PASSED PMP Oct 9

Submitted by nobel on Tue, 10/09/2012 - 07:25

 Hi guyz,

 
I am happy to share that I have passed the exam. I had 2Ps and 3 MPs. Thank god I passed. I didnt want to repeat it again as I have lot of other stuff going on.
 
Some suggestions and experiences.
 
Started with Headfirst. Its a very good book to read, specially for those
who are not managers and dont have any experience in managing projects.
We can easily finish this off in 2 weeks and gain 75% of the knowledge required for passing the exam.
 
Read RITAs book couple of times and listened to her PMP prep audio 
many times while driving. I would say the audio book is the best and would 
advise every one to go through her audio first, than just reading the dull and
boring PMBOK. I did her PMFASTrack and made notes. You dont need to purchase the 
software. 


 
Read Rajest Nairs notes updated by others. I felt it has the summary of RITAs book.
 
I have read PMBOK just once, only glance through each page and it seemed as if there was nothing "New", which i havent read earlier. In the sense Ritas book has all the stuff which PMBOK has. So I just ignored PMBOK. 
 
Gave 2 mock tests without much preperation, PMSTUDY free and PMSTUDY 4 scored around 72%, it seemed quite easy. I was confident that i could score more easily with full preperation. I could not spend a lot of time reading just 2 hours a day for 2 1/2 months as I was juggling between work and school.
 
Exam experience
===================
I should say exam was quite tough compared to the PMSTUDY.
Questions in the begining were quite difficult compared to the later ones.
first 50 Questions took me 1 1/2 hour.
 
There were not Ethical responsibility questions for sure.
Lots of questions on conflict resolutions (most of them were easy ones. Dont forget to read these)
One question on team building.
One question to calculate float on the critical path. :)
Few calculation questions on EAC.
One question on RACI chart asking which task was rightly assigned.
No calculation question from Contracts.
 
 
Some question were really wierd and although i recognized all the technical terms i was not able to relate the choices to the quetsion.

I could not relate these choices to the questions. Most of the questions were this absurd to tell you frankly

 
By the time I reached question 100 I was already lagging behind and the time remaining was just Hour and 15 minutes.
I would say the difficulty level for the exam has been increased, if you consider PMSTUDY to be of similar difficulty 
with the earlier exam pattern.
 
I couldnt take any break as i was lagging behind. And when i reached 170th question I was totally drained, almost felt
like killing my self. Seriously i just answered 3 or 4 without even reading the quetsions properly as I completely 
ran out of time. If you are wondering had I read PMbok I would have scored well, my answer would be No. I felt PMBOK 
has all the same content as HeadFirst and RITAs.
 
When I pressed the end exam I was almost sure that I would have to repeat it again. But luckily I passed. I would say if one puts more effort one 
can pass it without much pain. Good Luck.
 
Forums: 
PMP Exam Tips, Tricks and Lessons Learnt.
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Vishwanath

Tue, 10/09/2012 - 07:39

 Congrats

manishsharmapmp

Tue, 10/09/2012 - 08:47

totaly amusing and absolutely real LL without any flavours or toppings added.

anand2381

Tue, 10/09/2012 - 08:48

Hi Nobel,


Congrats.. Its a gud feeling to be a PMP.


Did u take any other mock exam?


Working hard to become one. I have been travelling to office 4hrs everyday. Think Rita's audio will be helpful for me. Did u purchase it?


Please mail me at anand2381@gmail.com


 


Thanks


Anand.S

nobel

Tue, 10/09/2012 - 13:57

 I did not take any other mock exams. As i mentioned  scoring 72% without the "Full" preperation (like didnot memorise the formulas, no critical path questions) I was confident i could crack the exam easily. As people in this forum mentioned PMStudy was the closest to the exam. At least my exam, was quite difficult. I think the exam generates questions randomly from a pool of questions. May be the combination I got could have been tougher. PMStudy was easy, although i had just scored 72%, i could finish it off in 3 1/2 hours and most of the questions were from the "known" areas. You know if you revise, and memorize the things you learnet , you could do right in the exam and score better. But the exam had few questions which were totally absurd. Probably they were not included in the calculation of the final score. Or else I would have failed.

I didnot take any other mock exam. I couldnot drag the preperation any longer and I had to finish it off. I would like to reemphasis, Please listen to the Ritas audio, download the fastrack questions. These are enough to pass the exam. If you are in a hurry then couple of exams are good enough, just to give you a feel of the exam environment. But giving a lot of exams would definitely help as you know your weak areas and learn from your mistakes, will also help in training you mind for the exam.

I also learnt the ITTOs well (logically going over it atleast 5 times). Started with Ritas chart. It is Amazing forgot to mention that earlier. You will know the entire flow and will have a map in your mind, and will be able to recollect it quickly in the exam. I would suggest every one to memorize it if possible.

 

nobel

Tue, 10/09/2012 - 14:00

 I gave PMSTUDY free test and PMSTudy test No 4 only 2 mocks. I felt the questions were repeated. I didnt have any extra time.

admin's picture

admin

Tue, 10/09/2012 - 10:32

Congratulations on your PMP. Your LL is good, but I had to remove some objectionable stuff

Regards

nobel

Tue, 10/09/2012 - 13:19

 Yeah, I saw that. Any ways i thought it would help others. One was a link to where you could find the FASTTrack questions. Second one is the example of the absurd question that I saw on the exam.

This site is amazing though, it helped immensely.

aliweb

Tue, 10/09/2012 - 10:32

My mind is stuck at following line.

who are not managers and dont have any experience in managing projects.