PMI-ACP certification is one of the top Agile certifications in the market. There are several PMI-ACP certification benefits once you earned it. If you are planning to sit for the PMI-ACP exam, there are five important PMI-ACP exam aspects that you must be aware of:
- What are the requirements for the PMI-ACP exam?
- What is the cost of the exam?
- How can you schedule your exam?
- What is the pass rate?
- How to choose the best PMI-ACP exam training?
In this post, we will cover these points about the PMI-ACP exam.
What is PMI-ACP?
Agile Certified Professional (ACP) is a popular Agile certification offered by the Project Management Institute (PMI), USA. Like the many other PMI certifications, PMI-ACP too is globally recognized and also industry trusted. Holding the PMI-ACP credential confirms your expertise in Agile practices and it helps you to secure better jobs.
PMI-ACP is a comprehensive certification, developed by industry experts. It prepares you to work in Agile environments and apply a wide range of agile skills and knowledge to the projects. The certification covers many Agile methodologies. Some of these methodologies include DSDM, Kanban, Crystal, XP, Scrum, and FDD. These methodologies are the most popular Agile methodologies in use today and contribute to the successful delivery of project outcomes.
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More and more professionals these days are moving towards Agile. It is estimated that more than thirty thousand professionals worldwide have earned the PMI-ACP credential to date. Whether you are already practicing Agile at work or you are new to it, PMI-ACP benefits are an important must-have.
We are going to talk here about PMI-ACP from its exam aspects. You will learn what the PMI-ACP exam requirements are. You will get answers to the questions – what is the cost of the exam, what is the schedule of the exam, and the pass rate to clear the PMI-ACP exam. Furthermore, we will list down some tips for the PMI-ACP aspirants on how to choose the PMI-ACP exam training.
After reading this post, you will have a better understanding of the PMI-ACP exam, and deciding on how and when to pursue this certification will be easier for you.
PMI-ACP Exam
When someone decides to do a certification, they have many questions in his mind. They concern about many things. The major concerns in minds of most people are the cost of the exam, the schedule when the exam is available, the pass rate of the students who appear in the PMI-ACP exam. Moreover, people also concern about training. Choosing where and how to take the PMI-ACP training can be a hard choice to make. Since many training options are available today like live online training, self-paced online training, and classroom-based training, it may be difficult for you to weigh all the options and decide on one. Moreover, numerous training providers are in the market today, so choosing one for your training is not an easy task.
In the headings below, you will find detail about the many aspects concerning the PMI-ACP exam.
PMI-ACP Exam Requirements
Like most certifications, PMI-ACP too has exam requirements that you must fulfil before you can register for the exam. The PMI-ACP exam requirements are developed by the certification body, which is PMI. These requirements are meant to ensure that you have adequate skills, knowledge, and experience to take the exam and hold the credential.
The PMI-ACP exam requirements are:
- A high school diploma or a degree or anything equivalent.
- 21 contact hours of Agile training.
- Work experience: For high school diploma holders, 12 months of general project experience is required, which has been gained within the last 5 years. This can equate to approximately 2000 hours of work. If you hold a degree, the requirement of 12 months of project experience is automatically waived off for you.
Remember that gaps in your work experience will not be counted. Also, if you have overlapping experience, you can only claim one experience per project assignment. If you hold the PMP or the PgMP credential, you already satisfy this requirement. In addition, 8 months of Agile project experience gained in the last three years is also required.
If you fulfill these requirements, you must then fill out the online PMI-ACP exam application form at pmi.org. In the form, you will need to provide a high-level description of your experience and objectives of the projects that you had undertaken. In addition, you will also provide the project outcomes, your role on the projects, your responsibilities, and the deliverables that were completed. You will summarize all this in 200 to 500 words.
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Once you will submit this application, PMI will manually examine the information that you have provided. They will then either approve or disapprove your exam application. You do not need to worry about this though. If you fulfill the above-mentioned requirements and you have correctly and sincerely entered your experience detail, your application will be approved. Generally, it is also expected from the candidates to include in their project descriptions the Agile terminologies and the methods that Agile frameworks use. Doing this proves to PMI that you possess the required project and Agile experience to earn the PMI-ACP credential.
