Hi,

    I am very happy to share that I passed the PMP certification last evening. I want to first thank my God - Jesus Christ for giving me strength and endurance to pull through this phase.

I wish to share some tips that I used and found helpful,

Study Material

1. First I read Head First to give a good overview of the PMP - this gives an easy reading, use this if you want to know what is on the PMP


2. I then bought Rita book and this is very helpful - refer to the Tips and Tricks, i found this very helpful especially Rita's process chart and the creative exercises which make you think into real life project management scenarios.


3. PMBOK guide - this is the bible of PMI , I read this very detailed about  4-5 times and just skimmed through this in the last week.

Tests : Once I felt comfortable I started with a lot of tests to identify my gaps and this did show a lot of gaps.

I did chapter wise tests from PMRoadTrip (this site is no longer available) , PMPrepare, besides Rita Exam Prep.  For entire practise tests I used

1. PmStudy.com  (this is good but free test is limited to 50 users per day)


2. Edwel


3. EffectivePMC (I found this a little tough)


4. Head First Final Exam


5. Andy Cove Final Exam


6. Oliver Lehmann (175Q) -- I found these are tougher than the exam , a good read.


7. Rita Examp prep - pocket book


8. PMBOK Q&A (I found this on Books 24 by 7)

I started tests and monitoring my scores last 25 days before the exam date. Devoted 2 hours to studying daily on weekdays and 4-5 hours on weekends for tests and gap analysis. It took me time to identify the time when I am most alert and performance peaks - once that was figured out , it was easy. I tried to study and answer tests at the same time as the exam slot so that i would get into the proper focus.

One thing the preparation taught me was to balance life with study and to apply , so take time to relax and de-stress yourself. I would go for a 30 -45 walk/ jog.

Tips I followed for the last week: I focussed only on my gaps only and the day before the exam I referred to Rita's process chart and only the formuals.  Got a good nights sleep and went for the exam.

Exam was good - i finished it in 2 and 1/2 hours , good test of knowledge. I used the first 15 minutes to do a brain dump of all formulae , The 42 processes,  motivation theories and Quality individuals.

I hope my experience will help some of you. I found it very helpful reading PMZilla forums and I referred to lot of questions and answers from PMZilla.  Good luck and pass the PMP

Warm Regards

Emlyn,