The following blog post is a guide that will help you on your path to becoming a Certified Floodplain Manager (CFM), specifically passing the CFM exam. As climate change continues to shape our world, the need for skilled professionals who can mitigate and manage flood risks has become increasingly vital. By earning your CFM certification, you will join a group of experts who are committed to safeguarding communities and preserving our environment. While the CFM exam is not especially difficult, it does cover a significant amount of material. For this reason, it is important to prepare for the exam strategically. It is my hope that the following tips will help you pass the CFM exam on your first try!
Tip 1: Study the right material
Unlike other professional certification exams like the Professional Engineering (PE) exam, there are not many materials available to study for the CFM exam. The most important document is FEMA 480: National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) Floodplain Management Requirements – A Study Guide and Desk Reference for Local Officials. FEMA 480 is over 500 pages long, so there is a lot of information to cover. I recommend completing the Unit Learning Checks at the back of the document to ensure memory retention. I have also compiled some of the other study materials I managed to find into this folder on Google Drive. Simply request access and let me know you are studying for the CFM exam!
Tip 2: Give yourself enough time to study
As previously mentioned, there is a significant amount of material to cover when studying for the CFM exam. For this reason, I recommend leaving yourself plenty of time to study for the exam. However, avoid spreading out your studying too much. When I was studying for the CFM exam, I began studying a couple of weeks before Christmas. Because the holiday season tends to be a busy time, I did not have much time to study each day. My exam was scheduled for the end of January, and I found that I had to spend a lot of time reviewing the material I studied early on in my exam preparation. It would have been more efficient to condense my studying into a couple of weeks where I dedicated one or two hours to studying each day.
Tip 3: Understand how the exam works
While the exam itself is fairly straightforward, taking the test online was more involved than I was expecting. For example, I had to walk my laptop around my home office to prove that nobody else was there feeding me answers. Because I was not familiar with how the check-in process worked, I began the exam itself feeling a bit stressed and irritated. Had I taken the time to read about the exam check-in process, I might have felt more at ease as I began the exam.
Tip 4: Take your time during the exam
During the exam itself, you are given three hours to answer 120 questions. I felt this was plenty of time, especially since the exam is not comprised of a series of math questions like the PE exam. For this reason, I recommend taking your time while answering the questions and avoiding the urge to rush through questions so much that you will make an error. A good strategy may be to make one pass through the exam to answer the questions you know and make a second pass to answer the questions that require more thought. I suggest taking a practice exam, which is included in the folder link provided in Tip 1, to get a feel for how long it will take you to complete the exam.
Tip 7: Be intentional when scheduling an online exam
I took my exam in the morning because I knew the house would be quiet and I did not have to use my PTO. I felt like this was a good decision because the exam proctoring was more intense than I expected. The proctors watch you during the entirety of the exam. If even part of your face drifts off of the screen because you are leaning on your hand, they will abruptly interrupt you to make sure you move completely back into the camera frame. I can only imagine how the proctors would respond if a coworker, spouse, or child barged into your exam room! All this to say, if you are taking an online exam, it is really important that you schedule a time when you will have access to a quiet space with absolutely no interruptions.
Tip 8: Memorize terms and understand how to read FIRM Panels
Like many other government organizations, FEMA loves acronyms! I found that my studying went much quicker once I committed to memorizing acronyms as well as important terms/definitions and the different FEMA zones. Flashcards are an effective way to memorize terms quickly. It is also important to understand how to read FIRM Panels and FIS Studies.