Hi,

happy to announce that I passed PMP exam today. How did I do it?

Preparation:

I wanted to gain this certificate for last 2 years, but I never found time to do it until summer 2010. I started with preparing in July 2009 (one month, app. 6 hours a day - I was starting my maternaty leave so I had time), then I did few month break (baby :)) and then refresshed and proceed from middle of November 2010 until now (due to fammily obligations it was slow, in between 1-3 hours per day).

Materials, that I used: 

books: PMPBOK, Rita's book

Exams that I took with scores (from 2nd iteration):

Below are the exams that are relevant for the exam (I took also some other free on-line tests, but following I think are good ones):

• Oliver's 75 free PMP questions 84%


• Oliver's 175 free PMP questions 79%


• Rita - PM FASTrack Example exam 80%


• Rita's questions in the book - 78%


• PM Study free exam (full) 77%


• PM Study exam 2 73%


• http://www.edwel.com/edwel-blog/pmp-free-practice-questions.html 70%


• http://www.preparepm.com/mock1.html 84%


• PMZilla Tough 25 Questions 60%

I used also Google for all the terms that were not familiar to me.

Exam:

I won't describe how exam technically looked like, since there are several other descriptions. It is exactly like other says :). I just want to say, that it was not easy, but also not difficult: something in the middle. If you read the PMBOK good, if you know all the content, if you understand it, and if you have also real life experiences, it is not so hard.I must agree with other people who are saying that PMStudy questions are very like real exam questions - I think more than Rita's, although Rita is also very good.

Some advices that I would like to emphasise: 

1. Read PMBOK at least 2 times carefully. It is not as interesting reading as Rita, but it is on exam. Understad it very good.

2. Read one of preparation books (I choosed Rita). From many of them in the marked, select one or two most popular (probably they are popular for reason...) and stick with them. Don't read to many books, and understand excellent those that you choose .

3. Don't let the forums scare you... :)

4. Take only good - verified on-line test (among tons of them).

At the end: PMZilla forum helped me a lot with getting the information how the exam looks like (lessons learned) and links to valuable PMP exams and materials. It is the best forum regarding PMP exam as I have found.

Now I have my evenings back :)

Good luck to to-become-PMP's and KR.