Hello All,

First of all, many thanks to this forum. It was great to read everyone’s experiences and journey towards achieving PMP. It provided a lot of pointers and boosted my moral many times.

Here are some highlights of my journey.

I completed the 35 contact hrs in Dec 2010 and booked 14^th Feb as my exam date. In February 2011, I changed my job and the whole PMP thing was on and off my agenda for quite some months after that. I rescheduled the exam a couple of times as I was not able to study AT ALL due to my new job and other responsibilities. Finally, in July I decided I have to appear for the exam in August so booked the date 29^th August.

Even though I decided to appear for the exam in July, I was not able to start the study until 8^th August. The good thing was I took a break from work in the last week from 22^nd till 29^th. Went thru PMBOK and Rita once and then PMBOK again. It was already 24^th of August by the time I finished my reading. (I was down with viral fever for 2-3 days so couldn’t study much in that period. L)

On 25^th I took my first exam from PMStudy (free test) and got 74%. Went through the wrong answers and tried understanding why I wasn’t able to figure out the right choices.

26^th, I had to go to office due to client visit and couldn’t study much on that day but I glanced thru PDF version of PMBOK while I was at work and continued exploring my weak areas in the evening after work.

27^th morning I attempted HeadFirst free exam and got 84%. Immediately took Oliver Lehmans’ 75 questions and got almost 70%. Next few hours I spent in going thru wrong answers and understanding the knowledge gaps.

On 28^th morning attempted SimpliLearn exam and got around 70%.

29^th was ‘D’ day. I don’t have a prometric centre in my city so had to travel for 4.30/5 hrs to reach there. Left home at 5.00 am. Took PMBOK with me for any last minute reading.

During the exam –

Surprisingly I was quite okay before the exam. I was able to write down page 43 and all formulae on the scratch paper before starting the exam.  Went thru the exam questions, marked at least 70-75 for review. I was able to complete all 200 questions in 3 hrs. Spent the remaining hour in reviewing all the marked questions, corrected a few. There were a few simple and direct questions, a LOT of situation based (and tricky) questions, at least 10 on ITTOs, one on network diagram and 2-3 EVMs. I needed all 4 hours to complete the exam including reviewing questions. Never took (or needed) any break. To be honest, I wasn’t sure about my result. Felt EXTREMELY RELIEVED to see the “congratulations” screen as I couldn’t believe. PHEW…

Result – Passed with 1 proficient and remaining moderately proficient.

Few pointers

1. RITA’s book is good only if you are able to get past her dry, negative tone. I literally skipped such paragraphs at times.
2. I never had time to memorize the ITTOs. I tried understanding the flow of the processes and tried remembering it logically instead of memorizing everything.
3. I studied things by process groups (vertically) and not by knowledge areas (horizontally). (4.1, 10.1, 4.2, 5.1, 5.2 etc…) I read PMBOK and RITA in that sequence. This flow made more sense to me. (I think this helped me understand the ITTOs as well.)
4. I was not able to start with the mock tests until 25^th. Don’t do this. Start the mock tests much earlier and finish your study at least two –three days before the exam day.
5. I took only free tests mentioned above. All of them were good.
6. I would suggest going thru PMBOK at least twice along with the other book of your choice.

Total effective study period was not more that 18 days for me. This is certainly not recommended. I had no other choice but would have loved to get more study time, confidence, surety of passing at the end of exam and more proficients. My advice – spend at least a month studying and understanding PMBOK and other resources.

Once again many many thanks to this forum.  I got a lot of information, advice, and encouragement by reading everyone’s experiences. It would have been hard without all this.

Regards,

AU