Tips for being at your best for Scrum.org Certifications

Yes, you can fail your Scrum.org assessments, it happens.

I failed PSM II at 80.6%, just a few more percentages and I would have passed, but what happened?

psmi

I felt so ready for passing the test before starting. I had worked hard, I had revised, I was confident, just 30 questions in 90 minutes.

I did PSM I in 2018, it contained 80 questions with only 60 minutes time, I was expecting PSM II to be relatively easy with much less questions and more time.

So I click on go, and off we are smiling with confidence 😊

The first page turned up my eyes gaped open with my eyebrows raised 😮 I was much surprised at the wall of text before me, I read and read again and realised this was gonna be tough.

It was Saturday afternoon, my office at the time was in the lounge, kids were making noises while playing, my thought process was interrupted twice with things happening around me, I precipitated each time to get back to the test and continue.

I am on the last question, watching the timer as it counts down the last minute, I get my response in just in time and the screen moves on to the result automatically, I failed 😞

psmii

This experience forged me, never again will I attempt when the conditions are not right to FOCUS 200%

Later that evening, kids in bed, I passed with 89.7% 🥳

My Tips

So here are my tips for you to being at your best when attempting Scrum.org assessments and validate your learnings, you deserve it to yourself after investing so much energy to learn:

  • You have limited time to do a number of questions, do not underestimate tests with more time per question. Questions can be half a wall of text describing a specific situation, and can ask from sometimes up to 4 answers in 6
  • You have option fields for single answers, and checkboxes for multiples, check always how many responses are required before responding
  • Beware of NOTs in questions before answering
  • Bookmark any question you answered that you are not sure of
  • If you have time at the end, go back over every question quickly and check the coherency of response counts, if it asks for 3 answers that you checked 3 and not missed out on one, this should take only a few minutes, if you cannot correct the answer quickly, bookmark it
  • If you still have time left, go back over all the previously bookmarked question managing what time you have left per question, hopefully you do not have many bookmarked.
  • Before you start, make sure you are in a quiet area without any disturbences whatsoever 😉

Hope that helps, good luck!