I would like to share my experience, because during my preparation I was always looking for someone who is  sharing his exam experience after passing the exam, and I get couple of points from others how passed the PMP recently.

 

 PMP Exam is very tough exam and as per my preparation I can summarize the preparation for the exam as per the following three milestones 

1- finish reading preparation materials.

2- practice questions

3- The EXAM.. yes the exam is the most important part of your journey to have the PMP. 

 

for the training materials, I would advice using Headfirst, Rita and of course PMBOK (knowing that i didn't read it)

 

Head First PMP is easy to read, easy to understand, and true to it's claim of being "Brain Friendly"

Headfirst is perfect for those who don't have that much experience in Project Management and are not familiar with the project management terminologies used in both PMBOK and RITA.

 

Read this interesting comparison: 

 

 

RITA is a must and it is an excellent preparation materials as everyone knows and recommends, and I would suggest to read each chapter from PMBOK then from RITA or vice versa, there is a lot of PMPs who passes the exam without reading PMBOK, and another school says that you can not pass without reading it. BUT as I experienced in the exam I believe reading it at least once will hep answer couple of questions.

 

I will list sequentially the steps I followed during my preparation:

 

1- Read Head First ( 30 days)

During your reading write down your knowledge gaps & notes(lessons learned)  for each chapter(specially when you are answering each chapter's questions.

 

2- Read Rita (30 Days) 

 

3- Second pass for Rita (10 days)

 

4- write down your knowledge gabs and notes (lessons learned) for each chapter you are reading for the second time.

 This list will be your final review before the exam, where you wrote down all the ideas that you found difficult to memorize or you are missing it when you are answering chapter questions.

 

5- practice Questions as much as you can. (10 days) and keep updating your lessons learned when you are checking your answers.

 

The Lessons Learned method  was very effective for me for memorizing and reviewing all TRICKY points.

 

6- Practice solving 200 questions within 4 hours , this is very important to know how to manage your time during the exam. (Do that at least three times)

 

Go to “PMSTUDY.com” and practice 200 exam questions for free. ( This questions are similar format as the real exam)

Go to “techfaq360″ and click on PMP resources, and take online free exam for 200 questions.

Go to “http://www.headfirstlabs.com/PMP/pmp_exam/v2/quiz.html” and take free exam. 

 

Tips for the Exam: 

- Once you feel that the question does NOT make sense to you or they are using terms you didn't hear about  (you should EXPECT that to happen and I faced it) JUST choose any answer and go ahead with your exam.

- do not let hard questions demotivate you during the exam, just keep going and answer. 

- Deep Breathing (5 times) is a good tactic that you can use to relax and decrease the stress, I read about it and tried it during the exam, it worked for me. 

- managing your anxiety is a key to pass the exam. 

- try to minimize the marked question, so you can review them if you have time (actually I run out of time  :( BUTI passed. 

- when I felt that I will not have the time to answer all the questions, I started to choose any answer and  Mark for review all calculation and lengthy questions in order to guarantee the short questions that don't consume time. 

 

I hope that was useful and informative and  I wish a good  luck for all PMP aspirants. 

 

Tamim AlKhiamy