I passed PMP exam yesterday with 5 MP and here is my LL.

Study duration: Planned for 2 months - 19 Sep to 19 Nov. however only managed 1 month study. Almost 2-3 hrs study for 20 days and serious study of last 9 days approx 12 hrs daily.

Study Material: PMBOK and Rita M.

Test Questions: 500 questions of Rita M out of 1400 and 400 Questions of Christopher S out of 900 (Free for PMI members) with explanations for gap analysis (could not do all as did not have much time)

Simulation exam: Exam Central 82% and 1 PMstudy exam (free) scored 78% 2 days before the exam 

Strategy: memorized as well as understood the logic of 42 processes on page 43 of PMBOK and all formulas. Took the print out of all ITTOs given in PMBOK first page of each KA and put them on the big sheet with each I/P and O/P and saw how they are flowing in and out. E.g. when PMP and PM doc are/not updated, flow of WPI and PM reports etc.  Key was to understand how processes are interacting each other.

On exam day: put all the 42 processes and math formulas on sheet with in 12 min. I was surprised to see that approx 30% of the questions were straight and simple and 20-25% questions were 3 to 4 lines long. Approx 20-25 questions were wordy and had long choices to read but the logic was straight but need to have understanding of key words. I had no clue of approx 10 questions so I chose the answers on the go as don’t want to waist time they might be from 25 validation questions.  Approx 70% were like “what will you do” and “what will you do next” and surprised to see that very few was based on “Not”, “Except” or “Least”(Good for me). Close to 15 numericals and not very straight though. I utilized all 4 hrs.

Conclusion: I found it close to PMstudy simulation exam. Language, terminologies and definitions were exactly from PMBOK; so key is to refer only PMBOK as your main book however other books help you to understand the concept with better examples and over all project management in real world. On PMBOK, run a search on “example” and go thru one by one and will be useful to get few questions correct. Refer the Glossary and definitions of PMBOK it will help you to understand the key terms and will help to eliminate wrong choices and get few more questions correct. So overall I reckon if you can go thru at least 1000+ questions with explanations and 3-4 mock tests with 70 to 75+ score you can pass the exam. After all it is a philosophy exam with memorization + understanding of 42 processes, ITTOs and few math formulas J

Special thanks to PMZILLA and especially the LL section and PMP materials which helped me a lot to prepare swiftly in a short time. It is just awesome and very useful. Three cheers!!

Thanks

Kapil Kumar