Dear All - I am thrilled to announce that , I have cleared the PMP exam on 9th April 2012 on 1st attempt. 

The scores are as below ,

Initiation - Below Proficient , Planning - Moderately Proficient, Executing - Moderately Proficient, Monitoring and Controlling - Proficient , Closing - Moderately Proficient

It was one of the toughest exam in my life time and the last 2 minutes before seeing the "Congratulation" was tough for me to look at the screen . I would like to share my experience on exam preparation in this forum as I learnt a lot from Pmzilla.

My Preparation : 

 It is really hard for me to find time for the exam because of the busy schedule and on top of it , my 2 years lovely daughter always wants to sit with me to write something on the PMBOK when I start studying. So the only way for me is to find some time when my daughter is sleeping . So I decided to study early morning 6am to 8am before she gets up.  My preparation time was for 2.5 to 3 months.

Books Referred

If you are planning to start with PMBOK ,You may get bored initially. So , I would suggest , you start with the book from Head First that has all pictorial presentations that will not allow you to get bored. Once you are done with Head First , go to PMBOK and read 1 chapter from PMBOK and read the same chapter from Rita Mulchahy's book and do the exercise at the end of the chapter. Try this exercise at least twice before the exam. Once you are done with these you can take as many mock tests as you can.

PMBOK (at least 2 times), Rita's book , Head First , PMP preparation by Kim Heldman

Mock Tests Taken and useful URLs

1. Head First Free Mock test - http://www.headfirstlabs.com/PMP/free_exam/

2. Simplilearn Free Mock test - http://www.simplilearn.com/simplilearn/

 3. Oliver Lehman Free mock test - http://www.oliverlehmann.com/contents/free-downloads/175_PMP_Sample_Questions.pdf

4. Exam Central - http://www.examcentral.net/pmp

5. Ajithn - http://www.ajithn.com/exammain.html

6. Passionate - http://www.passionatepm.com/free-pmp-exam-practice-test-questions

7. Best Sample question - http://www.bestsamplequestions.com/pmp-sample-questions/pmp-sample-questions.html

8. ITTO Trainer - http://www.monkibo.com/pmp-exam-itto-trainer/index.html

9. Since I have taken a training from Simplilearn , they had given me 5 mock tests

Some tips and techniques

• Understand the Control cost process and remember all formulas (CPI,SPI,CV,SP,TCPI,ETC,EAC etc..)


• Critical Path Method is very important , you need to do N number of examples to get used to it( Free Float , Project Flot , total float etc..)


• Some questions might be very very long , be prepared for that ...I marked those questions for the last 30 minutes


• If you are marking any question to revisit , select the best answer you feel it could be and then mark it so that while visiting the question , you can concentrate on it and it also saves some time


• Understand various estimation tenchniques , especially PERT


• Expect some questions with graphical representation

If anyone need any additional information on the preparation and exam , Please let me know , I will share whatever information I have with me. Again I would like to thank PMZILLA for taking this initiative and providing enough information on the exam.

PMIZILLA IS GREAT

All the best to those who are planning to take the exam soon.

Thanks

Tarakanta