How to pass Professional Scrum Master (PSM I) Certification?

So, Finally, I am a Professional Scrum Master (PSM I). It was kind of overdue to have an attempt on Professional Scrum Master Certification conducted by Scrum.org. I have been using Agile (and Scrum) in my projects in various capacities for many years now. And to be honest, the simplicity of the framework and the empirical process behind the Scrum has fascinated me to pursue the subject further.

I registered for the exam last week. The process is relatively simple. Register on the Scrum.org and pay $100 for the PSM I exam. They would send your password to access the exam within a business day. And you have a period of 14 days to give the exam. I kind of used 7 days just to make sure I don’t waste my $100 as the score you need to get is fairly high (85%). That means from a set of 80 questions, you need to get at least 68 right.

I did not do excellent and just made sure to pass the exam on border by having 69 answers correct i.e. 86.6 % as score. Well, not really bad for first attempt. After the exam, you do not get report of the question which you did not answer correct but you do get a consolidated report on the areas with your scores. Mine looked something like this. This at least helps me to focus on specific areas for Scrum.

Tips and tricks to pass Professional Scrum Master Certification

Let’s be honest, there is no ready-made formula for success in any field and same applies here while you try to attempt get the certificate for Professional Scrum Master. And in fact, the certificate value just drops to nothing if you have not learned anything during the process.

Nevertheless, here are my two cents based on my own experience.

Make sure you go through the official Scrum Guide written by Ken Schwaber & Jeff Sutherland thoroughly. The guide is very concise, but covers the essence of Scrum.
I would suggest you to go through the Scrum Open Assessments (both and Scrum Master and Scrum Developer) multiple times before you are scoring 95% or more consecutive time. The open assessment has a set of approximate 40 questions. Out of which 30 questions are presented in an assessment.The assessment will give you an idea of questions which would be asked in the actual assessment. Additionally, you would find some of the questions from open assessment repeated in the actual assessment. This gives you surplus time and confidence during the examination.Personally, I found 10-15 questions being repeated in the actual exam.
Don’t look around on internet for dumps of questions. You are not going to find any. And even if you do, then what’s the point of giving exam and get credentials? You could better create a Photoshop version of certificate to boss around.
PSM I Simulated Exams from Management Plaza is a good tool to evaluate your preparation and readiness for the PSM I Exam. The simulator not only contains a set of 250 practice questions but also explains each and every answer.
Everyone has their own preference over books, I went through the ‘A Guide to the SCRUM BODY OF KNOWLEDGE (SBOK™ GUIDE), 2013 Edition’. It’s to the point and gives you decent read before the exam.
The Scrum Master Training Manual from Frank Turley and Nader K. Rad is another resource guide which compliments the original Scrum Guide. It has a lot of practical examples which are important from the exam point of view. One thing which I liked in the manual is the explanation of burn-down charts which is not explicit in the Scrum Guide. And ofcourse, it’s FREE!
Go through the discussions on Scrum Forum. You would find a lot of people discussing their experience and queries on this forum. Group of folks here are willing to help you if have questions. A great place to hang around for Scrum enthusiasts.
During the exam, don’t try to Google (or Bing) around for the answers. First, you won’t find any. Second, there is no guarantee that the answer is right. Third, you would be wasting your time. Keep in mind that you need to complete 80 questions in 60 minutes. That gives you 45 seconds per question. Yes, you need to be fast.
And yes, make sure you have an isolated place where you can concentrate while giving the examination. As the examination is online, you need to have a good and consistent internet connection in place. Have a glass (or two) of water with you. You would feel thirsty during the exam. Psychological? Not sure!