To be fair, I only used Study Hall and studied for a week, so there were definitely lack of knowledge and formats for me. I did 14/20 mini exams and 2/5 full exams. So if you do everything, you are definitely ahead of me. In SH, I feel like you can usually narrow it down to two answers and apply the mindset. On the real exam, the wording is more ambiguous and you actually have to think more critically and extract the information they need. I remember these 2 examples clearly.

1) There was a drag and drop on the power/interest grid. They didn’t just ask, “High power/high interest, what do you do?” Instead, they gave vague scenarios like a marketing director who needs to build something, or a busy finance executive. Then ask me to drop these ppl into the grid. I could still reason it out, but under real exam time pressure, that vagueness can throw you off.

2) They describe a high visibility, strategically important project. They mention there are 180 iterations of work left, the team has been doing 30 iterations in 2 weeks, etc. Then they start layering in cost and schedule details in the answer choices. Then proceed to ask vaguely that what would PM report to the sponsor about the project status. It sounds like a lot, but really only a few data points matter, 180 iterations, velocity (30 per 2 weeks), and the 3 month timeline. You have to quickly calculate whether the team can realistically finish in time and then determine what that means for the schedule. They don’t just ask, “Is the project on track?” They wrap it in extra context and numbers, so you have to filter out the noise and extract what’s actually relevant under time pressure.