I passed my PMP exam yesterday 7th-April and feeling quite relaxed. Thankful to every known and unknown who has helped me to learn, apply and relearn. I am also thankful to my family which supported me through thick & thin and tolerated me with books on week-ends :)

 

This forum is my primary guru in helping me to shape-up my preparation. I read several LLs here and devised a customized way of taking-on the exam.

 

To start with, I read PMBOK twice and RITA twice. When I say twice - it just means that I was skimmed through them because PMBOK is boring initially (not because of its content, but because you can't understand it easily). That was a mistake but when I reversed the sequence i.e. I read RITA first and then PMBOK, it was fantastic. Reason is that RITA would provide you a descriptive knowledge about project management, while PMBOK condense it, in core PM terminology - in a nut-shell, PMBOK fast-tracks it ;) and hence the risk of not grasping the content.

 

While I went through these books, I also went through the below freely available question banks including:

 

Oliver Lehmann - 75Q - 76%, 200Q - 73%

 

Christopher Scordo - 1-18 tests - range of scores were from 78% to 96% (It's a must do as the language is closely aligned with the actual questions)

 

Rita (all end-lessons Qs.) - 75% to 80% (these Qs are difficult but real eye-opener when it comes to logic) suggest you to read Rita twice and then attempt these questions, you would relish them.

 

Exam-Central - Process-wise Qs. Did a couple of them - 80% to 87%

PM Zilla - 30 Qs (thought provoking Qs.) - 76%

Quantitative Qs from Scribd (100 Qs.) - 82%

 

My honest suggestion for everyone is that if you really want to get through, just take a date and prepare with a focus on quality. The preparation time vary from person to person and hence I can just provide a rough order (2-4 months). Don't chase every test/question available online.

 

Also go through the LL of Yamakinkara. He has busted a lot of myths about this exam. It would surely motivate you. I am providing a summary of what I know in reality:

 

PMP exam is not tough - It checks your concepts in different ways and situations.

PMP exam just needs a little time-management - Try to finish it in 3.5 hours. This would be a huge relief and you can go through the marked questions.

PMP needs some endurance & concentration - Develop concentration for 4 hours (not by mugging-up in practice exams, but by meditation, relaxation etc.) People fail because a lot of them lose-out on their concentration and patience.

You don't need to boil the ocean to pass PMP - Certainly because the kind of questions you will face in real exam, will not be available anywhere else. So understand the material, workflow of processess and concepts, and you will be able to crack a lot of questions in whatever fashion or situation exam throws on you.

 

All the best for all PMP aspirants !

 

Regards