Strategic Proposals offers APMP Foundation Level Accreditation Exam Preparation Workshops (dare we refer to these as APMPFLAEPW?) on both sides of the Atlantic. Last year alone Jon and I have delivered 17 workshops, with a total of 142 participants*.
The exam is a pass/fail and scores aren’t revealed. That said, after each course, both Jon and I review the scores, calculate the average score for the group, etc.
An interesting aspect to the scores is that, very consistently, the person with the least amount of experience receives one of the lower scores and the person with the most experience tends to have one of the highest scores. Average scores tend to range from 55-65 (candidates must answer 42 out of the 75 questions correctly to pass.). The passing rate for those attending the workshop is very high (98% in the US) and those who have not passed the exam, from my perspective as the facilitator clearly did not have the understanding of proposals required to answer the questions.
I know this seems like common sense and I guess it is. I point this out to demonstrate that the exam does do a good job of testing a candidates understanding of the basic knowledge of proposal that someone with over a year of experience would have.
*Did you know that the number of people who achieved APMP Foundation Level accreditation this year is 54% higher than last year? Did you know that, to date, more than 1350 people are APMP accredited? At this rate, by the next annual conference (June, 2010, a majority of the members of APMP will have some level of accreditation. Will you be one of them or will you be playing catch up?