode turned each exam into an untimed test where the correct answer and an explanation appear directly after you select an answer. Using tutorial mode, you can see immediately whether you were right or wrong, and why, in real time.
For my training, I started by taking the exam with tutorial turned off, then went back through my wrong answers in tutorial mode. I found this helpful at the start, and it kept practice to a reasonable amount of time.
Later in my training, when I was willing to dedicate more time to exam practice, I would take a 50-question test cold and then go back through the entire test in tutorial mode. This way, I saw why I got answers right as well as wrong down to the smallest details. The downside is that it’s a painfully slow process at ~3 hours per test (1 hour for the first cold run-through and then 2 hours in tutorial mode). For better or worse, it was one of the more productive activities I did to learn the material.
This way, I crept through learning the details in the material and how to answer the scenario-based questions. While my scores still ping-ponged widely based on the test, I saw at least an upward trend towards higher scores over time. I also became quicker at completing the tests and took more back-to-back tests to develop my mental stamina. That being said, it wasn’t until two days before I was scheduled to sit for the exam that I cracked 90% on a 50Q practice test and felt I had broken through to a reasonable chance of passing.
6. Time and costs
So what did it cost me? In money, not a crazy amount. In time, much more.
Cost
I originally timed my 3-month access to PMtraining to an early November test date, but I ended up pushing my exam date back another month. This meant spending another $48 to extend my access to PMtraining’s exam simulators. I also broke down one day and bought the exam prep partner to the “PgMP Handbook" (my PgMP teacher) on a whim. I didn't end up using the book much, though, because I ended up staying focused on the practice exams.
PMtraining Exam Simulator (3 months access): $68.00
PgMP Exam Cram: $53.11
Extension to PMtraining Exam Simulator: $48.00
In total, I spent $169.11. If I had fine-tuned my practice approach, I could have lowered this expense to just that initial $68.00. C'est la vie.
Time
An unavoidable cost of training for the PgMP is the hours needed to practice the tests. In total, I spent 40.5 hours practicing 25 exams and answering 1,150 questions along the way. Compared with the relative leisure of preparing the PgMP application or studying for the SPM, these were strenuous hours of hard mental work.
That said, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to practice only 10x longer than the exam itself (~40 hours of cumulative practice for a 4-hour exam). For fun, I compared that to a marathon training plan, where - according to asking Google - an intermediate runner covers ~20x the marathon's mileage over a dedicated training plan. Unlike my expenses, which I could have trimmed more, I don’t think I was overzealous with my time spent here.
“Bad Moon Rising”
On December 4th, two weeks before I was scheduled to sit for the exam, I wrote this in my training log:
“I am finding a lot of questions have logic flaws. Like sentences that indicate a different answer. It’s made me question if the actual PgMP exam is well aligned. I wrote PMI to see if they published a practice exam. The virtual chat had to hand that off to a person, who didn’t answer the question directly until I asked twice (pushed). They do not offer practice exams - very frustrating to go in blind - and could not speak to PMtraining as a resource. Just recommended looking for user recommendations and making sure it aligned with the books. Feels like a lack of transparency. Negative on their part.“
That day wasn’t the first time I noticed a red flag while practicing for the PgMP exam. One part I didn’t unpack in this article is that as I got deeper into the material and testing, I became more aware of just how much I didn’t know about this exam. More importantly, how much I COULDN’T know even if I tried.
“I see trouble on the way.”
And with that premonition, I’ll share this article’s song pairing: “Bad Moon Rising” by Creedence Clearwater Revival. Despite that cheery, upbeat thrum in the music, those notoriously misheard lyrics…“there’s a bathroom on the right”…are in reality quite dark; deathly dark. And while taking the PgMP Exam didn’t actually kill me, when I sat for that test, there was absolutely “a bad moon on the rise.”
References
Project Management Institute PMI. The Standard for Program Management - Fifth Edition. Project Management Institute; 2024.
PgMP ® Program Management Professional (PgMP) ® Handbook Contents [Internet]. [cited 2026 Jun 11]. Available from: https://www.pmi.org/-/media/pmi/documents/public/pdf/certifications/program-management-professional-handbook.pdf?rev=d0f4f6474e9d4c07b8b9bb8786303973
Program Management Professional (PgMP) ® Examination Content Outline (ECO) [Internet]. 2024 [cited 2026 July 21]. Available from: https://www.pmi.org/-/media/pmi/documents/public/pdf/certifications/pgmp-exam-content-outline-english.pdf?rev=74f6af64c47f40e183f13743603851d5
Disclosure: In writing this series, I am not employed or compensated by PMI in any way. My affiliation with PMI is solely as a member and PgMP certificate holder. The experiences and opinions included here are my own.