Hello All,

I passed my PMP exam earlier today after taking a "Useless" bootcamp and then putting in 6 weeks of my own style of intense studying. It all started when I got approved to take a (10 hour per day) 4 day bootcamp which I thought after finishing would put me to a positon to PASS the exam with flying colors...After the 2nd day of listening to the instructor fly through the material I realized this was a complete WASTE of time and was glad I didn't pay for it. I told myself I would need to buckle down and buckle down hard to get this done the right way. After the last day of class I felt somewhat alone and decided to search the internet for a site with other folks who are planning to take or have taken the PMP exam. I stumbled upon this site and am glad that I did, the experiences, tips, tricks and "lessons learned" : )  are invaluable...so Thanks!

Now back to my study plan..For starters I obtained the Rita M. 6th edition book but never read it cover to cover I just did the practice questions in each chapter and repeatedly read and understood each answer whether right or wrong and referenced each topic /answer in the PMbok guide which I read cover to cover 1 time (oh yeah I got a free copy of the PMbok guide with the class...Hooray for that). I did the same for a number of other tests (free) found on several sites - PMstudy, Oliver, Simpli_Learn, HeadFirst, and a couple others here and there, after I started averaging 75 - 80% correct. I also forced myself to memorize all the formulas and pg 43 and would do daily dumps of this information and try to list the ITTOs each time (I had a lot of paper all over the place after doing this for weeks, but it worked). After following this routine for 4 - 5 hours a day and longer on weekends I scheduled the exam a week prior.

On exam day I was a complete wreck and could not find a reason why. After sitting for my exam and starting the tutorial I was able to dump pg. 43 and the formulas in under 10 minutes which gave me sometime to jot done a couple other items I may need to reference during exam. As many have said and I can confirm is true the exam is far from EASY but definetely not HARD. You MUST and I Stress MUST understand HOW, WHEN, WHY and WHERE to use and apply different methods, processes etc....Just understanding definitions will not CUT it. To me it seemed as though the exam was geared to take each test-taker through an emotional roller-coaster so DO NOT get SWAYED by 1 -2 TOUGH questions..Keep in  MIND you WILL NOT answer every questioin correctly and those that you think you know the answer for BE SURE. Those that you do not, use a process of elimination, best guess and just move on. After eventually following these steps myself I completed the exam with 30 minutes remaining and was more of a wreck than when I started : )....After seeing the word CONGRATULATIONS I felt like a balloon that had all the air let out of it. : )... ....CISSP here I come!!

Bob, PMP, ITILv3, CCNA, CCNA-V, CCNA-S, MCSA