Hi All,

 

I am glad to share the news that i have passes PMP yesterday. Overall the experience has been good, if not better.

I have been studying for the exam for a little over 2 months and this is all i would say, it may take anyone who has a working knowledge of project management to pass the exam.

 

A little about myself:

I am a project manager with one of the top 5 Indian IT industry in India, working out of Chennai office. I have 15+ years of experience in this industry.

 

The Exam:

I booked my slot at 8.00 AM on Dec 10, 2012. The prometric center was close by, a mere 15 minutes’ drive from my place. I visited this place the day before to make sure i am at right place and also to ascertain how long i could delay my start from my home and still reach the place at correct (safer) time with some contingency. (PMP kind-of thinking).

 

The evening before the test day, i just glanced through the highlighted texts of HR, Communications, Quality, Risk and Procurement management from Rita’s PMP Exam Prep book that I had marked for final review.

 

On the test day, i got up at 5.00 AM (infact i couldnt sleep the entire night, feeling nervous). I quickly glanced through the first two chapters from Rita’s PMP Exam Prep. I reached the center at around 7.40 AM. The staff at the center was courteous and took around 20 mins to get my credentials validated, security-checked, procedures completed and get the system allocated to me. I was allocated a locker, where i dumped my belongings.

 

I was given scrap book, 2 pencils and a rubber before i entered the hall. I was given a quick brief on rules and regulations of Prometric center by the invigilator. She then led me to the room and to my seat. The ear muff was already available at my seat and was relieved to see it.

 

I hit the start button in my computer saw the 15 mins instruction screen. I took this time to write out the following:

 

1. All cost formulas

2. The table having process areas categorized across process groups.

 

i had only less than 2 minutes to go when i had to quickly go through the instructions (9 screens) and clicked next, launching the first of the 200 questions that i had to "Confront".

 

Due to some reasons, (perhaps the pressure on me to pass the exam on the first attempt), i could not concentrate on the questions fully to answer them. I was taking more time to read through and answer. Infact, i took about 1.5 hours to answer the first 80 questions, which i did at a stretch before taking the first break. A big mistake that I realized sooner. I think, i saw many problem-based questions before my first break.

 

i took about 7 minutes during my first break (i had something to much and drank water) and re-entered the hall with the usual security check by the invigilator. This time, i regained my lost focus and started answering much faster than before. I felt the questions were pretty straight-forward, with answers literally jumping out of the choices presented. Thanks to the mock tests.

 

a) There were at least 20 problems asked during the exam in areas such as cost, time and procurement management put together. I was confident that i had answered at least 16 of them correctly, guessing the remaining ones. I still feel ashamed that I had to fumble on those 4 questions, despite devoting time in my preparation for problem-based questions.

 

b) I remember, i was struggling to get one of these questions on Estimate at Completion, which was not kind of straight forward and another question on lead time available that required to calculate forward and backward pass to arrive at the answer.

 

"Marking" for Review:-

My second break came with last 1 hour to spare, when i had completed 152 questions. But there was a challenge ahead. I had "marked" a couple of questions (at least 30 in numbers) to be reviewed later. Among these "marked" questions, i did not select any choice for about 8-10 such questions and the rest MARKED with selection.

 

This is a big learning which i wanted to share with you all. I strongly suggest you to select some answer (making an educated guess), even though you do not know the answer for sure and then "MARK" them for review later. In this way, if you were running short of time (this happened to me), you made sure that you had NOT left any question unattended or feel stressed out answering the questions during review.

 

I took only 3 minutes during my second break and came back to answer the last 48 questions. I was at my peak concentration this time and answered till 192 questions with 25 minutes to spare. I took 15 minutes to complete the last 10 questions, as i had to spend some time on one of these questions on EAC and spent at least 3-4 minutes trying to get the right answer. Then i took a guess finally and finished the rest with only 9 minutes to spare.

 

So now you know what is the best way to do while "Marking" for review. I took about 6 minutes to go through all those 8-10 questions that i had "Marked" without selection. I continued to verify my answers for the remaining items. I realized that i had marked around 30 questions, many of them in my first 80 questions (where i took most of the time - a big mistake). i could not review my last 10 "Marked" questions (but fortunately selected) and the time went off. The screen went WHITE for some time.

 

I then saw feedback screens before i hit "End" and the screen went "WHITE" for a while again. i just closed my eyes reliving my last few days of preparation. Then i opened the screen to see "CONGRATULATIONS....". I felt a great relief and my heart beat softened.

 

My breakup by Process Areas:

1. Initiating - Moderately proficient

2. Planning - Proficient

3. Executing - Moderately proficient

4. Monitoring & Control- Below proficient

5. Closing -Moderately proficient

 

 

 

Setting expectation:

 

Let me first confess that i have not been reading consistently for PMP exam preparation. Infact i did not have a proper timetable as such. I just had a big picture (i would like to call it - a Milestone), where i decided, come what may - i will finish reading these chapters in these materials or take up these many mock exams before this date (a deadline).

Infact, i wanted to clear the exam as early as possible and hence was not keen on hitting the usual recommendation by many exam takers that one has to get atleast 80% in mock tests to confidently book the exam date. But i had a gameplan that made me confident that i could pass the exam on my first attempt.

