APM Project Management Qualification Hints and Tips

APM Project
Management

Hints and Tips

 APM Project Management Qualification Hints and Tips

Hints and tips from the APM Project Management Qualification

examination marker team
This document is designed to provide candidates with some helpful insights from the APM Project
Management Qualification examination marker team.

General hints and tips for answering questions:

■ Candidates should remember to answer the question posed. For example, when asked to explain
benefits of a process try not to focus on the features of a process.
■ Candidates must remember to pay attention to the command verb posed within the question.
– Explain the difference/differentiate: candidates need to focus on the differences between
the two project management practices/knowledge areas within their answers, as well as the
reasons and purposes for these differences.
– Explain: candidates need to focus on the reasons, purposes and why of the project management
practices/knowledge areas.
– Describe: candidates need to focus on: the how, the features, the relevant characteristics and
events of project management practices/knowledge areas within their answers.
– Interpret: candidates need to focus on translating information/data into another form to aid
understanding of the subject matter, to demonstrate the candidate’s understanding of the subject
matter and/or to inform a future action.
– Outline: candidates need to focus on setting out the main points/characteristics of the project
management subject area posed within the question.
– State: candidates need to focus on expressing the details of the project management subject
area posed within the question, without elaboration.
■ For questions that ask to differentiate between two project management elements – candidates
often write two answers. One answer will describe one element of the question and a second answer
will describe the other. These types of answers aren’t showing two differences or considerations
between the project management element(s) of the question, and therefore the candidate misses out
on an opportunity to be awarded sufficient marks within the question.
■ For differentiate questions – candidates often explain one element of difference, but not the other(s),
so it’s unclear what the difference is.
■ The layout of candidates’ answers don’t impact how they’re awarded marks, but it’s suggested that
candidates make clear distinctions between each point they are making for each question sub part.
For example, if a question sub part asks for three descriptions, it’s advised candidates separate out
each of their descriptions into three individual paragraphs, each one tackling one of the descriptions.
■ When candidates’ answers aren’t showing a sufficient depth of understanding of the subject matter,
this is usually due to candidates providing too brief an answer, such as a short sentence or a brief
bullet point. Please see the APM Project Management Qualification Sample Answer document to
gain a better understanding of suitable levels of depth and understanding candidates should provide
within their answers.
■ Questions with ‘and’ for instance; “describe three aspects, and the function of these aspects, of …”
candidates often don’t address the ‘and’ element and therefore miss out on an opportunity to be
awarded sufficient marks for a passing mark within the question.
■ Time needs to be managed effectively. Candidates usually provide answers lacking depth and
containing insufficient information when they’re running out of time within the assessment. As well
as this candidates often don’t complete all ten questions for the assessment. Candidates should look
to spend 18 minutes per question, to answer 10 questions within 3 hours, this includes reading time.
This can be broken down as 7 minutes for the part (a) 20-mark questions and 11 minutes for the part
(b) 30-mark questions.

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 APM Project Management Qualification Hints and Tips

■ An introduction to an answer is not required. Candidates are recommended to go straight into

answering the question rather than putting in an introduction.
■ Candidates aren't required to re-write the question in the answer section. Doing this will reduce the
candidate’s assessment time to provide an answer.
■ The maximum number of questions candidates can answer is 10. Only the first 10 answered
questions will be marked, therefore if candidates do have extra time with in the exam they should use
this time to ensure their 10 answered questions are as robust as they can be rather than answering
more questions. They should ensure they delete anything they don’t want marked.
■ Personal examples aren’t required within candidates’ answers in order to achieve maximum marks for
questions, nor do they guarantee additional marks for the candidate.
■ Candidates are advised to answer parts (a) and (b) to each question – the combined total of both
parts is 50-marks, this is how candidates can achieve maximum scores for questions.
■ Candidates often provide the same amount of information for both parts (a) and (b) even though part
(a) is allocated 20-marks and part (b) is allocated 30-marks.

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 APM Project Management Qualification Hints and Tips
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