PMI-ACP Exam Cost
The PMI-ACP exam cost is described in the table below.
| Exam Type | PMI Member Status | Fee in US$ | Fee in Euros |
| Online or Center-based | Active PMI Member | $ 435 | 365 € |
| Online or Center-based | Non-PMI Member | $ 495 | 415 € |
| Re-examination | Active PMI Member | $ 335 | 280 € |
| Re-examination | Non-PMI Member | $ 395 | 330 € |
You can learn more about the PMI-ACP certification cost.
Exam Schedule
The PMI-ACP exam is available both online and at PMI’s authorized testing centers. PearsonVUE is the authorized testing center of PMI. All the PMI exams including the PMI-ACP exam are held in this testing center. Once PMI approves your PMI-ACP exam application, you can then schedule your exam with PearsonVUE.
If you opted for the online proctored exam, during the exam-fee payment process, you can choose the date and time when you wish to take your exam. The online proctored exam is available at any time of the day. However, they are available only from Tuesday to Saturday.
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If you chose to take the exam in a testing center, you will be able to select a date and time from the available slots. Usually, you can find an available slot on the desired date and time. On some occasions, however, when too many people have chosen to take the exam on the same dates, the desired slot may not be available to you.
Pass Rate
PMI has based the pass rate of all their certification exams, including the PMI-ACP exam on psychometric analysis. In psychometric testing, the pass rate is not revealed. How it works is that if so many people have appeared in the exam this month or this year, there is a likelihood that the pass rate for the next exams will go up. Similarly, if lesser people have appeared in the exam, the pass rate will go down.
One other criterion used in psychometric testing is determining how many past candidates have passed the exam. The increasing number of students passing the exam will result in the pass rate for the next exams to be increased. Lesser students passing the exam will result in pass rate to be lowered for the next exams.
However, the experts in this field are of the opinion that the passing score of the PMI-ACP exam stays around 70%.
PMI-ACP Exam Training
You can take PMI-ACP training from many sources. However, you should choose a training provider that will not only give you Agile knowledge but also help you successfully pass the PMI-ACP exam.
Here are some points to consider when choosing a PMI-ACP training provider.
1. Find out who the trainer is
The PMI-ACP trainer must be proficient not only in Agile but in teaching too. They should have conducted training before and to a large number of students. The perfect trainer would be the one who even has practical Agile experience. Find out all these things about the trainer.
2. Read the PMI-ACP exam takers’ testimonials
Testimonials are proof of someone’s experience with a product or service that they have used. Before shortlisting a training provider, you should find out what the past students of the same provider have to say about the training that they received. The past students might have left a testimonial on the training provider’s website or on review websites. By reading their testimonials, you will understand the quality of the training offered. You will also be able to know whether you will pass the PMI-ACP exam or not if you take training from a certain training provider.
3. Go for comprehensive PMI-ACP training
Before choosing PMI-ACP training, you must make sure that it is comprehensive training. Comprehensive training means that it is complete training and thoroughly covers the training content as prescribed by PMI. Such training usually also includes practice tests, cheat sheets, tips, and tricks for passing the PMI-ACP exam and even more material.
It is very important that you are provided with practice exam questions. You need them to assess your preparation for the exam. Often, students do not use the practice questions, thinking they have prepared enough for the exam. However, you might not know without using the practice questions if you have missed studying a particular topic. You may have studied something incorrectly, or perhaps you did not memorize important terminologies well.
Therefore, taking comprehensive PMI-ACP training is important. You can ask the training provider about the study materials that they will provide to you. Ask them about the training content as well to be sure that the training is comprehensive and covers everything that PMI has prescribed.
Summary
In this post, we talked about the PMI-ACP certification which is a very popular and globally recognized certification. We also mentioned the five important points about the PMI-ACP exam. These points should have given you a complete understanding of the PMI-ACP exam requirements, the exam cost, schedule, and exam pass rate. We also mentioned some tips on choosing a credible PMI-ACP training provider.
So as you know now that there is no fixed PMI-ACP exam pass rate, preparing for the exam with dedication and a study plan is important. Remember not to underestimate the PMI-ACP exam. Some people have failed the exam, thinking that they already know a lot and so they did not study well. It is true that Agile practices and terminologies are not difficult to understand. However, since there is a lot to study for the PMI-ACP exam, once you have obtained the PMI-ACP training, we would recommend that you spend adequate time going through the study material to understand as well as memorize it well.
Earning the PMI-ACP credential is a proud achievement. Once you have earned it, you can rest assured that the opportunities that will come with it are many and all around you.