Dear All,

It's my pleasure to share with you all , with the Almighty's grace I've cleared PMP exam this morning.

A little about me, I've 12 years of experience in IT security and have got some similar exams relevant to my field like CISSP, CISA & CISM, CCSP, ISO 27001 LA & ITIL and my exposure has been managing security projects for international clients ). 

Books used

1. Rita V7 ( read 5 times )

2. PMBOK 4 ( read 4 times )

3. Head first ( read once )

4. PMPREPCAST ( Listened to his podcasts 10 times in the past 1 year ) 

Preparation

Around May last year, first read Head first once and planned to complete the exam by Dec 2012. So, filled the necessary documents and submitted my application. However, my application was audited and as my previous employers and the projects that I did were in a few different countries sending them and collecting the documents ( Gosh, why does PMI wants hand written signatures from previous employers ) took almost 2 months and never had the courage to read in this period. Then first read the Rita and felt comfortable. Then read PMBOK once. 

Again, due to personal committments until Jan 2013 had to twice travel so was not able to concentrate completely on my studies. However I got my 35 mandatory hours through PMPREPCAST and I thoroughly enjoyed the company with Cornelius Fishner in this 1 year over my Android device. I followed his exam tips more often and also read PMBOK where ever I went.

After reading twice, took knowledge wise questions from PMFASTTRACK and got around 65- 70 %. I was more often a silent follower of PMZILLA, deep fried brain project and liked the comparison of most confused topics in their website. I was reluctant to take tough questions as felt that I was not adequately prepared. 

So, used to take random questions every where and at last when I first took PM study I scored only 62% and I still remember that I never wanted to go further in persuation for this exam and never studied for almost 1 week. 

Then came the rescuers, the savers, for me in the form of MR. PAWAR and Mr. PUNEET ARORA

While reading a few posts came across one of the important posts that changed my study pattern. That was by Mr. Pawar in the form of his own questions that he posted in this forum, while attending those questions I realized that a few others were able to answer these questions but most of these questions I coudn't. So, took a deeper dive in to PMBOK and started writing notes. Even though, I never interacted with these gentle men personally, the former's post helped me. Mr. Pawar especially THANK YOU very much. YOU ARE SUCH AN INSPIRATION. GOD BLESS. 

Then took a serious set of questions and then came the second rescuer MR. Rajesh Thallam and liked the way he had put his questions, so just followed one after another and started feeling comfortable and also started getting good scores. 

http://pmzilla.com/passed-pmp-dec-13th-2012-%E2%80%93-5p%E2%80%99s

Then came the 3rd rescuer Mr. Puneet Arora, I saw his post and requested materials from him and I followed most of the resources that he gave me and was very much useful. Thanks Mr. Puneet. 

http://pmzilla.com/happy-and-thrilled

So, I gave 45 days time period to write the exam and booked it. My study pattern had increased. Thanks to my boss who allowed me to study at office and utilized that opportunity and studied on weekdays for 4-6 hours and in weekends 8 hours. 

TIPS In no particular order

1. Belief in yourself, I guess this is 90% enough to pass the exam. 

2. Follow regular study pattern

3. Take multiple layers of clothing for the exam

4. Do not read too many books (As others have said, exam is not tough but it's tricky so usage of two books especially in that PMBOK has to be one of those)

5. Do proper time management in exam. 

6. Do a site survey of the exam site couple of days before. 

7. Inspite of all notes available, do have your own notes, they will always be leagues apart. 

8. Follow the posts of the top contributers who have posted in this forum. 

9. You may not need any paid websites, use the one's that are freely available and ofcourse these are of really good quality. If you would still wanna have one then either PMSTUDY or RITAFASTTRACk would be one of the best bet. 

10. After attending the questions, review why you made those mistakes and please take a note of those as at the last moment they will be really helpful. 

11. Book for the exam when you are atleast 50-60% confident as by booking you will give enough time to feel confident to stretch for 100% confidence. 

12. Do not by-heart ITTO, I infact tried that after reading couple of posts here and wasted 1 week but felt like a kid within inside as it did not yield any use. 

13. Some of the topics I learned from Mr. Pawar's blog is really fabulous, so if you have time do go through. 

14. IMPORTANT: Best way to learn ITTO, IMHO, read glossary 4-5 times as you read the glossary simultaneously start drawing the DFD diagram in your MIND and this will make you to know the I/P & O/P in a better way. As I feel, tools are easy to remember in comparison to I/P & O/P

Would thank all the following gentleman for their effort and your contribution to this forum, without them people like me would have not been able to pass. Mr. RAJESH NAIR' notes, MR. PRASIN's ITTO, Mr. Abhisek's revised version, MR. HARWINDER (from deepfriedbrainproject),  Mr. RAJESH THALLAM.  & ofcourse MR. PAWAR & ADMIN.

Exams

first attempt - 

pmp4sure 62

pmpstudy 72

headfirst 82

PMP Lite Mock Exam 3 Practice Questions 80

PMP Lite Mock Exam 4 Practice Questions 94

PMP Lite Mock Exam 5 Practice Questions 78

PMP Lite Mock Exam 6 Practice Questions 86

PMP Lite Mock Exam 8 Practice Questions 92

PMP Lite Mock Exam 9 Practice Questions 84

PMP Lite Mock Exam 7 Practice Questions 82 

PMP Lite Mock Exam 10 Practice Questions 86

PMP Lite Mock Exam 11 Practice Questions 88

PMP Lite Mock Exam 12 Practice Questions 84

PMP Lite Mock Exam 13 Practice Questions 74

PMP Lite Mock Exam 14 Practice Questions 84

PMP Lite Mock Exam 15 Practice Questions 78

PMP Lite Mock Exam 16 Practice Questions 86

PMP Lite Mock Exam 17 Practice Questions 76

PMP Lite Mock Exam 18 Practice Questions 78

Anbari                                                        93

Frandale                                                    71

PMbootcamp                                             90

Simplilearn                                                76

Exam central                                             86

Oliver lehmann                                           81

Techfaq 360                                               88

PMFasttrack                                              85

Thank you to those readers who had the patience to read until here :) My best wishes and All the best for the exam takers. May the desire and fire burn within you to get through. 

Regards,

Riyaz