Feels good to be officially certified

I took my exam on 22nd Aug and passed it in first attempt
I got to know of this website only towards fag end of my preparation. For me it was only 2 months of preparation time. I took my exam date and started preparation on 22nd June 2011 exactly 2 months from my exam date. I am in a high pressure job managing cross functional, cross tower global project and therefore I couldn't find more than an hour every day for study. Infact some days I couldn't even get that 1 hour

The books that i read were PMBOK and Rita Examprep

Here is how I prepared for the exam:
1. To begin with I glanced through PMBOK once really quickly in like 5 days of 2 hours each day study and 5 hours of weekend study.
2. I studied Rita in minute details, understood all the concepts in details and also analyzed all the questions at the end of each chapter. This took me about 4 weeks. I made good use of my weekends for this since I couldn't find much time on weekdays.
3. Rushed through PMBOK once again and took about 3 days.
3. I purchased Rita's PM FastTrack and started with the KA's, PG's tests from 1st Aug.
4. From 5th Aug when i had exactly 18 days to the exam, i started doing the full tests along with PMFastTrack and also started making sure that I study atleast 2 hours everyday even if i have miss some nightly calls with the project team. Here are the tests that I took

• a. Rita Full test - 82%


• b. Headlabs Test - 84.5%


• c. Oliver's 75 Q test - 70%


• d. Oliver's 175 Q test - 76%


• e. PMStudy Test 1 - 78%


• f. Rita Super PMP - 84%

5. I had perfectly learnt the KA/PG matrix given on PMBOK page 43 but I didn't go after memorizing the ITTO's. Infact I completely agree with Rita's book on this.I don't think it is as important to memorize the ITTO as to understand them. In my opinion PMP is not a memory test, its more of a knowledge test. If you are sure of all the processes across knowledge groups and if you know why a particular artifact is the input or output then you will not need to memorize anything at all. However you will have to memorize the TOOLS and TECHNIQUES. Good part with Tools and Techniques is that once you understand what each technique is you will remember them anyways.
So please do not put lot of pressure on yourself to try and memorize all the ITTOs, just understanding them in details should be good enough. I know of some friends who kept memorizing the ITTOs and even made acronyms and gave so much focus to the memorization that they did not understand them at all. These 2 friends of mine both flunked the exam and the reason they said was that the questions were confusing. My assessment of the situation is that

the exam will never really ask a direct question like what is the input to "Create Project Charte" process rather it will present a situation such as

A PM is currently working on a project when the sponsor asked him to add a new requirement. He analyzed and found that the new requirement is not related to the current project and got  Sponsor's approval to initiate a new project for the same. What does the PM need for this?" and the typical answers would be:

a) Change control board approval
b) Business Case, Enterprise env factor and Org process assets
c) both a and b
d) none

Now as you would notice for answering the above question one doesn't need to memorize ITTO, rather its an overall understanding of the process that is required along with what is required to perform the process.

6. I practised critical path method, Earned Value and other formula based techniques well.

7. Did not do any Full test in the last 3 days but only went through the entire PMBOK in great details. This time uncovering some things that i did not even notice first time. Also by now after all the practise tests, i had good idea about what could possibly be asked from every paragraph that i read in PMBOK.
I did not leave glossary or addenda.

I was brimming with confidence on my exam day. Started my exam a little slowly and i took about 1 min each for the 1st 10 questions after which i began to ease into the exam and started to pick speed. I finished 83 questions in the 1st hour. I finished all the 200 questions in 2:35 hrs. I took a quick break of 5 min to go to the restroom and wash my face. At the end of it, i had about 60 questions marked  and so in last 1:15 min I reviewed all the marked questions. Changed answers on few and noticed that there were 2 questions which i did not read correctly at all. I changed answers on these as well. After this I went through all the other questions that were a little wordy to make sure that i read them correctly and in the end i got a message "You have run out of time.. OK?"

I clicked OK, it took me to a survey and in the end came the result.

I got the following result

Integration - Proficient
Planning - Moderately Proficient
Execution - Proficient
Monitoring and Controlling - Proficient
Closing - Proficient
Professional Ethics - Moderately Proficient.

Do let me know if anyone has any questions that i can clarify