Let me start with a Thank You note to PMZILLA; Admin and Members

• You need a study partner to keep the spirits high and PASS this exam. Here my partner is “PMZILLA” ( Rajesh Nair and Chowdary Adusumilli ), I felt they are with me all through my Journey.
• I used to read this forum for clarifications, suggestions, study plan, boost my morale and last but not the least when bored which is pretty much every day

 My Work Experience

• Working for 12 years in the field of IT and has 4 years of management experience.

 My Study Plan and Preparation

• Did Rita PMFast Track Simulation exam to see where i stand before reading scored around 48% and i know i have a big road ahead of me to cover
• Started reading Rita and after 3 chapters got very exhausted and turned to Kim Heldman, same issue after 3 chapters I was not able to pay attention. Then thought I can’t able to ready any books, it is more than 10 years touched any book.
• Here comes the real rescuer “PM Prepcast” by Cornelius Fishner, if I dont not have his teaching kit i would not be able to share my lessons today. Thanks very much Cornelius Fishner.
• If you are like me where you are attending lot of seminars and webinars this is the best available visual teaching kit.
• Completed his 12 lessons and now started Rita and then Kim Heldman, both making lot of sense. Kim Heldman is good as her book is by Process Groups and her questions are very good.
• Did Rita PMFastTrack 1400 Questions atleast twice, these are very useful after reading every chapter used to do these, clears lot of concepts

Last 2 weeks.

• Bought PMStudy 4 Test Package.
• Took PmStudy1 test to test my preparation and scored around 65%. One of my friend suggested to go over PMBOK which made lot difference for her.
• Then started reading PMBOK and completed in 3 days
• Took PmStudy2 and PMStudy3 exams
• Read PMBOK again 2nd time , every time i read PMBOK i find new areas where i am weak or ignored in the first read
• Note down all the right and wrong answers.which became my exam notes in the last day
• Study PMBOK again
• It is all about the bible “PMBOK”. Read nothing except Rajesh Notes, Sridhar notes and my own notes, then able to score 70% after completing reading PMBOK Twice

Exams Taken

• Strongly suggest not taking exams on every site you can find. Only stick with proven professional sites, the quality of exams is very important (for example oliver too complicated it does not simulate the real exam questions, take it if you are aiming too high)
• Atleast Take PMStudy Exams which are pretty standard and cover all important concepts in PMBOK
• The more questions you attempt the more experience you become and same is the case here
• if you do the 101Formula questions from PM PrepCast you do not need to look back formula based questions gain.
• Sitting for 4 hours concentrating is the key herand the simulation tests will teach you that ( i could barely watch a movie which is more than 3 hrs before)

Day before Exam

• Drove to the exam center, talked to the people there to get a feeling that tomorrow this is not a strange place to me,which did helped me becuase there is lot of construction in that route and took alternative route coming back
  
• Rajesh Notes, Sridhar notes, My Notes, Printed very first page of each Knowledge area from PMBOK and Glossary
• Eat light and slept well

Exam Plan

• Every Successful story has a game plan and here is my game plan
• Want to do 60 questions per hour and complete 200 questions in 3 hours as this is the pace in the practice exams too.one break after 1 hour and 2^nd break after 3 hours. Last hour to go through marked questions
• Question Answering strategy :Read the question and think about the answer and find the answer in the options below is one of my strategies
• Big Wordy Questions use elimination technique

The EXAM

• I was able to write down page 43 and all formulae on the scratch paper before starting the exam.
• I did stick with my Game Plan. (check above)
• Marked any questions which I feel are not 100% right and skipped math questions. Did the math questions once completed all 200 questions and then went through the marked ones.
• Questions are about 2 lines and max 5 lines ( may be 10), LOT of situation based questions, at least 20  ITTOs, 8 formula based question. Used all time to complete the exam.
• One word to describe the feeling after seeing the “congratulations” screen “GREAT RELIEF”
• Result – Passed with 1 proficient and remaining moderately proficient.
• Big Thanks to my family; without their support would not be able to spend 200 hours in library

  Suggestions for Future PMP Aspirants

1. Planning : It is very important step in a Project and same is the case here. without proper study plan you will not able to do this.
2. Resources : I used to read Pmzilla over and over everyday and gather any tip or material that the fellow members used to post and finally list out the ones which are good and stick with them.
3. Memorizing ITTO: Please do if you can. I only have 2 GB RAM I cant handle those ITTO, so i didnt. Not necessary to memorize as it would automatically come to you once you are PMBOK world
4. PMBOK : Finally very important word of caution. You can pass this exam reading any books but with out reading PMBOK you will not get the concepts right and that is very important to pass the exam.
5. Yard Stick: If you are scoring more than 70% in PMStudy exams you have better chances of passing the PMP exam

Again big Thanks to Chowdary and Rajesh on this forum. questions let me know....it is my social responsibility now.

Regards,

Kiran D , PMP