Comments on: Laura’s CBAP Journey: Putting a “C” in my “BAP” (Week 12, Part 2)

By: Carlos Camargo

Carlos Camargo — Wed, 03 Sep 2014 02:11:09 +0000

Hi Laura,
Your article is from 2011, but the same feeling (and frustration with some questions) from my exam experience. To be sure, I used the two well known simulators BA Mentor and Watermark, as you say, simulators can help you, but the exam surprised me. I expected something easier after hours and hours and hours of simulation, but noting is easy in this life. Finally, it’s done!!!
By the way, the drumming coming from the testing computer’s hard disk was killing me when I hit submit, but finally the result, still not so easy to find the word “Pass”, and of course still after the survey!!!, it gave me the reward after all these hours without enjoying my family.
Thanks for sharing your experience and I wish you success,
Bye!

P.S. : BA Mentor still have some orthographic errors (and English is not my first language)

By: Laura Brandenburg

Laura Brandenburg — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 21:12:53 +0000

In reply to Tricia Whitney. John and Tricia, Thanks for sharing your experiences here and adding to our collective wisdom about getting through the exam!

By: John

John — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 13:31:41 +0000

In reply to Tricia Whitney. The feedback indicated I needed to improve in SA&V, Req Anal & BA Plan & Monitor. Oddly enough, requirement analysis is where I have most of my experience. I wrote down everything I remember about the exam and will do flash cards this time, especially for the items I recall from the exam. Thanks for the feedback Tricia and congratulations on your success on the cbap.

By: Tricia Whitney

Tricia Whitney — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 00:01:47 +0000

In reply to John.

What knowledge area did you score the lowest in?

A few days before my test I realized I used my watermark online score of 85% as a false confidence that I was going to pass. I realized that I was addicted to taking the test and a lot of the questions were repeats, so I rarely would read the whole questions because I had memorized the answers. So I went back and reread the babok and watermark study book and made sure I understood the inputs that came from other knowledge areas. I also tried to find patterns, like there are only two tasks that produce more that one output (I think). The Watermark Study book made reference to Maslow, thankfully I read that book.

I agree the CBAP test questions were somewhat strange. It was like taking the test in another country. I barely looked at my notes that contained all the mnemonics I memorized from the Watermark Study book. I honestly thought the test would be written like the Watermark questions.

Good luck.

By: John

John — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 21:58:21 +0000

Hi Laura.

I’m reading your blog and wishing I had come across it sooner! I came within 6 points of passing the CBAP. I have a lot of experience and was naturally connecting my experience with a lot of the Babok material. I used Watermark and felt the questions were adequate, but there are not enough of them. I saw questions repeated very often. I was scoring in 80’s during my prep.

I had a similar experience during the exam in that I was confident about half the time. Some of the questions were not what I had seen in the babok or close to watermarks exam prep questions. Many questions seemed out of the mainstream of the tasks and elements, etc. Some of them seemed downright unfair. There was a question about maslow hierarchy of needs. I think I got it right, but there is not anything in the babok about it. I certainly had not read about it in years.

I studied a lot (about 8 weeks). The watermark tool helped get my nose into the babok. I need another perspective so I am going to use BA Mentor to prep for the exam in 3 months. Try, try, try again. 🙂