Hi All,

Yesterday I passed PMP Certification with 4 Proficient and one Moderate Proficient (in Closing). Below is my detailed study plan and some tips

Training -

I attended one training in May'12 my company provided where I got chance to learn about entire PMP syllabus. Thought I didnt, I would recommend reading the Rita book once before attending the training to make most of the use of it. And plan to give exam within 3-4 weeks after training finishes.

Study -

I couldnt study after my training for few months and then in Oct'12,  I started preparing for exam as follow

1. Read through Rita 7th edition along with all excercise and finish excercise at the end. I could answer around 50% of questions correctly at that time. At this time, make sure to highlight important topics either in the book or seperately in your notebook. At the same time, just briefly skim through PMBOK. I used to read one chapter from Rita and then skim the same chapter through PMBOK for 20-30 minutes just to link topics accross books.

2. After this, I started reading through PMBOK line by line and understand each and every line. If required, I used to read the same chapter from Rita to understand. After one chapter finished, I used to skim through same chapter of Rita to relate what I read in PMBOK. And then move on to next chapter.

3. After this, I attempted Rita book excercise one more time. This time I score around 60%. For wrong answers, went through explaination and listed all the gaps I had on topics and then went through all the topics once from Rita.

4. Took the date after 2 weeks and then took 2 weeks vacation from work. In these two weeks I went through PMBOK once + skim through Rita (highlighted paart)

5. In last week, took 100-150 questions every day along with reading through books. Used to score roughly 65-70%. Helped a lot to remember what I read.

6. Took full 200 questions test once a day for last 3 days + few more random questions and then list down all the gaps and go through them. Also read through Anil’s ITTO notes (Excel spreadsheet) several times to remember key tools, outputs and what happens in each process.

Exam Day –

1.       Relax and take good amount of slip. In the morning read through ITTO, my weak topics (procurement and risk) and went for exam.

2.      Finished 200 questions in 3 hours. Marked 30-40 questions.

3.      Got around 10 questions requiring calculations (EV and CPM). Some of the didn’t require any calculations.

4.      Reviewed marked questions in another 30 minutes and for remaining 30 minutes, went through all questions rapidly. Could finish this for only first 100 questions.

5.      Submitted when one minute was remaining. Then got the result J

Resources –

1.      PMBOK 4^th Ed

2.      Rita 7^th Ed

3.      Tests –

Oliver’s 175 + 75 – one of the toughest but good one

Google “filetype:pdf pmp question bank” and get the PDF from website xa.yimg.com (first link mostly) which has many more questions. Could solve only 400-500 questions from that.

Farndale’s 262 questions.

PMStudy free 200 questions. Solved these on last day

4.      Websites like http://deepfriedbrainproject.com/

Tips –

1.      Be yourself.

2.      Don’t panic if you don’t know answers to many questions. Revisit them later

3.      Take breaks in between and think of something else in those breaks

4.      Take water and food. And access them in breaks

5.      Define your own strategy for the exam.

6.      Be confident that you will crack the exam. The exam is not very tough if you have all concepts cleared and read and understood PMBOK properly