Happy to share the good news that I passed PMP today. First of all Thanks to PMzilla. It is a very good place for every PMP learners. Though I haven’t posted any question but I have used this site effectively. Whatever questions I have doubt that would have been already discussed in the forum and answered. Especially CN patil, KK I found their clarifications/answers very useful. Thanks CNP, KK. Thanks to Abhishek and Rajesh Nair, Rofa for their great notes. I have used it two days before exam and found useful. Next, I would like to thanks to my best friend at work who actually helped me in guidance/mentoring and thanks to my wife and my little daughter(2.5 year) for their cooperation and support and to all my friends and family for not bothering me for the past three weeks

Preparation time

·         6months (Feb to July) but effectively used 4 months due to other conflicts at work on Mar-Apr

·         Took two weeks off from work just to focus dedicatedly for the exam

Study Material (in sequence first to last)

·         Head first – Good and Very easy to understand

·         Rita Mulcahy – Good and easy to understand

·         PMBOK 4^th edition – Dry initially, but second read it will be easy.  I felt its must for passing PMP

·         Abhishek version of Rajesh Nair Notes, Rofa notes – Two days before exam

Mock Exams (in sequence first to last) – Started Three weeks before exam

·         Christopher Scordo(9-18) avg. 75%

·         Head first-200 – 84%

·         Rita -200 - super pmp – TOUGH – 60%

·         Oliver 75 –TOUGH - 69%

·         Oliver 175 – 77%

-       http://www.scribd.com/doc/28680971/101-PMP-Sample-Questions-for-the-PMP-...

·         Rita -200 – 81%

·         Exam central-200 – 84%

·         PM study-1 – 82%

·         PM study-2 – 80%

·         PM study-3 – 89%

·         PM study-4 – 87%

Exam day

·         My appointment at 12:30PM, reached Test site 1hr 15 mins before

·         10 mins all formalities done and I was given the seat to start

·         First screen asked to identify yourself with the name to confirm, then started the tutorial. Please make sure that you confirm this first before writing in scratch paper otherwise test will end in 10 secs.

·         Started writing all the formulas, pg 43, few mnemonics for the TT, Contract types with risk, Maslows Hierarchy, Hygiene factors – completed in 12 mins. Though I haven't used much but it really helps in relieving your stress and gives you mental confident. Only used Braindump for pg 43 and not for any formulas

·         Quickly went through the tutorials and clicked end and started the first question

·         ~ 20 math questions – EV, EAC, ETC, VAC, SPI, CPI, SV, Critical path question with FS, SS relationships, Make/buy decisions. No questions on Straight line depreciation, double declining method, sum of digits method, mean, mode, present value, payback period

·         Remaining questions went all around all process groups/processes. Most of them are situational questions

·         I was behind schedule for the first 50 questions and took 1 hr 10 mins(my target was 50 questions in hour). Then didn’t see the clock afterwards only aim to speed up, didn’t take any break and completed all questions 30 mins before.

·         Reviewed Marked around 15 questions and changed only 2 of them. Submitted End button 5 mins before

·         Screen went blank white. As everyone says, my heart also was pumping faster faster. then came the survey. Completed all the survey questions and waited for the result then finally came “CONGRATULATION” message, clicked next and found my proficiency as 3P, 2MP

o    Initiating – MP

o    Planning – P

o    Executing – P

o    M&C – P

o    Closing – MP

·         “Initiating” was my favourite PG and I thought, I would get Proficient in that but it looks like it didn’t work that way and I am sure, I am weak on closing. Good, It saved me by getting MP in closing. My target was not 5P but just to make sure no BP and pass the exam before Jul 31^st, which I achieved and I am happy

Lessons Learnt

·         Though I have given all the above mock exams, unfortunately I found the real exam tough and not close to any of the mocks. May be its just for me.. but my main weakness was LENGTHY questions as it was taking more time in rita super pmp mock exam, luckily  I don’t find many in real exam so I was able to manage

·         I felt rita’s SUPER PMP was the toughest and my real exam experience is one level below Rita super PMP and  above level for all other mock exams

·         Make sure you are able to draw n/w diagram using different relationships (FS, SS, FF) and combination of all, Float, free float Exam tests your knowledge on this. I found this hard as it took more time and I was not much familiar with SS, FF and that too the question was very tricky with the wordings on the relationships

·         Few input/output question but was not direct - means most of them like project mgmt plan updates, project doc updates not a easy direct outputs to remember. So make sure you understand the concept of what gets updated in proj mgmt plan/project docs as part of each processes

·         Got many TT questions. I was very clear on them and easy to pick the right answer quickly – that was the easiest part in the exam

·         Abhishek version of Rajesh Nair Notes(Only IMP POINTS TAB), Rofa notes – Their notes are very useful and please make sure you use them effectively. Make sure you read them after you had given the sufficient mock exams, because I found their “imp points” are most of them answers to the many of mock exams. So if you read them before you will not be able to judge your actual PMBOK gap in the mock exam

Hope this helps...Good luck to everyone!