Passed PMP today - 19th April 2012

Submitted by pinky on Fri, 04/20/2012 - 02:31

Hi All,

I passed my PMP today with 4 MP's and 1 P.  I had posted on this forum 4 weeks ago after I took the Oliver Lehman's test and got a 50 %. I lost my confidence to take the exam and postponed it to 19th April from Mar 27th.  I prepared for 6 weeks - 8 hours per day.

Initially I had read

 Headfirst PMP once, PMBOK once

Rita twice

 and used Rita's fastrack.  But after encoutering Oliver Lehman's tough questions I started reading things in more detail especially quality and procurement from different websites. I didn't revisit any book. I memorised my ITTO's which came in very handy.I also used PMZilla's notes for last two days revision which gave me  a satisfaction that I had covered every topic.

My actual exam was very tough. Since I memorized my ITTO's I finished those questions faster and spent more time on conceptual questions. I had more conceptual questions than situational. My attempt to understand in detail every tool and technique helped.

Mock exams from Rita's fastrak, Headfirst pmp, pmstudy, Andy crowe's book( didn't read the book only the exam). 75 % - 80 %

Thank you PMZILLA.

Pinky

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PMP Exam Tips, Tricks and Lessons Learnt.
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pmpaspirant4sure

Fri, 04/20/2012 - 03:02

Hi PInky,


Congrats for your successful completion of PMP .


As i read your LL i felt that i am in similar situation where i dont have confidence to take up the exam right now ,your study experience would surely help me out to get out the lost confidence and move forward .


Can you please share me your detail plan so that i can follow it ,it would be of great help towards me regarding the same.


 


My email id is pmpaspirant4sure@gmail.com


Thanks


 

pinky

Fri, 04/20/2012 - 05:11

My detailed plan.

First week - Tried to read PMBOK. Nothing much happened except dozing off in the middle.

Then bought Headfirst and Rita. I was put off by Rita's comments as to how experienced you should be and how bad it is if you hadn't followed the PMP way in your project. So used Headfirst to understand the concept.Completed this in a week. Then started to read Rita and this time it was better. I read Rita and PMBOK hand in hand. I also googled a lot of topics to see if I could get better explanation.

Then bought Rita's fastrak. I did each of the knowledge area question atleast twice. I would do these whenever I got bored of reading the book. I analyzed the wrong answers. Once I was comfortable I took the PMP test in Rita thrice and headfirst and felt good since I was scoring in the high 70's. Then came Oliver Lehman's test and everything went topsy turvy. I dumped Rita and started to understand each Technique in detail and it paid off. I did pmstudy's free test and analyzed each and every question that was wrong. After this I didn't take any mock exam even when I was tempted to do it. The last two weeks I googled almost all of the techniques including all the theories etc . But finally when I saw PMZILLA's notes I felt I had wasted my time a bit since they had everything in there :(

Hope this helps.

jr8671

Fri, 04/20/2012 - 16:22

What notes are you talking about?

anand2381

Fri, 04/20/2012 - 03:42

Hi Pinky,


 


Congrats for the success. Need help on how to remember or read ITTOs and remember it during exam.


Do we need to braindump ITTOs before exam? How did you do?


Any easy way to memorize ITTOs?


Im losing confidence because of the ITTOs.


and also what are conceptual questions? Example?


 

pinky

Fri, 04/20/2012 - 04:59

I did not braindump my ITTO's or formula's before the exam. Actually I was very nervous before the exam.My brain stopped thinking for a while and didn't recover fast enough to braindump lol :)

But I had collected mnemonic's from websites including PMZILLA and made some on my own to remember the ITTO's.

I did not encounter many situational questions or all the choices EXCEPT questions. The situational questions that came were not that wordy like Rita's. Looking back, Rita's Fastrak did help me in directing me to think the PMP way. I got a lot of questions on the various techniques direct .

I am not sure if I am allowed to give out examples . If the admin says yes then I would ,  sorry.

 

 

 

pmpaspirant4sure

Fri, 04/20/2012 - 14:39

Hi Pinky,


you can atleast mail the sample questions as it would be helpful for the aspirants.


My email id pmpaspirant4sure@gmail.com


Thanks


 


 


 

saket_pmp

Sat, 04/21/2012 - 17:22

Congratulations!


 


I think you did right thing, if you don’t have confidence and PMP exam fear, better to postponed the PMP. It’s a costly exam.


 


One of the reasons I have noticed for PMP failure is fear and nervousness. I noticed in some LL here too. People said that just by looking first 5 questions they gave up. I believe out of every reason you can give, the actual reason for failure was fear and nervousness. They should work out in these areas instead of PMP preparations. You pass PMP because of multiple factors and not just how good you study.


 


Pinky – Enjoy your time and keep up the good work. J