Hi all! I would like to share my joy with you. On the November, 1, I’ve passed PMP exam with 2P, 2MP, 1BP. It was great experience and now I’ll try to share my lessons learned.

My journey started in the end of spring. I started slow reading of Rita 7. After some investigation I realized, that I will pass exam on the PMBoK 5 so I need a new version of Rita 8. Thanks God, my wife’s mother was traveling in the USA and could bring me a new version of Rita quickly. So I started reading the new version of the book. I’ve spent a month reading Rita without doing exam practice. After that I had two weeks of vacation and didn’t learn anything during it. It was my mistake - I couldn’t remember anything after it. In the middle of August I bought PMCHAMP training to get my 35 PDU. The quality of training is really good.  The small disadvantages are: questions sometimes are too easy and there are no responses for mock questions on the forum. But still I would recommend this training. It is really cool to watch videos lying in the bed :)

I’ve sent my application in the end of September planning to take exam in the end of October. After getting my PMI Eligibility ID I realized that the only place where I can pass exam in Moscow was booked until December, 3. It was not suitable for me, but I scheduled exam and started to check every day in case there is any vacant date earlier. It is possible to change exam date for free only within 30 calendar days of the exam appointment.

I reread Rita, and took several mock exams:

1) Rita book practice (70-80% first time and 90%+ on second)

2) Head first -85%

3) Christopher Scordo (tests 1-8 – 75%-85%; tests 15-18 -65%-75%)

4) PmStudy free  - 63%

Every two days I was practicing in writing all formulas. In the end of October I saw a free place for taking exam on the November, 1, and rescheduled my exam. I didn’t read PMBoK, I just went through it and read glossary. Rita was my main bible :)

Exam day.

It was really difficult to have a good sleep the day before exam. I came to Prometric center earlier and was just sitting and trying to relax and waiting for start.

The exam was difficult.

A lot of:

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Calculation questions (EV)

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Questions on forming, storming, norming and so on

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Questions on conflict resolution techniques

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What t&t will help in situation

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Contract types risks

Some question with not detailed description of the situation. 2 really strange calculation questions that had not enough data to make answer. I reread this question ten times in a row and couldn’t get the idea. It was my plan for appellation :)

It took 3:45 to get through all questions. I didn’t skip anything but marked about 20 questions. When only one minute left I pressed finish and started waiting. I was prompted to the blank page for 30 seconds and after that I was imitated to rate Prometric center!!!!! I was really angry! How I could rate in such a stressful moment, when I do not know results yet??!!! Finally, in a couple of seconds, I saw message with Congratulations!!

It was really challenging exam for me. After exam I called my wife, mother and everybody to let them know that I did it!

PMI didn’t send me any congratulations letter for 4 days. I have started worrying and sent email to customer support. In an hour I got  my congratulation letter and also could find myself in PMI registry.

Wish you all the best on the exam!