I am very happy to share good news that I cleared PMP today (Dec 13^th, 2012) and scored Proficient in all 5 areas.

The reason I am sharing lessons learned at PMZilla is that I owe to this forum a lot and it has contributed 30% in my success. My special thanks to KK and Pawar. I followed almost all of their posts and especially the tenners and questions posted by them. I connected with KK 2 weeks back and it helped me much.

Please beware, this post is little long.

Background

I am a project manager in IT industry and have got close 4+ yrs of project management experience. I have little practical experience with procurements, quality assurance/control areas which helped me for PMP

 

Preparation

I started my preparation in Jan’2012 when I took 35hrs of PDU from the employer through Skillsoft (self paced web training). This training was very close to PMBOK which I did not realize until I read PMBOK later in Nov’12. Only thing I did during this training was making notes in Excel sheet and understanding the concepts. I completed training in Apr’2012 due to my personal and professional commitments. I tried to prepare further on and off from April to October but that never happened.

Finally, on Nov 9^th I decided to take PMP before the year end and I took PMI membership and submitted my application which got through without any audit. I put my target date as Dec 30^th but did not schedule the exam. I spent one full day to plan my preparation.

 

I read following books/websites and extended my notes (Excel format) based on these readings

1.      

Andy Crowe as a refresher to recap what I learnt during training

2.      

PMBOK (cover-to-cover) - 12 days

3.      

Rita (cover-to-cover) – Did not solve questions during this pass

4.      

Read PMBOK (not in detail like in first pass)

Did Christopher Scordo Mock Test #1 to #18 (scores below) and refreshed my gaps

5.      

Referred Kim Heldman book from PMI website for Procurements, Closing and Ethics

6.      

http://www.deepfriedbrainproject.com – Excellent website to clear any doubts on the topics; presented in very simple and easy language

7.      

http://pmstudycircle.com – Another excellent website on certain topics

8.      

Attempted mocks and review questions

9.      

Read PMBOK and Rita to close my gaps based on the mock ups

I spent roughly 4 hrs on week days and 8-10 hrs on weekends.

 

Mock Up Scores

Christopher Scordo Mock Test #7 to #12 (medium difficult)	87%
Christopher Scordo Mock Test #13 to #18 (very difficult)	79%
Head First PMP – 200Q (Easy)	89.5%
PM Study test 1 – 200Q (very close to real one)	88%
Oliver Lehmann 175Q	78%
Oliver Lehman 75Q	82%
Anbari	94%
Ferndale 262Q	89%
Exam Central (200Q)	88%
Rita’s Fast Track PMP	85%
Rita’s Fast track Super PMP	79%

 

2 days before Exam Day

On Dec 10^th, I decided to pre-pone my exam date from Dec 30^th to Dec 13^th due to my planned vacation. Once I scheduled my exam, I started revising

1.      

Self prepared notes (from multiple sources so that I don’t spend time finding them)

2.      

PMBOK Glossary

3.      

Closing from Kim Heldman

4.      

PMZilla - 00_PMP_Formulae_CheatSheet_Anil_Tanguturi

I stopped reading on Dec 12^th at 6:00 PM and spent time watching TV and reading magazine.

 

Exam Day

My exam was scheduled for 8:00 AM and reached center at 7:30 AM. Test centre allowed me to take exam before 8:00 AM.

During initial training of 15min, I dumped formulas and Pg43 in PMBOK on the scrap sheet. I did “not” refer this even once as whole thing was in my mind during the exam. I wrote it just to ease some pressure. I finished dump in 6 min and proceeded to exam. My strategy was to take 3 breaks even if I don’t need it and these were my targets (which I maintained) 

90 min – 85 Q followed by 5 min break

60 min – 60 Q followed by 3 min break

60 min – 55Q followed by 3 min break

20 min – review

1.    I marked only those questions if I realized it has taken more than 2 min. At the end I marked 15 questions and changed answer for 3

2.      

There were 14 questions on EV and 6 on CPM related

3.      

Direct ITTO questions – 3

4.      

