CAPM success, 1st time 100% area proeficient

Submitted by ddwrt on Wed, 05/08/2013 - 20:23

Dear all,

First of all, thanks a lot to all this forum participants, and the managing team providing amazing resources. You helped me a lot here :)

PMBok is very interesting, much more than project management, it helps to understand the global professional framework in which most executives experience their job.

I'll cut the crap, here are just a few key points that can help:

Work Material and learning sequence:

2 weeks, 5 hours of work / per day was enough for me to feel ready

DO NOT READ THE PMBOK. It is like a damn dictionary. Only use the electronic version when you need a specific reference or info. But don't lose your time reading it straight, it would take a full week.

Begin with short summarized files describing the processes. This one is perfect: http://www.pmlead.net/images/stories/pdf/itto.pdf

Then read PMBOK summarize suck as Chowdary Anil & Rajesh Nair notes. They summarize 70% of what you need to know. But the big part is not learning, it is understanding interactions. Processes and phases are not linear, they can occur several times, or even be continuous. There are jumps back and forth between processes & phases, consequences from a knowledge area to another, etc.

Once you begin having a good understanding of the process interactions, read files like "355 PMbok points" "important points". It prepares very well to answering questions, and allow you to test your knowledge.

Then do blank test (300 questions is enough).I used about 300 test questions. The free CAPM Simulated Test at PMstudy.com, is a perfect realistic training. I had 107/150 right answers, but I did it very quickly, less than 2H hours.

Here is my best advice, because it goes against the mainstream. I'll be hard, but it's for the community's benefice.

If anyone tells you that you need to lean ITTO by heart... Stop the discussion. Stop reading.

It is a person that has compensated its inability to understand by its ability to "stupidly learn" without understanding. PMBOK is HUGE, you'd better understand it than learning it. It's quicker.

So here is a trick: DO NOT lose your time learning input, output, tools (ITTO) at the beginning.
Why? Simply because they make sense only once you have understood what's the process purpose.

First, get a very good understanding of the PMBOK processes and items. Then you 'll discover that most of ITTO's make sense, and that 50% of them are obvious.

-> No learning by heart and you can answer 70% of ITTO's related questions.

Exam:

Out of 150 questions I'd say:

- 20 are pure bullshit, none sense, and refer to things that I'm 100% sure are not in the PMBok, or had completely different meaning between the English and my main language translation (French)

- 30 are pretty hard, confusing, based on advanced knowledge + understanding a situation + intuition

- 50 are advanced knowledge

- 50 are really basic knowledge you can't fail (name of process/phase/ basic formula, etc.)

Thanks again, and good luck to all :)

Forums:

PMP Exam Tips, Tricks and Lessons Learnt.