Hi All,

I believe I must be one of the numerous silent followers of this community who only post after the mission gets accompalished. And theres another thing common amongst all of us, we all deep down in our hearts know the immense contribution of PMZILLA in our success. And the credit goes to Admin and all the active/passive contributors to this community.

I will not impart any wisdom, just what I did during the three month preparation period. And yup no matter how much prepared you are or how much you have scored in mocks or how so ever confident you are....you will feel exam time jitters just before it or a day before. The three month journey -

Started on 19th Feb (the day Cricket World Cup started) -

• I started with Andy Crowe, since its written very simple language and easy to understand style it gave me an elementary hands up on all the relevant concepts to be covered.


• Became PMI member in starting week of March, and got PMBOK's access. by 10th I must have finished Andy and got ready to start with the much dreaded PMBOK.


• First time around I guess PMBOK does make everyone little uncomfortable with the 'standard/ framework' kind of language. And unlike Rita or Andy it doesnt carry you along or have a story boarding. Pretty much read it once but I was unsure how much I retained.


• By the time I was about to end it, i had ordered the most popular PM prep book, yes all of you guessd it right - Rita Mulcahy 6th edition. Started with it (around strating week of April). I was very impressed with how the book has been written, and 'it speaks to you', i will give you an example once while reading i skipped an exercise cos I was tired and BAMMM... it was written in the next sentence ' if you have skipped the last exercise - go back'. I was like Oh man she knows, theres no kidding her. Overall, its a very good read with good questions but I will still say PMBOK is the Bible.


• Yeah i did each and every end of exercise question of both books (did it as quiz, all at once, and then analyzed)


• Purchased 'PM Prepcast' in between and after completing Rita, I started listening to each and every episode of Cornelius. It is another very good training course which helps in strengthening your concepts. It discusses "why' is a certain Input, tool included and how does it make sense that we will get this output only.


• During whole of this period i was trying to study for 3 hours a day along with my office and 6-7 hours on weekends (except for sometimes, when i did skipped a Saturday or a weekday in between, but took care of continuity)


• While listening to Prepcast videos I decided to give weekends to 'Mock tests'. So initially one day of weekend and later both I started giving mocks in the order given below -
  Andy Full test - 82%
  Oliver Lehmman 75 Q - 67%
  Oliver Lehmann 175 Q - 68%
  After these two tests I became unsure of my preparation because Oliver asks questions out of a sentence written somewhere in PMBOK which you must not have retained while reading. Oliver scared me.
  HeadFirst (all) - 81% consistently
  Oh yeah another 'true story' I submitted my application on 26th April. And paid fees on 2nd May and registered for exam on 3rd May (more on that little later)
  PMStudy Test 1 - 74.29% (18 of 25 correct - dummy)
  PMStudy Test 2 - 72.5% (21 of 25)
  PMStudy Test 3 - 74.87% (21 of 25)
  PMStudy Test 4 - 79.81% (21 of 25)
  By this time I was sure I will need atleast 131 on 200 to pass because there is high chance I will answer most of dummy questions correctly.


• NOTE - The test marks are not indicative of your final performance. I was very disappointed with few results because towards the end I was realizing that the strength of concepts is not in sync with the scores. I gave them so that I could practice atleast 1500+ questions. And yes I used to give whole day to exam (giving and analyzing)


• Yep, whenever possible ( or free time) I used to open digital version of PMBOK and started reading any random topic.


• Toward the last two weeks before exam I was very unsure of what to read, i was rereading Rita by that time so I reread Rita and listened to Cornelius' remaining episodes.


• Second last day - Skimmed through PMBOK (for first time i knew where all important points were)


• Last day - Skimmed through Rita


• Analyzed all wrong questions in all 4 tests again (during last week)


• Kept Rajesh Nair's and Chawdhary Sir's notes close to me (wasnt able to read them fully but they made me feel better, kept their prinouts). IMPORTANT PONITS portion is awesome.

Yep more on exam. I must be out of few people who didnt submit application or scheduled exam before preparation. My endavor also was to gain a lot of learning in this process. I know we all know real world and PMBOK is little different but still I wanted to learn things I dont know. This kept me self motivated.

The journey ended with exam on 20th May (I reached JIT) and just like India's WC successful campaign mine ended on high as well  with Proficient in all areas except 'M&C'.

NOTE - Exam scheduling according to your date and time is very time consuming and difficult. It took me 3 days to get a convenient and planned slot and I was on Prometric's site almosr 18 hours a day. I was travelling on certain fixed dates so had to give exam a day before. It was distracting.

I guess i have written more than required, but hopefully it will give direction to few of the aspirants and it will remind few PMPs of their ardous and fulfilling journey.

All the best. And yes thank you to all the contributors in this journey - my friends, my family's wishes, PMI, PMBOK, Rita, Andy, PMZillans,DeepFried brain (Harwinder - who answered lot of my queries), and others who kept me going!!! God bless all.

Signing Off -
Varun, PMP