I Passed today, May 7th!

Submitted by Iggybug on Tue, 05/08/2012 - 01:57

My Study Plan:

I had been a part of many organized study groups through my company. Due to project deadlines I was never able to stick with the weekly meetings. They did have great notes summarized for each chapter of the PMBOK and included what was not in the PMBOK as well as practice questions.

I started seriously studying in March.

Took this course Project Management Professional Certification (PMP) 4.0 (4th Ed Aligned) Expert Live with Encore @ http://www.skillsoft.com/catalog/detail.asp?CourseCode=LLPM0004

Then found PMZilla. Read a lot of posts and came across Rajesh. I reviewed his notes A LOT. Very grateful they are posted on this site for free. Extremely helpful !

Books used:

PMBOK read it once cover to cover and went back to it thoughout my studies

Rita is great and helps you get into the right perspective for the test

My company offers free access to Books 24/7 so I used the following books from that site:

PMP Exam Prep: Questions, Answers, & Explanations, 2012 Edition

by Christopher Scordo

PMP Certification All-In-One Desk Reference For Dummies

by Cynthia Stackpole

The PMP Exam Made Easy: Your 24-Hour Study Guide to Passing

by Ron Ponce and Christopher Scordo

PMP: Project Management Professional Exam Study Guide, Sixth Edition

by Kim Heldman

I also watched the Sirgantalot video's on youtube.

I studied a lot....ever spare moment. Took off every Friday in April and spent Fri., Sat. and Sunday studying.

I took a lot of the free tests but never scored myself on them. I would always answer the question and then look at what the correct answer was (if I got it wrong) so I could correct my thinking right away.

Exam day.....

I was able to keep my nerves in check. I went early and they let me go in right away. On the scrap paper provided I put down page 43 of the PMBOK and the formula's for CV/SP/CPI/SPI/EAC/ETC/VAC/TCPI & PTA.

The exam was difficult but I there were a lot of questions that I knew I had the correct answer to. There were a fair amount of ITTO questions but I could figure them out from the question and where it was in the process. I didn't not memorized the ITTO's but I did understand them. The questions I had a hard time with were network diagram questions. There were a lot of them and I wasn't expecting that. I didn't get any questions on PTA. Only 1 questions where I had to use the communication channels formula. No questions were I had to do PERT or SD. Also no questions on ethics or code of conduct. The bulk of the questions were of course situational. Also a fair amount on Risk and Quality. I finished the 200 questions and had only 20 minutes for review. I never got up from my chair the entire 4 hours (the time actually flew by). I had marked a lot of questions and knew I did not have the time to go back over all that I had marked. The clock ended and the screen went white. I closed my eyes and said a prayer. Then the survey popped up on the screen which I wasn't expecting. I went through the 9 questions about the testing site then another white screen. Covered my eyes and said another prayer and then opened my eyes to see CONGRATULATIONS!