Hi,

I am a silent reader of pmzilla.com and other several websites about PMP.

I started my PMP preperation in February 2013. Initially, I did not prepare for the exam very rigorously, but then I started spending about 3 hours a day.

Below is what I have followed.

1. Read PMBOK first time.

2. Purchased Project Management Prepcast material and watched the videos.

3. Read PMBOK second time.

4. Obtained Edwel's Project Management Prep Text book and read it once.

5. Tried all mock questions from the Project Management Test Bank site https://sites.google.com/site/pgmpguide/. I tracked down my answers and correct answers in a spread sheet and took the notes where the answers were incorrect.

6. Read PMBOK third time.

7. Tried the 175 mock questions from Oliver Lehmann. Search for "pmp exam questions oliver lehmann" in google and the second link will be the pdf for the questions. I felt these questions are tough.

8. Tried the head first PMP exam.

9. Downloaded several PMP notes spread sheet from pmzilla and referred them several times. One of the most important document that I used is the "Anil Tanguturis PMP Formulae cheat sheet".

10. Signed up with PMI and submitted the PMP Exam application form.

11. Application got approved and I paid the exam fee.

12. My application was seleted for PMI's audit process. I had already informed by Project Manager about the exam, so he was aware of it. I printed out the project experience document and got the endorsement from my manager. Also included my degree certificate and 35 hours contact training certificate from PM Prepcast. Submitted the audit package to PMI in a week. Within 2 days, I got a note from PMI saying that audit package has been approved.

13. Tried the PMBOK again, but this time I did some reverse engineering while studying. Whenever I read a statement from PMBOK, I tried to make out a question from it. For ex, When I read a statement like "Stakeholder influences, risk, uncertainty are greatest at the start of the project" (Page 17, PMBOK V4), I tried to make out the question as "When is the stakeholder influences, risk uncertainty are greatest". This reverse engineering method helped enormously in my studies.

14. After finishing this, I realized that I was still missing some "connections". I knew what are the various conflict resolution techniques, but, if all of a sudden when some one asks under which knowledge area the conflict resolution method comes, I was stumbled for a second to figure out that it is under Manage Project Team. So, I tried to collect similar topics and grouped them under process groups/knowledge areas and revised them.

15. Attended the exam on Jun 10, 2013. I was able to complete the exam in 3 hours and I spent the last hour in reviewing the answers. After finishing the survey, I got a message with congratulations.

These are my lessons learnt and I hope this will be useful for atleast a few.

Thanks