Hi All, I'm happy and relieved to have passed the PMP on April 15 with 4Ps and 1M in Closing :-)

I owe such a debt to many people here, and especially for their lessons learned, that I hope some use might come from sharing my own.

PM Background: Three years of project management / team leadership at large company. Most of what I read preparing for this exam was totally new to me.

Duration of Study: Overall, I spent about 3 months preparing for the exam. That was about 3 hours of study every weekday after work (I studied also on weekends the final month). I did experience a six week interruption, so my actual study time spread over a longer time period.

Study Plan: I started with the PMBOK but couldn’t understand it. I moved on to Rita Mulcahy’s PMP Exam Prep. At the beginning, I spent about one week on each chapter, and completed the chapter quizzes. When finished, I re-read the book a second time, and skimmed it a third time.

In the final month, I started online practice tests. That helped me realize I had knowledge gaps due to not reading the PMBOK. Rita doesn’t focus much on the actual process names and order – but this is very important for the exam. So, I went quickly through the PMBOK once. (now I could finally understand it!)

Final weeks: While I had taken all the chapter quizzes in Rita’s book – scoring 75-80% the first pass, and 85-95% on a second pass, the first online tests I took were discouraging.

Oliver Lehman’s 75 Questions: 60%

PMZilla 200 Tough: 49%

That moment was my lowest point on this long journey.  My confidence was completely broken and for three days I was seriously questioning myself and my ability. But I continued on and took these within the next two week period:

Scordo 1-5 (easier than PMP): average 85% and 13-18 (difficulty similar to PMP): average 75%

PMStudy 1: 86%  PMStudy 2:  74%

 Final Prep: Two days before exam, I took PMStudy2 online. One day before exam, I took a ride to Prometric to get familiar with the trip. I didn’t study much – by this point I knew I needed REST more than anything.

Actual PMP: I wrote down the formulas, which helped me later. I was pretty nervous the first hour. Be prepared mentally if the questions start out difficult – don’t let it worry you. I couldn’t figure out the first couple of questions and just moved on. What I found most difficult about the PMP was the language. It was not always clear to me what the question was really asking. That was confusing, and often I wasn’t confident of my answers.

Everyone who takes the test gets a different pool of questions – in my case, I got a lot of EVM questions – maybe 20. None were as difficult as the practice tests, but all required algebra to figure out a missing variable. I got only one PERT question. No diagram trees to calculate. No questions about Ethics. All the PM processes seemed equally represented. Lots of questions about what process occurs when. (You need this from the PMBOK, not Rita’s “process chart”). I never tried to memorize all the tools/techniques … didn’t need them. I did get a question that required calculating Present Value. I note this because Rita claimed (inaccurately) that this would not be on the exam... it was on mine.

Practice tests took me three hours but the real PMP took the entire four – I only had one minute left when I finished and never got to review my marked questions. Never took a break. This was mainly due to nerves affecting my concentration and I kept re-reading questions.

Tips: 

Passing this exam is about preparing for it properly. You can do it!!  None of the practice tests I took were exactly like the real one. But PMStudy was close. If you’re scoring over 70% on one of those – you are most likely ready for the PMP. If you’re not – give yourself more time.

Don’t get discouraged by poor scores on practice tests known for their difficulty. These are much harder than the actual PMP. Consider that only a few weeks before my exam (that I passed with 4Ps, 1M in Closing), I was scoring 49-60% on two of those. None of the actual PMP questions were as complicated as difficult practice questions I tried.

Read both Rita and PMBOK. There were questions on the PMP that required the knowledge from both.

Thank you PMZilla!

This site was a constant source of encouragement and knowledge throughout my study. I did not post much, but I can’t over emphasize how grateful I was to find so many helpful tips and lessons learned. It made a huge difference, especially to my confidence level. I hope my lessons learned can help somebody too. Thanks all …and good luck on your PMPs!