Exam Tips: ITIL Foundations

It's been a long-standing practice in the Study Community for a member to share study tips once they complete an exam. This blog series brings these tips to the larger CBT Nuggets community. Good luck!

Disclaimer: CBT Nuggets is not engaged in any partnership or affiliation with AXELOS Limited nor any applicable Examination Institute. CBT Nuggets is not an Accredited Training Organization authorized to provide ITIL training or content. ITIL® is a registered trade mark of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved. CBT Nuggets hereby disclaims any implied or perceived affiliation between itself and AXELOS Limited. Any information found herein is for informational purposes only.

Study Community Member: Luke Snell

Exam: ITIL® Foundations

Date passed: December 7, 2015

Study Material: Chris Ward's Nugget Series, and ITIL® Foundation Exam Study Guide (Liz Gallacher)

I highly recommend the "ITIL® Foundation Exam Study Guide" by Liz Gallacher as a reference guide. It's straight to the point, contains summary questions at the end of each chapter that mimic the exam questions, and it compliments Chris Ward's Nuggets course.

Total Prep Time: 59 hours

Prep Breakdown: 24 hours (watched Chris Ward's Nuggets course three times) + 35 hours (completely read through notes and ALL practice questions in the ITIL® Foundation Exam Study Guide)

Here's what Luke thinks you should know:

Read the questions thoroughly for keywords and phrases. English is my primary language and I was surprised that there were about nine questions where I had to change my initial answer because a keyword was or wasn't present.

Don't rush. The 70 minutes that you have to complete the exam is more than generous. I finished my exam in 15 minutes! The average time it took for our group was 35 minutes.

Know your definitions and acronyms. Seriously, get on them. I only had about 12 or so questions where an acronym wasn't used!

Use practice exams. Work through them as a means of validating your knowledge, and preparing yourself for the tricky wording that some exam questions use.

The answers are mostly obvious. If you've studied, there are no trick questions. For questions that you're stumped on, refer back to your definitions and just logically work backwards identify the WRONG answers before the right ones. I had to do this for some of the CSI questions because I didn't cover CSI as much as I should have!

Final thoughts about what to study:

• Understand why ITIL® works, who it is owned by, and what makes it appealing.

• Focus on knowing this lifecycle stage INSIDE OUT. All I can really say is know the eight processes, and how they interact with different stages of the lifecycle.

• I would say knowing Service Design determines whether you pass or fail.

• Clearly understand the incident and problem management processes, and HOW events/alerts can help (or impede) these two processes.

• Know the 7-step improvement process, the CSI approach, and the Deming cycle. (NOTE: I found the ITIL® Intermediate CSI series from Chris Ward a huge help here. He expands on the 7-step improvement process.)

CBT Nuggets subscribers are welcome to take part in the group's regular study sessions and Google Hangouts.