I have been a silent contributor to PMIZLLA, but wanted to thank the people involved in this awesome forum. This forum provided lots of great resources & encouragements for PMP aspirants and for those who are PMPs. Again, thanks for having this forum!

I would like to share with you my road to PMP and want to thank my family & frieds during this joruney and especially GOD, that through His grace and with all of my support networks, I was able to obtain the PMP certification on July 2.

 Now, I can finally provide my LL and thank everyone for being part of my journey.

• Began around mid Dec 2012 time frame
• Read Rita PMP book 2x, took notes, studied/reviewed notes reread many sections more than once and worked on the exercises
• Attended boot camp in May (attending boot camp was helpful such that someone explains/clarify areas of uncertainty and meeting fellow boot campers that I was able to discuss any questions/issues)
• Did roughly 800 practice questions (600 of them were mostly repeats) - you should definitely not rely on 1 question bank website/service
• Thought I was ready to take the exam in June, but I was not and I did not do so well
  
  • One of my colleague mentioned right after I failed was that the test/certification is not what defines you and that you are a good project manager/worker and don't let this try falter you, and she believed I could pass the exam
• New study plan/approach/strategy created (probably took me a week to settle on a study plan, I got a bit overwhelm how to tackle it):
• Read PMBOK 3x and Rita PMP book main chapters over again, at least 2x
• Read PMBOK Glossary & Appendices 3x - it was actually very helpful as I added words/definitions that I was not clear into the glossary and used it as my "primary notes"
• ITTOS strategy: Not much as I printed out spreadsheet, and each main process/knowledge group of the ITTO from PMBOK and read them couple of times (3x at least) and really try to understand why certain things was needed for this process or group as I knew it was impossible for me to memorize each and every one of them
• Read notes from the PMIZZLA - I did this the day before the exam (I had read these note at lest 2x prior to the June exam), the notes are very close to the Rita PMP book and the PMIZZLA forum had a lot of great Lessons Learned from other people which I leveraged from!)

• Practiced exams:
  
  • PMStudy 1 & 2 200 Q each
  • PMP Practice make perfect 1000 Q - highly recommend this book (I found this out from of the forum post), the book followed many similar question writing style on the exam, tough manually correcting your mistakes was cumbersome, I find having a personal copy of a tangible product was much more helpful as many online web test sites do not store your answers/questions beyond X amount of days
  • Oliver Lehmann 175 Q & 75 Q
  • Head First PMP 200 Q
  • Rita PM FastTrack 200 Q (50 additional questions for each major sections) - Thank you Samkit for the information and for your LL on your journey, very helpufl!
  • boot camp question bank 200 Q, and 50 questions for each major sections and used boot camp questions to practice on the COST (really helpful as it helped me understand how to calculate certain values that is not given on the exam)
  • For every practice exam that I took, I reviewed all my wrong questions and questions where I had marked (?) with it and reviewed it with the PMBOK
  • I realized it's not how you score on the practice exam that is important, what was for me is to understand the questions where I marked ? or got the wrong questions that matters so I can understand what the questions and the answer means
  • essentially, I practice my heart out during the week before the exam, but I would only practice an exam every other day such that I would give my self time to review my wrong & ? questions, literally, I mapped out each day of what I will be studying and doing
• Day of the exam:
  
  • brain dump p43 (it was very good to have this one as a brain dump), how I used p43 during the exam is in a question, I would refer to my brain dump of p43 and think about the situation and the choices given, from there, I would analyze and pick the "right" one
  • brain dump on the majority of the formulas/total & free float/PTA/communication channel/PERT/SD %
  • lots of Earned Value questions(thank goodness I had practice the boot camp question bank) as many require you to figure a missing element to calculate what was expected
  • I noticed I had some questions that was from my June test (they haunted me so I hope I got them right this time!)
  • questions on EV, risks (know your negative & positive risks and what they mean/relate to a scenario), 1 formula question TCPI on which is the correct formula, 1 RACI chart, just know which task has the appropriate assignment, what a risk register chart look like, probably 3 network diagram (understand how to read & calculate paths), I had 1 PV (present value) calculation question (I memorized the formula!), 2 PERT, 1 communication channel and it was what is the difference of the channel once X members were removed, know forming/storming/norming/performing/adjourning, know what they mean as I had 1 question, & 1 question on quality & grade
  • my 2 cents, read the questions & choices VERY carefully, I didn't have many wordy questions, mostly 2 - 5 lines and I just made sure I understand the questions before answering, I may not understand all, but I would try my best
  • I had only roughly 35 min left to review my questions (not a lot of time left) and made sure I save at least 7 sec before time was up to end my exam (last time, I think I ran the clock down and was not sure if I actually "ended" the exam)
    
    • I had asked this time if it was ok to run the clock down and the lady said it was best to "end" the exam (press end) though she said the answers are saved if you didn't, but I didn't want to risk it this time

• completed the Prometric survey and began praying for my results
• saw "CONGRATULATIONS"

• My final LL is my first attempt humbled me as a person and in hindsight, I can share my failed attempt and my PMP journey to my children to encourage them to do their best & most of all, know that one can do anything if you put your mind to it and just because we have tripped on a road bump, we can always overcome the fall and rise up and keep going and not use the fall to drag us down, but to use it as a learning experience for us to rise up.

To sum it up, this is one of the most grueling & emotional experience anyone can go through as there were many scarifies that my family has made. I want to thank everyone again for being with me during this journey, my family, co-workers and fellow boot campers for the encouragements and especially my management team for this wonderful opportunity. Without each and every one of them and God, I would not be able to achieve this awesome accomplishment.

I wish all of PMP aspirants a successful journey and most of all, encouragements that YOU can definitely do it it as we are in IT to GET it!

THANK YOU!

Eugenia, PMP

WOW, I finally can put an acronym next to my name!