It’s a great pleasure to announce that I have passed my pmp exam yesterday. I had started my application process almost a year ago. Had some hiccups in the middle but in late September this year, somehow I managed to prepare myself for the exam and finally I scheduled the exam on Nov 26^th, but unfortunately I could not clear it. My eligibility period was expiring on Dec 30^th; therefore I had to rush for the second attempt so I scheduled the exam again on 18^th and passed with average level.

I could not actively participate in this forum due to the ban that was inadvertently imposed on me by admin and I couldn’t figure out what was the reason and why was it. However, I am writing to let admin know that this message is appearing when I am trying to login to pmzilla website. “The user name is registered using a reserved e-mail address and therefore could not be logged in”.

Anyway, I wanted to share this news so I registered again with another email address today and finally I got the access back to the website. Now, I would like to express my gratitude to all people who supported me anonymously in this form. I am writing this LL because I owe a lot to this forum. I have acquired a great knowledge about the project management and learnt numerous tricks for the exam on this forum. Indeed, huge number of zilla supporters are contributing here; however few people e.g. projmanpro, saket and some other fellows; I don’t recall their names right now, they are extremely valuable members on this forum and they are extremely helpful too. I have noticed that few other members are doing great job in responding and providing detailed answers to any type of queries. So it’s an ongoing process people come and go and new people replace them and they take their places and this process keeps going.

Now I come to the point that how I prepared for my exam study. Actually, I attended a 3 credit course of project management back in 2006 and have had couple of project management certificates to fulfill the 35 PDU requirements. Since I had already acquired 35 PDUs therefore I didn’t get any opportunity to take any new course so basically I did my own study without joining any person or group. I utilized all free resources and free tests from different sites. I did use help from other forums as well, especially got good help from deepfriedbrainproject.com to understand PERT and other math related questions. By the way, a free ebook with a title “Mastering the PMP Calculations” from testeagle.com is available in pdf format for download that covers almost all EVM questions with good explanation. Also, on PMI.org website, plenty of free materials are available in members only area so I chose especially Christopher Scordo and did last 5 mock tests to narrow down my gaps. Read PMBOK few times but not in one shot, though. