PSM-I passed with 100%

Congratulations! Do mention how you went about preparing for the exam.
Thanks!

Here is more information for your consideration.
The best advice by far is to read and understand the Scrum Guide that is authored by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland.
Personally, I found the Scrum Guide to be an excellent document. It has beautifully summarized the relationships between Scrum roles, events, artifacts, and the rules of the Scrum framework that bind them together in only 16 pages, it’s easy to think that a quick read will be sufficient but you’d be wrong. If you want to thoroughly understand the entire content of the document-> Read it often.

Scrum.org also provide some valuable resources .
Scrum open - Take Scrum Open assessment exam till you start getting consistently 100%, also look for incorrect answers & reasons behind them.
Developer open- Though I have not seen many people mentioning about this but it’s still worth taking as well.

I strongly suggest that you do this open assessment as many times as you consistently start scoring 100%. This will help to save some time during the Professional Scrum Master I assessment .
Also going through the different posts shared in this forum could be of great help as well.

I hope this information would be of some help for you.

Best Regards

Thanks!

Thanks for this information. I have been extremely frustrated today since I spent $200 and got 82% on my first attempt and 84% on my second! I still cannot put my head around what to do to improve more and get a pass mark. I read the guide many times and get consistent 100% in Scrum Open....it would be great if individuals failing the test could receive feedback in similar style like the open test. I cannot help thinking I might spend $1000 before getting this assessment!!!

Are there any resources out there with similar questions to PSM I that also provide feedback?

Thank you!

I saw two other tests: boston agile training and scrum star. Boston is very simple, probably simpler than scrum open but scrum star is pretty difficult. A couple of people on the forum mentioned that it helped them pass the assessment.

http://www.bostonagiletraining.com
http://scrumstar.com

Hi Congrats.
Quick question, when we buy PSM-1, how many attempts are allowed and can I give the exam from the comfort of my home or do I need to go to a specific place for it?

Thanks
Girish

Hi Girish,
you can take as many attempts as you want from every place where you have internet access.
Between the attempts I would recommend to use the feedback to learn more instead of just trying again and maybe win by chance.

Ok. Thanks Ludwig :)

I checked out ScrumStar.com. Many of their answers are incorrect. I would definitely *NOT* use that site to study for PSM I.

For example, one of the questions says the Daily Scrum is *the* key inspect and adapt event of Scrum. Wrong, and I'm not sure there is *only one* key inspect and adapt event. I am aware that the SG says the DS is a key inspect and adapt event... but it is not *the* key inspect and adapt event.

Other questions also had this sort of rudimentary thinking of someone who might have read the Scrum Guide, but does not truly understand Scrum.

You're right, Charles, that particular question about the Daily Scrum does seem wrong. It's A key inspect and adapt meeting, not THE one as the question suggests.

We had a number of Scrum trainers give their feedback on those questions, but nobody caught that. Thanks for noticing, we'll change it right away.

Our goal when creating the practice exam was to provide an interactive way to learn the theory from the Scrum Guide. We wanted to create a tool that replaces dry memorization with a more exciting question and answer method.

Obviously to be called a certified practitioner one needs to know both the theory and practice. We stuck to the theory and the questions that are unambiguously answered in the Scrum Guide, leaving the practical training to professional trainers and/or other resources.

The practice exam is still quite young, and it's still a work in progress. But I'd like to think that we could make it a good tool for studying the theoretical part of Scrum and in that way make it helpful towards passing the PSM assessment.

ScrumStar is not a commercial enterprise, it was created to make Scrum Guide study more fun and to generate more interest in Scrum in general. Would you be willing to help us make it better? Could I send you our list of questions so you could look over them and point out the ones you think could be improved? If you are interested, please let me know through the contact form on our site. Thank you, Charles!

> We had a number of Scrum trainers give their feedback on those questions, but nobody caught that.

Given all of the problems I noticed with your questions, that makes me question the quality of your Scrum trainers. Or maybe it's a translation thing. Long story short, there were numerous problems with the questions, and I gave one example that was easy to show over forum/text. Several of the others would not be best handled over the internet because they require intellectual depth.

> ScrumStar is not a commercial enterprise,
In the USA, when you take money from the public, that means you're either a for profit business, or a not for profit charity type organization. Which are you?

I don't understand how the enterprise is non commercial when you clearly make/charge money for the enterprise. Can you explain that to me a bit further?

I think you may be right about the translation issue, Charles. Most of the trainers/experts we got feedback from are from Europe (where we're based) and English is not their native tongue. I also think that our effort to cover every nook and cranny of the Scrum Guide may have resulted in some questions that seem to be out of context or too letter-of-the-law. We'll go through the questions again, maybe cut down their number but make sure they're better and more substantial. Thank you for your input!

Please avoid scrumstar.com at all costs. Totally absurd. Also never ever try to take Scrum Practitioner Open Assessment without studying the related guide for that.

Just a short update, we've gone over the questions at scrumstar.com with a fine-tooth comb with the help of a couple new people. We removed 20 questions and we revised about 90% of the rest. Hopefully things will be a lot better now. Again, thank you for your feedback, constructive criticism is always welcome :)

Hi Team,

I have gone through the Scrum guide, and have also read this book -
http://www.amazon.com/Agile-Software-Development-Scrum-Series/dp/013067…

Apart from this, I am now scoring 95-100% consistently in open assessment.
Can I go for the PSM-1 certification now?

Quick question, once I buy PSM-1 assessment, I understand that I can take as many attempts as I can but is there a timeframe in which I need to complete it?

Thanks
Girish

wrong -- $150 per attempt
2 weeks or less

I dont think so there is time frame now.

hi all, no time frame for exams..This is an e-mail from scrum.org support team

"We recently enacted a policy change, so that our professional-level assessment passwords no longer expire. You will be able to use your password to attempt the assessment whenever you are ready to do so. Please bear in mind, however, that our passwords are good for one attempt at the assessment only, so please don't start your assessment session until you feel you have prepared sufficiently.

We hope this information is helpful. Thank you again, and enjoy your day!

Sincerely,
The Scrum.org Support Team"

Question which Charles pointed out here " the Daily Scrum is *the* key inspect and adapt event of Scrum. " is not right and i agree with him. all formal events of scrum provides opportunity to inspect and adapt however i must say Daily Scrum is most important event of Scrum because it provides you opportunity to re correct and reconsider undesirable variances and adjust them in same sprint.

I look forward to Ian,ludwig and other top veteran members's comment on this.

The Scrum Guide says of the Daily Scrum:

"This is a key inspect and adapt meeting"

...and that is certainly the best way to think of it. In other words it would be misleading to think of it as *the* key inspect and adapt meeting. The heart of Scrum is the Sprint, and so the associated events are of no minor importance.

In the context of wider agile practice it may be defensible to view this event (or an equivalent daily stand-up) as being "the key one". This is because other agile approaches do not necessarily work in Sprints, whilst a daily stand-up event is probably the most commonly observed inspect-and-adapt opportunity.

i second to line "a daily stand-up event is probably the most commonly observed inspect-and-adapt opportunity". thanks Ian for comments.

I came across few question like

1. Who is responsible for managing product back log to show what the scrum team will work next?
2.Who is responsible to clearly expressing Product backlog items.

My answers were : Product Owner

Correct Answer: 1. Product Owner, 2. Development team.

I understand PO can delegate his responsibility to Development team. But PO remains accountable.

The reason of putting this question some external links answers are doubtful.

Hi Saviour,

I hope you finally passed the assessment and got the PSM I grade. It especially hurts when you are getting just 1 percent below the passing score.

When I was preparing to the assessment, I found the open quizzes very helpful. But they contain only small amount of questions. Also I did not found similar free assessments on the Internet.

So, when I finally passed the exam, I decided to create my own free mock PSM I quiz to help other people in preparation. The quiz contains 80 questions based on the Scrum Guide with explanations.
You can find the quiz here: http://mlapshin.com/index.php/psm-quiz/learning-mode/

I hope, it will help.

Hi Mikhail,

First, thank you for your website and effort that you put in to make open quiz for all of us. its really really helpful to understand the Scrum guide and i highly recommend this quiz to all who wants to pass PSM I

just one feedback that i think would be a helpful for the beginner like me. most of time the question mentioned in the quiz had a multiple choices and some of had only one answers. you also mentioned in some places that choose multiple but in some cases that i fill only one answer is enough( i choose best one) but in the end result showing incorrect answers because of i have to select multiple answers but there are no clue that i have to select multiple answers.

and that would lead me the confusion for those question who has only one right answers. so would be great if you could allow the users to choose only one option if the question required only one right answer and if question need multiple answer then allow the user to choose multiple option.

again thanks

Hi Amol,

I am glad that my quiz helped you to prepare for the real assessment.

I am sorry if my multiple-choice questions confused you. I think there are just a couple of them when it is possible to select several answers, but only one answer is valid.

Usually such questions are well-founded. For example, when I am asking who should participate in the Daily Scrum, I allow to select PO, SM, DT and even key stakeholders. However, the answer is Development Team.

If I allow to select only one option, it would be too easy to answer.


Recently I added a new quiz that helps to prepare for the questions on Scaled Scrum: http://mlapshin.com/index.php/2015/09/27/nexus-quiz/

All Scrum.org assessments contain questions about Scrum scaling. So, it is necessary to understand the principles and the best practices described in the Nexus guide to successfully pass any assessment including PSM I, PSPO I, etc.
I hope you will find this quiz also useful.

Congrats and all the best for PSM-II.

I have been preparing for the exam with pretty much the open assessment course, all of you who have passed the exam, have you seen questions being repeated from the practice set? Any other site to practice you guys recommend?

Hello,
I have cleared PSM1 with 97.5%. Thank you all for your valuable inputs. Apart from scrum guide, open assessment tests, Mikhail Lapshin quiz really helped. I would suggest everyone to take quiz from Mikhail site before taking the PSM1 assessment.

Cleared my PSM 1 with 91 %. Scrum guide and mlapshin really helped me. Guys , please go through mlapshin website.It has a very good collection of questions. Thanks mlapshin !!

:/ i train with a lot of questions and answers but on my test where fully other questions. I am very disapointed

Thank for referring to my practice exam. http://www.bostonagiletraining.com/Scrum_Master_Certification_Practice_…

I agree, my free questions are pretty simple but the paid version has over 270 questions now. I have had this exam for 4 years and have continually updated it based upon research from these blogs and from feedback from test takers. I get positive feedback almost daily, so please check it out. It is very affordable ($9.99) I have hundreds of hours of development into this exam but I can provide it relatively cheaply because I also offer it a part of my classroom training.

I am a one-man shop, so any feedback I get is valuable in my effort to continuously improve.

Thanks!

Dan

In my opinion lest that 40 secunds for question don't let you think, and answere with sure, it turn the exam in to a test of fast reading and not about scrum, and is more dificult to complete it if anyone not english speaker.  

Since a lot of those questions have subtle language where you could get it wrong by misinterpreting one word, I would think it's time for the test to be offered in multiple languages.

I am happy to say that I have passed my PSM-1 Exam with 95% at first attempt. Read Scrum Guide thoroughly  and practiced Open Assessment as well. It helped me to get an idea how the questions may appear in the real Exam. Since I have been applying Scrum in every day work environment, it helped me to think empirically while answering questions.

I would like to know in order to update my resume as PSM certified person, Do I need to complete all three Exams?

( or)  Will PSM-1 is good enough to be valued as Certified PSM person?

Your feed back is appreciated.

Thanks. 

Sure you can and should add psm 1 cert. To your resume.

Most scrummaster vacancies i come across ask specifically for psm 1 certified candidates.

Hi All,

I am planning for PSM 1 certification in coming days. Request you to recommend list of good mock exam links (paid and free) which are helpful and aligned with Scrum guide

I am already taking questions dataset from Mikhail Lapshin which I find very useful. Also regularly taking open assessments from Scrum portal

Thanks

Cleared my PSM 1 with 93,8 %.

Scrum guide and mlapshin (http://mlapshin.com/index.php/psm-quiz/learning-mode/)  really helped me. 

I would suggest everyone to take the quiz from Mikhail site before taking the PSM1 assessment.

Cleared PSM1 with 87.5%..phewww...

With a very little time to prepare i started my journey for PSM certification with Scrum Guide(Bible for PSM1).

Read it multiple times(dont even remember how many), until one understands the essence of it or deep meaning.

Questions will not be as straight forward as specified in Open Assessment and mlapshin, though i still encounter some direct questions from the above sources.

Hence utilizing the above sources is a must!!

I would strongly recommend Scrum & XP from Trenches for those who are starting in Scrum..This pdf gives a very practical/real time view on how a Scrum framework is handled.

So, in all my preparation included

a) Scrum Guide --(Multiple Times) 

b) mlapshin open assessment--(Multiple Times)

c) Scrum & XP from Trenches -- Skimmed,  though i recommend a through read.

d) Scrum Glossary on Mplaza

Good Luck!!

Happy Scruming!

Cleared my PSM 1 exam with 97.5% yesterday.

As suggested by many, i haven't appeared for the exam until i was consistently getting 100% in Open Assessment. Gone through Scrum guide many times, made my own notes (pointers) for better understanding (That's my style of understanding things :)). Tried to solve many open assessments available and when ever i get any question wrong, i tried to understand the concept and find out the reason "WHY".

This helped me a lot for scoring good in PSM 1 exam.

• Scrum Guide - Read as many times as possible.
• Given Scrum.org and Mikhail Lapshin (Real Mode) open assessments.

Regards,

Chaitanya.

Hello everyone, thank you for your valuable input. In order to pass, do we have to take the Professional Scrum Master course recommended in the PSM1 assessment details? 

Thank you,

Ghiwa

Cleared my PSM 1 exam with 95% today.

With just 3 weeks to prepare, I started my journey for PSM certification with Scrum Guide(Bible for PSM1).

Read it multiple times(dont even remember how many), until one understands the essence of it or deep meaning.

Questions will not be as straight forward as specified in Open Assessment and mlapshin, though I still encounter some direct questions from sources like Mplaza.

So, in all my preparation included

a) Scrum Guide --(Multiple Times) English and Spanish in my case. 

b) mlapshin open assessment--(Multiple Times) http://mlapshin.com/index.php/scrum-quizzes/psm-learning-mode/

d) Scrum Glossary on Mplaza (3 times for each test of 80 questions)

Best Regards

Nilton Joaquin

Lima, Perú

How much experience as a Scrum Master do you all have to pass the PSM1 the first time.  I have 10 years PM experience but new to Scrum Master role.  I scored a 80% my first try using only Scrum Guide and open exams. Any recommendations would be great.  Thanks.

Hey Thomas, best of luck to you and I think Nilton has 'bingo' (congrats by the way Nilton!). I didn't take the mplaza tests, though they have only gotten positive feedback from what I've read here, but everything else on his list is what helped me. One addition is a tip to take other open tests (PSPO etc) and stay active on this forum, there is a ton of both theoretical and practical knowledge being shared on a daily basis!

Congrats Nilton Joaquin,

In the  PSM 1 exam you have taken , are you getting any questions from Nexus Framework.

Regards,

Prasad

I am planning to take PSM1 in next two weks. I have read SCrum GUide ( couple of times) Scrum Glosssary frok MPlaza and Mikhail Lapshin both Leaerninga nd Real mode and passed them .Passed on Open assesements ( but not 100%), is this preparation sufficient for passing PSM1 ? Please suggest and thanks in adavnce for the help.

Regards

I totally underestimated PSM I exam....Just prepared for 2 days and took the exam as it was getting consistently getting 100% in the practice test and was very confident....completely thrown off by the questions on the exam compared to Open Assessments and quizzes on mlapshin....though these sites and questions give clear understanding of the scrum guide, questions in the exams were more practical and nowhere straight forward as open assessments.....Should have taken more time to read the forums before taking it....Never make this mistake again....Inspect and Adapt....

Regards

Hi, Rohini!

I guess it is enough, but in case you are not sure, you may try to use scrum crazy and volkerdon.com.

At least I've used their materials and passed psm1 for 96%

Hello Rohini,

Let me share my experience to get PSM1 passed.

• I read the Scrum Guide many times and made sure I understand it my best. I still have the (updated) Scrum guide beside me and each day I try to read a couple of sentences to refresh my mind.
• For one year I have been in a full-time Scrum master role and I have learned a lot on the field by facing different challenges every day.
• I also read many blog articles posted in Scrum.org community and I read a lot of the questions and answers in this Forum. Over the last year I have tried to silently answer questions wrote in the forum and then my answers with the community's one.
  • This helped (and still help) me a lot to expand my knowledge, my thinking, my ideas, my understanding. I have learned more from certain person as they are more active in the community and their answers push me to ask myself questions.
  • Since a couple of days I have tried to take part in discussions that I think I can add a certain amount of value. I always want to answer at my best and I wish it helps in order to give back to the community.
• I tried Scrum Open assessment a couple of times in the last year.
• On February 22nd, I had started to complete Scrum Open, PO Open and Developer Open at a regular pace (4-5 times a week). I always targeted to get 100% in each assessment.
  • I completed Developer Open 10 times with an average of 95%
  • I completed PO Open 7 times with an average of 92%
  • I completed Scrum Open 8 times with an average of 98%
• One day I decided to try Nexus Open just for fun without reading the Nexus Guide.
  • I tried it twice prior to PSM1 and I got 53% and 47%. To be honest I still have a lot to learn from the Nexus world.
• Then on March 9th of this year, a colleague of mine asked me to test if our passwords were still valid (btw I did not read it before but: Passwords have no expiration date, but are valid for one attempt only -Taken from the details section of the certification page). Afterall I suspect he knew that and he just wanted to give me the necessary boost to officially try the PSM1 certification.
• Since March 9th I am officially PSM1 certified. Thanks to my colleague!

I hope this help you out and I wish you the best! Let us know !

How many attempts allowed to pass PSM1 certification? 

Thanks

Sam

One attempt per password as far as I know