Hi All,

I joined this website today exclusively to share my "PMP journey". I have been regularly reading the thoughts and tips shared by the members of this group.

I passed my exam in my first attempt this week.

To begin with I want to thank the supreme power - God, my mother, husband and 2 kids for all the valuable support they have given me all these days.

I started some time in early Oct 2011 after finishing my 35 hours contact classes on last week of Sep 2011.

With lots of work that made me stretch beyond business hours, birthdays of kids, Indian festivals liks Diwali and Dussehra, lots of visitors, illness of parents....in the past 2 months, I was hardly able to concentrate for an hour/day in the  months of Oct and Nov.

I used to first read a chapter (for e.g say Scope Management) from PMBOK, understand all tools and techniques and then follow Rita Mulcahy only to strengthen my understanding on those areas where I felt I needed more clarity. As such I didnt finish reading entire Rita Mulcahy. But I used to complete the Questions given at the end of each chapter.

From Dec 1st, I started practising questions from Q&A for PMBOK by Frank T. Anbari, PMP: Project Management Professional Exam: Review Guide by   Kim Heldman and Vanina Mangano and PMP Exam Prep: Questions, Answers, & Explanations by  Christopher Scordo. All these books are available online under ereads and reference section of PMI website. These are accessible for all members.

9 days before my exam I took one test daily from PMP Cornelius Fitchner's pmp simulator.

My scores in the first 8 tests ranged from 77-81% and the last one(exclusively ITTOs) was 96%.

I feel PMBOK is more than sufficient for this exam. Other books can be used if more clarity is needed specifically on some particular topic.

About the exam:

1. Not tough at all. Please donot panic. Thats the mantra to success. Approach with a cool mind.

2. My exam seemed to be more inclined towards Cost and Time management. I could complete my exam in 2 hrs 50 mins. I used the rest of the time for going through the marked answers.

3. No need to worry about ITTOs. There were few direct questions but believe me its very easy to eliminate the options.

4. Tuckman ladder of team development is very important.

5. There were some numerical  questions on Lead and lag, Risk, etc that I had never seen earlier. But all such instances were solvable with little presence of mind and patience.

6. Concentration is very essential to choose the right answer. Re-read the question 2-3 times if needed. Every word in the question is very precious to choose the correct answer.

One last suggestion - Please ensure you have understood all the fundamentals perfectly. Dont prepare superficially. Its very important to acquire sound knowledge to sail through this exam.

Thats all.

Believe in yourself . My best wishes to all the future aspirants.