Hey Everyone,

I passed my PMP certification on Feb 26 2012. Being a reader for a few months, it is now my turn to post and share my experience.

- I decided in December, that I would take the test in January and kept moving the date until there was no more to move!! Feb 26 was when my eligibility expired! I had about a week and a half to prepare. Not enough time!

- Started skimming through Rita's book and PMBOK around 13th Feb. I did some general reading prior to that and memorized these: Formulas, Process groups, Knowledge areas and processes, so basically formulas and page 43 on the PMBOK guide. I did not do anything that would qualify me to take the exam or even close.

- Starting Feb 18^th, I read all of Rita’s book start to end in the order of difficulty she listed and took notes. I did cram some chapters like HR and communication out of order just to make progress. Also did all the quiz sections after reading and taking notes with an average of 70%. This took me 3 FULL days to get done. I thought it would take me a day and a halfJ.  Once this was done, I skimmed through PMBOK. –Wrote down the memorized Knowledge areas and process groups and formulas at least once a day.

- Practiced a lot of problems (EV, Network, Communication, Procurement etc) and re-skimmed through Rita’s book and my notes. In the end I only used the notes I took from her book (it was nothing more than writing what’s in the book, no special techniques). This way, I could cover a chapter and its key points in about 15 minutes per chapter.

- Took the Head Frist full test - 76%. Took Rita’s Super PMP and got 55%. Having a good understanding of the material and getting a bad score is not fun. I went through all 200 explanations.  It was already 1 day before the exam and I was not going to try the test again. I did a couple of short tests on Rita’s with an average of 70%. Also, I did not memorize ITTO. I tried, but couldn’t do it. I was really nervous about the test and was looking through PMZilla for insight :P … when I saw this really nice article http://pmzilla.com/passed-pmp-20feb-2012   by veerapan that made me laugh about Rita’s questions/answers. After reading this, I knew I was going to pass the exam J

- My test was scheduled for 8 AMJ. I spent 14 minutes of the initial tutorial to Brain Dump. Formulas and PMBOK page 43 (useful for at least 5-10 questions). Test time ... and after the first few questions, I knew I was going to pass. After about 50 questions, I was really sure what the answers were. I marked about 15 questions, and most of them were math problems. With about 20 minutes to spare, I clicked finish. The screen went white for 2 minutes and my heart was POUNDING! After skipping the survey, I saw CONGRATULATIONS!! J Here are my results

Initiating – Proficient

Plan – Proficient

Execute - Proficient

Monitor and Control - Proficient

Close – Below Proficiency – Go figure!! J

Super happy to be a PMP! J