Hello Friends,

I am a data architect in my company, but took PMP on to hone my skills in project management. Based on what I had heard, PMP offered a lot of fundamental base knowledge that could be used for project management regardless if you are an architect who manages resources or if you are a PM. The other PMP benefit I see is that it is core knowledge that can be applied to any industry be it construction, manufacturing, Pharma, IT etc. These fundamentals are priceless and will surely serve me in the future.

So here's where I start. After I took the 35 hrs mandatory class and hearing words like Initiating, Planning, sequence, order, risk,Procurement etc I was initially put off. But as I started learning of them I began to realize how each Knowledge area and Process group has a purpose and use. The ITTO also started making sense conceptually. However be it any subject I am not a fan of memory jogging, rather use mnemonics to remember concepts in memory. I started my own ways of connecting these to the information. I started trolling forums and realized the popular websites and books like scordo, lehmann, pmp head start etc. Like everyone else I gave these tests and got fair numbers in return. I set my date for the test 11 July 2014. Then came the news that I had to visit India for a wedding of my niece which had got preponed because of various reasons. I was confident I would not change my date, but lot of pressure from my sister and there was only once choice available in the prometric test center for today 8 AM. I booked the slot and moved my exam 3 weeks but it turned blessing. I worked like I have never before in my life to balance office work, personal life and studies,. For the past 1 month my life has been like a interstate traffic jam. However I made sure I never missed running outside which I love and also visited friends. I just shortened the durations of pleasure activities. That way PMP did not take over my life. However last 2 weeks I have been breathing just RITA and PMBOK nothing else period

Now to the exam. Like I mentioned I used PMBOK and RITA and supplemented them with youtube, google search, scordo and various books that I could get a hand on for more detail through safaribooksonline (which is free for me from my company). I have given a lot of tests and this one did not surprise me. The test is NOT a memory retention exercise or how many practise tests you take from internet money making machines. It is rather a test of understanding and for that I applaud PMP. So basically DONT waste your time mugging and rattling each KA and ITTO, its useless. Dont applaud how well you do on Lehmann or any other test you take because the real one not going be the same. Rather try to understand what each Input and Output means, even what EEF and OPA actually is. What does the concept mean is more important than proving you are a parrot or a good test taker who can eliminate choices and somehow pass. Believe me that is really true. So what would you do? Go back to your books and read each chapter and try to understand what the concepts mean and why. Apply these and try to make sense of each word. I think Rita is on right track. Her books make sure you understand why you selected option A or B...In my test, First off the first 50 questions for me was like I was ready to give up. Not happy with any answers and not confident at all. I almost thought to walk away and reset my next exam date and then it slowly started changing, the questions got easier a bit, earned value calcs came in and I started getting answers right. Thats just me though some test takers dont like math. I think I got all my math questions. ALL earned value questions were not straight fwd. Either graphs or robustly worded paragraphs for interpretation. There are a lot of quality questions, a few procurement but all in all my exam was heavy into initiating and planning. None of the questions are simple, all of them are scenario based and it takes forever to understand what is being asked. With the clock ticking that is not good. Still I just backed myself and trusted my instinct. I started picking up the pace and remarkably finished answering 200 Q in 3 hrs. That left me 1 hrs to go over marked Q's (22) and other debatable answers. I could go over 88 questions in my second pass and worst of all I changed some answers. Still I ran out of time. So basically 4 hrs went like 40 minutes. I have never sat 4 hrs without eating drinking or watching my iphone :) all of us are guilty. So one exercise I did at home was shut off my phone while studying..no FB, Whatsapp, email, news ...nothing. Just study and commitment

Good luck to you all in your endeavor. I am out of this exam journey, but I am confident to take on these real life situations with this ground knowledge. Any questions pls ask.

Cheers