Cleared my PMP exam on 15^th August, but since was away on site couldn’t post my lesson learned.

Study Period May 2011 to August 15^th 2011

May 2011

After collecting 35 Mandatory contact hours..I went through PMBOK and found it not that intresting to read and switched to reading Headfirst PMP which I found to be very good and intresting book to read.

I spent nearly 3 weeks to read the Head first PMP and was trying to understand all the process areas and and their respective knowledge area. Spent 1 more week on summarising what I read on HeadfirstPMP and started to solve exams from Headfirst where I score 80%.

I was very happy and felt confident, and sorry forget to mention I had planned to give exam on 1^st August 2011. So with the result of Headfirst PMP I was considering that I had the scope to prepone the exam. This was the first Sign of Overconfidence.

June 2011

I started to read PMBOk again in June first week and found it intresting, but frankly since I was confident read until the Framework and Integration Knowledge area and felt its cake walk let me read it at end as I have enough time and since I had a borrowed Kim-Heldman’s book started reading it and spent the whole of June in reading the book and solving the end chapters test and I was scoring approx 80-85%.

July 2011

Now as per plan I had whole of July for solving mock test and appear for exam on 1^st August.

I bought PM-Exam Simulator from Cornelius Fichtner and started to give mock exams. There were 9 mock exams comprising of 200 Que. First exam I scored 68% it was shocking for me, how could I score such low marks.

Spent 3.40 mnts on the exam and again spent 4 more hours understanding where I went wrong and learning that areas. After 2 days I gave the 2^nd 200 Que mock test and scored 66% this was an eyeopener for me. All the confidence in me drained out. I was blank for 2 days, during these 2 days I spent quality time browsing forums of Pmzilla, PM-Exam Prep Self study group, Deepfriedbrain.com.  After taking feedbacks from these forums I concluded that I have never read PMBOK properly and each and every forum it’s been clearly mentioned that PMBOK should be read minimun twice.

This was the eye opener for me thanks to PMZilla, Deepfriedbrain and Pm-Exam prep study groups.

I started reading PMBOK and spend half of July on understanding PMBOK was happy that now many of my concepts were cleared and it dawned upon me that exam is on 1^st August and as per my plan I had to prepare my own notes, Ihad to read many topics for eg HR, Contracts which I had read from Pmzilla and deepfriendbrain forums.

Moreover I had to give more mock test, so I postponed the exam to 15^th August 2011 which was realistic and achiveable date.  After completing reading PMBOK once I gave mock teste from PM-exam simulator and again I scored 69%. So I spent 1 more week and spent time on PMBOK for 2^nd time and on August 1^st I gave one more mock exam from PM-exam simulator I scored 70%.

August 1^st to 14^th August 2011

This is it…I understood that either I have not prepared well or I had to change the mock test.

I read in Pmzilla that Pmstudy exam mock test are near to PMP exam and they are fairly easier.So I bought 4 tests from Pmstudy and gave the first test and I scored 78%. Wow I felt some confidence I am out of the rut of 65-70% score.

Last 10 days before the exam I spend time on making notes on all ITTOS and Knowledge area and reading PMBOK as a 3 pass. After giving 5 mock exams I concluded that I am very good in Intiating, Closing, & Professional Responsbility and Average in Planning, Executing & MnC.

So I spent my efforts on weak areas and also I would like to mention I came across a youtube link from SirGanttalot for EV Analysis and Network Analysis. I would recommend all PMP aspirants to watch this youtube link for having a stronger understanding of the above topics and also Please read from HEadfirstPMP where Network Analysis is explained very well from the exam point of view.

Finally 2 days before the exam I went through the notes I prepared and most importantly never memorised ITTO and just understood them.  And finally gave one more mock test from Pmstudy, after reading the notes prepared by me. I scored 75% but my main aim was to check how much helpful was my notes for the exam and what areas I need to add to the notes.

I felt that I should concentrated more on HR and prepared short notes.

Final day 15^th August 2011

Exam was at 10.00 Am, woke up early and studied only my notes for about 2 hrs.

The exam was very simple and questions were very tricky. 60 % of questions, I could easily elimnate the wrong answers for this I think PMBOK helped me as these question were straight from pMBOK there might be slight negligible variation. 40 % Questions were 2 line or max 4 lines (approx 10 Ques) but the answers were very tricky. It was getting difficult to pluck the right answer.

Network Analysis Question and EV Questions were quite simple ( I think I was lucky to get simple Questions on Claculations).

I came across lot of questions on HR and Risk and I recommend all our friends to read understand all HR concepts.

I could finish the exam in 3.25 mnts and spent 10 mnts on marked areas and I just changed 3 of them and frankly I didn’t have enough mental strength to go through remaining questions other than marked.

I hit the end exam and was happy to find Screen with “Congratulations”

I scored with Proficent in Planning and rest Moderate Proficent. This shows that whatever I achieved in the mock test was almost same as I achieved in the final Exam.

So friends we don’t have to panic if we don’t score 80-85% in Mock test, If we are confident that we have studied enough and if we are consitently scoring 70-75% in the mock test say approx 5 full 200 Ques Mock test we are ready for the exam.

Best Luck to all our friends………..

Cheers

Satish