About me:

Electrical engineer with 27 years of experience in execution of big Govt. owned Power Projects in India and UAE. Currently in UAE as a Senior Consultant Engineer with an International firm.So far a silent visitor to this fantastic forum.

Preparation for PMP:

Serious preparation started from 2013 beginning, spent about 300 quality hours.

Course materials and strategy:

PMBOK- Twice cover to cover and many times for reference, KIm Hieldman and Rita- Once cover to cover and many times for reference.

Rajesh's notes, ITTOs collected from PMZilla, Raga's points, Various templates,Made own study notes. Practiced ITTOs twice in a week for last three months. Towards the end of preparation, able to construct them fully.

PMBOK process flow charts were of great help to identify the beginning, course and the end of each process similar to a river.

ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME, similarly all materials lead to PMBOK, ignoring PMBOK would be suicidal.

Mock tests:

I developed the steel and patience from mock tests.Lehman's tests,Anbari,Exam Central,TechFaq,Farndale,Edwel,PM study(free),PMP for sure( free), Head first( free),Scordo,passionate pm,voightps,Kim Rita chapter end tests, etc. etc. and a total of 3500 minimum questions were answered, mistakes and doubts reviewed and cleared.In Lehman's and pmpforsure, could score around 62 to 66% only. Simple tests like Anbari,Exam central helped to clear the funda and score was around 80 to 90%.

I Purchased PM exam simulator, which is fantastic and investment is justified.PM zilla 200 tough questions gave me the required patience to tackle the big day.

Rest of the test scores were between 75 to 82% and I assessed my readiness reached  the peak level.

Self belief is important.

Real Exam experience:

Your biggest hurdle is the TIME stipulation of 240 minutes.During the first 10 questions I forgot even the basics and started really worrying and thinking of next date !!!

Took 02 minutes on the seat itself and regained the confidence by thinking of my consistent perfo during mock tests.Finished 1st 50 in 70 minutes with 04 marked, not a good show at all. Re assuring myself crossed 100 in 121 minutes, lost confidence re-gained. 150 in 170 minutes and 200 in 230 minutes with  a total 08 marked. Finally attempted the marked questions also successfully, with 61 seconds left.

I knew the outcome and not at all worried of the end result, congrats message on screen brought big relief at the end.

Exam questions were of difficulty of 7 in a scale of 1 to 10.All areas were covered with almost equal participation except TIME & HR,  which carried more weightage.

BY KNOWING THE FUNDAMENTALS,PROCESS FLOWS AND MANAGING THE TIME DURING EXAM ONE CAN DEFINITELY PASS PMP.

BEST OF LUCK TO ALL. Contact me any time for PMP help.