The APM Exam: A Project Management Apprentices Guide

Niamh Briody is a level 4 project management apprentice at Multiverse.

The APM Exam seems a distant yet daunting prospect throughout the duration of the project management course. It’s actually not half as daunting as I, and I am sure many others, built it up to be. Whilst I wait for my results and reflect on what went well and even better if, I thought it may be useful to share my learnings…

How to ensure success from day one of your apprenticeship

The first piece of advice I would give is to start early! There is a lot of content to learn and having a full-time job whilst studying can be a tricky balancing act. I would advise that after a delivery session, do your assignments and then make your notes or mind map etc, on that module. This means that when it comes to really kick-starting your revision closer to the time of your exam, your notes are already made and then you can focus on learning them. 

Making your notes

One thing to consider when making your notes is that Multiverse uses ‘Modules 1 - 10’ and the APM uses learning outcomes (11 to be exact). Essentially, Multiverse use parts of each learning outcomes, called assessment criteria  (APM) to make a cohesive module, below is an example of Module 1 that you should recognise from your first delivery session:

You can see the numbers on the right-hand side aren’t in chronological order, that’s because these are learning outcomes taken from the APM to form a module. The thing that took me a moment to realise when I started making my notes, is that the most effective way to structure them, is not to follow the modules set by Multiverse but by learning outcome - so for example, learning outcome 1: 1.1 - 1.7. Part A of a 50 mark question could be on assessment criteria 1.1 and part B on assessment criteria 1.7 because the questions will be based on learning outcomes as a whole. Confusing? I know, but it is really important to base your learning off of these outcomes set by the APM as you’re being assessed on your understanding of them, so whichever format your notes take, flashcards or mind maps etc, they should cover these. 

To make my notes, I used a combination of resources, the APM textbook, which I definitely have a love/hate relationship with, It can be quite wordy and hard to pick out the information you need. However, Multiverse have created a really useful knowledge tracker tool, you should get this sent to you from your coach. The knowledge tracker breaks down each learning area and exactly the pages you need according to that outcome, I found this really useful as it meant that I didn’t have 5 pages of notes when I only needed 2. For topics that I found difficult, I watched the knowledge videos made by coaches on Appli.ed, if a topic wasn’t covered here I found two other great resources, a podcast on Spotify and Youtube. I also found these great to have on whilst I was working, on a walk or making dinner etc.

Revising and Exam Timing

About 2.5 months before my exam, I sat down and made a revision timetable to really kickstart my effective revision. I used my work calendar and put in recurring blocks, for example I would do 7:30am - 9:30am every Tuesday and Thursday and then 2 hours on a Friday afternoon, this is just how worked for me, I know some of my peers used tools such as Trello and Asana.

I would start by reading through my notes on a learning outcome and testing myself on them, I used flashcards to write down what I could remember and tried to ensure I could get down at least five bullet points to achieve 10 marks. 

Next, I worked on drafting up answers to practice questions in the back of the textbook, some of these are used in our assignments so you’ll have seen them before. I would then time myself answering the question and compare the two. 

Practising your timing is hugely important when it comes to the APM exam, you have a total of 3 hours and 15 minutes and you have to answer 10 questions. The exam gives you a choice of 16 questions and you have to pick the 10 you want to answer, so I spent the first 15 minutes reading through the questions and picking which ones I wanted to answer. That leaves you with three hours to answer the questions which works out to 18 minutes per question, to answer part A (20 marks) and part B (30 marks). To break this down even further, I aimed to spend roughly 7 minutes on part A and 11 minutes on part B.

This method of revision worked for me but it might not work for everyone so we’ve collated some tips from other apprentices and coaches in this video:

Answering and understanding the question

In order to answer the question, you must understand what it is asking you. The APM uses five command verbs that they will use in the exam questions:

• Explain
• Describe
• Differentiate
• Interpret
• Outline/State

Each of the learning areas has an associated command verb, so that is what the question will be asking you, if that topic comes up on the exam, for example:

Learning outcome 1: Understand how organisations and projects are structured
Assessment Criteria 1.3: Explain the role and key responsibilities of the project manager

Question: Explain three responsibilities of the project manager during the deployment phase of a project. 
30 marks (10 each)

Here are some tips on how I would answer this question:

• This question is specifically asking you about the deployment phase of the project so only reference responsibilities that the project manager has during this phase
• When answering any question, I always try to answer the question in the first sentence of the paragraph, for example: 
• ‘One responsibility of the project manager during the deployment phase of a project is to communicate and act as the prime contact with team members, other organisations, contractors, suppliers, operations representatives.’ 
• then I will use the following four points to elaborate
• I would ensure that I had three distinct paragraphs to explicitly indicate the three different responsibilities and ensure I’m using language like ‘Another responsibility of the project manager….’, ‘Finally, a project manager is also responsible for…’
• Extra detail in the APM doesn’t count towards your marks, so only write what you need to. Time is really short so get your 5 points down for one responsibility and then move onto the next.

This video has more information on how to answer and understand what the exam questions are asking you:

How many marks are available?

The APM Exam is a 500 mark paper and you have to get 55% to pass, this means you have to get at least 275 marks to pass. Each question is worth 50 marks broken down into 30 and 20 mark questions. Typically, the question will ask you to give 3 points worth 10 marks (if it is a 30 mark question) or two points worth 10 marks (if it is a 20 mark question. Occasionally, you may get asked to give 4 points worth 5 marks each on a 20 mark question. 

Watch this video on how the APM exam to gain marks: 

On the day/preparing for a remote exam

In order to prepare for the exam I made sure I watched this video the APM have provided which outlines how to make sure your area is ready for a remote exam. Here are some tips I’d have found useful that aren’t covered in the video:

• You can’t open the exam until the time it is booked for. If you click on the link early, it shows you a countdown clock
• The exam screen looks very similar to the one below: 

• 

• At the top of the exam screen it tells you how many questions you have answered, so no need to keep track yourself
• There is a big countdown clock at the top of the screen, I found this quite distracting
• There is just one big text box for your answer to a question for both parts a and b
• There wasn’t spell check on my exam, but we were told there would be 
• You can flag questions, for example if you wanted to come back to finish a question