LL did not pass on July 26

Submitted by cfmills on Tue, 08/06/2013 - 17:38

It's been over a week so the initial discouragement is wearning off.  I'm starting to dig into the idea of starting over in terms of study and focus based on taking the PMBOK 5 version of the exam.

In a nut shell I have well over 7 years PM experience.  I took an adult education course in 2006-2009 to earn my college level PM Certification but I never wrote the PMP.   Jan-Mar I studied a little bit.  In April I applied to write the exam and read through most of PMBOK4.  In late May I started to study heavily.  Purchases include McGraw-Hills PMP math book, Rita's book, and  HeadFirst PMP. 

I chose to immerse myself in the HeadFirst Book first, to trust it, and do every excercise.  The HeadFirst book was great in that there were hardly any areas of the exam that suprized me, perhaps a few questions tops.

I crammed hard during the last couple of weeks of July however I didn't get a chance to do any other questions than those in the book and I only glanced at the Rita book.  When I went to write the exam my timing was off.

My LL:

If you are not ready for the exam re-schedule it.   Unfortunately I saw the PMBOK 4 to PMBOK 5 change as a hurdle, it would have been better if I delayed.

Largest failing was simply not having done the mock tests.  I thought the mock ones I did in Jan-Mar plus the ones that I did in the book would be enough.  When people in the forum show long list of mock tests that they have done I'm amazed...however of course most of those contributors passed.

I did write out all of the formulas I'd need, I rewrote that sheet every day for a month.  As others have said, I did the brain dump at the start however I never really needed to refer to that sheet since I'd driven the items into the brain.

This time - I'll learn from others on this forum, I'll used PMBOK5 and use Rita's 8th Edition and do many mock tests until I'm ready to schedule the exam.

 

 

 

 

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PMP Exam Tips, Tricks and Lessons Learnt.
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ppalkonda1975

Tue, 08/06/2013 - 19:31

 I think you summarized pretty good what you should be doing...I would say that mock exams are quiet important from the prespective of exam look alike questions and also to find out gaps in your knowledge. Also it does help you in time management as well and build your patience for the real exam...

All the best for the exam

Cheers

cfmills

Thu, 08/22/2013 - 15:47

Thank you for the feedback, appreciated.

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admin

Wed, 08/07/2013 - 06:07

 Read this post 

Nifty

Thu, 08/22/2013 - 19:21

 I failed it too just this week.  I failed it last year.  My failure last year caused me to miss an job opportunity and forced me to move 800 miles.   We had all lost our jobs because of budget cuts, but there was an opening at another organization that required you only the PMP.   It was mine if I could pass the exam.  I had been studying for it anyway and thought what great timing. I wouldn't be unemployed.    Two weeks I took the test, a month later I was packing up and moving. 

I'm about over the disappointment this year but just pissed i spent all this money. 

I'm really starting to think it's more about the individual and how they assimilate and process information than following a given study plan.  I've worked in the education arena in the past and seen some pretty surprising things.  For example, dyslexics can't score 30% on a bubble test but blow the mean out of the water if they take the same test verbally.    

My son passed the PMP last year.  He barely had the experience to qualify but found it easy.  It was  "new" material for him.   I know a office manager who went to a 5 day crash course with the rest of the office staff, took the exam and passed.  To this day she couldn't tell you the difference in a CV or SV,  cant identify a risk vs an issue, and probably couldn't tell you the PM process groups. 

My boss took this exam last year.  He returned the next day and while glad he passed, felt some of it was ridiculous.  In fact, he confessed he didn't really know how he passed it.  I think he got an Exam Cram book of some kind a week before.  My current boss took the exam and passed in 2.5 hours.   His back ground is more academia - he's just real into process of everything.

It's just the way it goes.

I have been managing IT projects and staff for a long time, working with different client environments, PMO's,  and methodologies.  I feel I'm tainted because my real world experience worked for the most part, but was not by-the-book PMI.  I certainly don't feel stupid, but I do understand many see that PMP moniker on someone's sig line and think the world of that.  Some only interview people with a PMP.  

Feel good about yourself!   I was actually shocked at some of the poor grammar that appears on the exams.  That alone tells me this exam is not the end all be all, to pass it doesn't make you a better PM.  The authors of this exam don't appear to preform the quality control they recommend everyone else perform, else you wouldn't see some of the poorly worded questions.  LOL.  
 
 I will try again. 

 

 

 

vikula01

Fri, 08/23/2013 - 05:12

yeah everyone makes mistakes - like you did in the very first sentence " an job ".