 

The gameplan was simple and decided on the following:

 

(1) I am not aiming to understand each and every process groups explained in PMBOK, but will make attempt to remain familiar with it. This means, i will have to go through the PMBOK in its entirety, at least once.

 

(2) I am not aiming to score "Proficient" in all the 5 PROCESSES AREAS in the real exam, but attempt sincerely to be in the "Moderately proficient" category. This means, i was not aiming for 80% + in my mock exams but was targeting rather a range between 70%-80% in the real exam.

 

(3) I will highlight some of these texts in PMBOK, whenever i take a mock test that tests a specific knowledge, where i have a gap in understanding. I will go through these highlighted texts during my review.

 

(4) I will not attempt to memorize ITTO, but would just read/glance through those, where i go wrong in my mock exams. In this way, i kept repeating certain ITTO and i could recognize quickly when i was tested with those questions again.

 

(5) I drew a list of mock exams that i have to take before i take the real exam. But i had to prune this list later and did not take some of these exams at all, but still felt i was in a good shape to go. (I have given my recommendations for mock exams below).

 

(6) When i went through many of the posts here, i found one thing said most often. That it is important to practice as many mock tests as possible to get used to test-taking environment.

 

I would also like to add that you will get familiar with some question patterns and their typical "PMI" way of responses. This will help you to spot out such answers when asked in the real exam.

 

So let me repeat - watch out for "QUESTION-RESPONSE PATTERN" for such situational questions that you encounter in your mock tests. Understanding them will go a long way to answer situational questions in real exam.

 

Study Materials:

 

I just used 2 books for my preparation:

 

(1) PMBOK

(2) PMP Exam Prep, Rita Mulcahy, 6th edition

(3) Head-first PMP (i started off initially, but abandoned)

 

·         I solely kept my focus on PMBOK. I gave a full reading of PMBOK once and then started taking mock tests. I started the highlighting all those important texts that the mock exams were testing.

·         I did not study the entire book of PMP Exam Prep from Rita's. I just used it to go through selective topics and the questions behind those process groups.

 

Mock exams:

While i have published my exhaustive list of mock exams below, i took the following tests only.

 

1.Exam Central - http://www.examcentral.net/pmp/pmp-exam-questions     (good one, i liked it)

2.Simplilearn  - http://www.simplilearn.com  (Good one)

3.PMP Study - www.pmpstudy.com  (This is the closest to what the real exam would look like)

4.PMP 24X7 Books online – PMP Exam Prep – Christopher Scardo

You will have access to this resource only if you are a PMI member.). I took about 17/18 mock tests, each test having 50 questions. I took these tests with 15 days to go before the real exam. These tests boosted my confidence for my exam prep.I would attribute a significant part of my success to these mock tests.

 

My recommended list of mock exams:

 

1.       http://www.simplilearn.com/simplilearn/?a_aid=PMPChamp

2.       www.examcentral.net/

3.       http://www.pmstudy.com/PMP-Exam-Resources/freeSimulatedTest.asp

4.       http://www.pmhub.net/wp/

5.       http://www.pmperfect.com/

6.       http://headfirstlabs.com/PMP/free_exam/

7.       http://www.pmchamp.com/free-3day-pmp-simulator

8.       http://www.voightps.de/Free_PMP_Exam.asp

9.       http://www.techfaq360.com/pmp_4thedition.jsp

10.   http://pmzilla.com/pmzilla-final-pmp-exam-pmp

11.   http://www.pmpnotes.com

12.   **Farndale Sample PMP Questions – free PDF download (http://procept.com/guide.html )

13.   PMP 24X7 Books online – PMP Exam Prep – Christopher Scardo

14.   http://www.tutorialspoint.com  (Sample questions - 150 part and 200 part available)

15.   http://www.pm-prepare.com/sbmple/showQuestion.asp?donelist=0%2C26026%2C23129%2C22064%2C25%2C7075&focus=&value=&QSeq=3025&try=1&iLang=0

**http://www.oliverlehmann.com/contents/free-downloads/175_PMP_Sample_Questions.pdf

**http://www.oliverlehmann.com/pmp-self-test/75-free-questions.htm

 

Final Points:

While it makes sense to say that experienced project managers can handle the exam pretty well, I would not discount the fact that the way the PMBoK recommends project managers to manage their projects may not match entirely your real world experience of project management world.

 

I wanted to say these 2 things about how you could relate your experiences with Process mentioned in PMBOK.

 

1. For those process groups or process where you don’t have significant experience, try to learn and understand PMBoK way of doing those things. You could imagine a fictitious situation while dealing with the process group or probably a situational question that you faced in the mock-exam, to remember them.

You could make a small flow charts or diagrams to help you remember a sequence of thought flow, while reading the ITTO of a process group. In this way, you would not fall into unnecessary traps that the exam throws at you, leaving you puzzled, even for a simple situation.

 

2. For those areas, where you have hands-on experience, you make best use of your prior experience and check with PMBOK recommended solution to see if you are on right track. If not, you may need to align yourself by reformatting your thought process with PMBOK's best practices.

 

In sum, what i strongly recommend is to align your thinking and reasoning with PMBoK way of project management.

 

Thanks for reading through my long post.

My best wishes to you all in your exam prep.

 

Cheers.