Scenario based ITTO questions – multiple – You can easily eliminate up to 2 options. IMPORTANT: No need to memorize ITTO’s. It’s waste of time, instead spend time on which tool to use when.

5.      

For all scenario based questions, easiest way to answer is find process group question is talking about and then knowledge area and then the process. This will help to narrow down the options.

6.      

I read every question twice and read options from top to bottom and then bottom to top, just because I had this habit during mocks where I was not reading questions and options carefully.

 

I finished my exam 10 min before 4hrs and clicked END EXAM. It took 45 sec for screen to flash up a survey screen with 9Q and then got the CONGRATULATIONS screen with Proficiency in all areas

 

Tips

1.      

Attempt atleast 3-4 full mocks as you can. PMP exam is “not” tough if you have read PMBOK thoroughly. Only thing you have to beat is the 4 hr long exam and the puzzling questions. Attempting mocks will help us to tackle that

2.      

For people who have not taken 35hrs PDU yet, I would suggest to read Headfirst PMP or Andy Crowe before training. This will help to understand the material better and motivate to write the exam. (I did not do this though as I did not realize until later)

3.      

Don’t be nervous or panic before or during the exam. If you are panic or not able to concentrate, just take 5 deep breaths and you will be normal. If not, just take a 2/3 min break

 

List of Mock Exams

This list might help you guys to attempt mock exams/questions. I did not complete everything but I attempted most of them.

Details	# of Q	Type	Rating	Source	Paid/Free	Source
Rita Mulcahy - PMP Exam Prep - 7th Edition (Knowledge area wise)	409		Excellent	Textbook	Paid
Andy Crowe - How to pass PMP on first try? - 4th Edition	200		Good	Textbook	Paid
Head First PMP (Questions at end)	203		Good	Internet	Free	http://archive.org/details/Head.First.PMP.2nd.Edition.Aug.2009.pdf
Christopher Scordo (Lite Mocks + Knowledge Area wise)	1100	18 Mocks (50Q)	Excellent (Must #13 to #18)	Internet	Free for PMI Members	http://pmi.books24x7.com/toc.aspx?bookid=45515
Kim Heidman	200		Excellent	Internet	Free for PMI Members	http://pmi.books24x7.com/toc.aspx?bookid=32020
Oliver Lehmann 175 Q	175		Excellent (tough)	Internet	Free	www.oliverlehmann.com/
Oliver Lehmann 75 Q	75		Excellent (tough)	Internet	Free	www.oliverlehmann.com/
Andy Crowe - How to pass PMP on first try? - 4th Edition	200		Good	Textbook	Paid
PMP For Sure	100		Excellent	Internet	Free	www.pmpforsure.com/
Simpli Learn	200	Full Mock	Average	Internet	Free	www.simplilearn.com/
PM Study	200	Full Mock	Excellent (Must)	Internet	Free	www.pmstudy.com/
Exam Central	900	Full Mock	Good for practice	Internet	Free	www.examcentral.net/
PM Zilla 30 Tough	30		Very Tough	Internet	Free	www.pmzilla.com
PMBOOTCAMP	200		Good	Internet	Free	www.pmbootcamp.org/
Head First PMP - 200 Q Full paper	200	Full Mock	Good (Should be attempted as first mock to gain confidence)	Internet	Free	http://www.headfirstlabs.com/PMP/pmp_exam/v1/quiz.html
TechFaq360	200	Full Mock	Very Good	Internet	Free	www.techfaq360.com/
Frank T. Anbari	200	Full Mock	Good Before Exam (PMBOK review)	Internet	Free for PMI Members	http://pmi.books24x7.com/toc.aspx?bookid=35841
Farndale	262	Full Mock	Excellent	Internet	Free	http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/19564168/1150747748/name/farndales_guide.pdf
Rita's PM Fast Track v7	1565		Excellent (but expensive)	CD	Paid
BrainBoK	185	50Q Mock	Very Good	Internet	Free	www.brainbok.com/
Total Q	6804

 If you need my notes or any guidance or tips, you can reach me on rajesh.thallam@gmail.com