Timing of Breaks - (Also, I passed today!)
Took the exam today at a Pearson test center and passed AT/AT/AT! Thankful for AR and the mindset videos. They most definitely still apply to the new exam. I took my 35-hour course in March 2025 (yes, 2025), had some family health issues and job hunting delay my studying until a month ago because my 1-year period ends next week. To “cram” I used AR’s TIA testing simulator and PMI SH+. Can’t recommend either of these enough. I was using PocketPrep but when I found out SH+ has a mobile app, I switched to that full time so I could answer the questions at home and on the go.
Feel free to ask questions about my prep, if you’d like.
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Anyway, my biggest takeaway today was the timing of the two breaks.
As expected, my exam started with case studies. I had 2 narrative case studies with 4 questions each, and 1 “case study” that had very little narrative and a few charts/graphs that had 2 questions to answer. They kinda skipped back and forth between case studies for the questions, so I definitely recommend highlighting important info when reading them as the highlights remain for the next question.
So I finished the 10th question at around the 15 minute mark and hit “Next”, and it takes me to my first review screen. For 10 questions…I was very confused. I had essentially just sat down and didn’t really want one of my breaks yet.
When the break screen started I literally put my arms up and was like “wtf??”. The proctor came over to me when she saw and she was confused, too. I just got up to get a sip of water and went back to it.
My next break was after question 95 where I had about 113 minutes left. I answered the 180th question with about 45 seconds left. I recommend writing the your goal time remaining per Question number during the warm-up portion. I wrote: Q1=240 min left, Q31=200, Q61=160, Q91=120, Q121=80, Q151=40, Q166=20, Q173=10
They ended up asking a few more questions on the narrative case studies later on but I only had 12 CS questions total. 1 drag and drop. Maybe 10 “choose 2/3”. The rest were scenario questions much like SH+, with most of them in the “moderate” range of difficulty.
Has anyone else had a break this early with the new exam??? Just wondering if mine was normal.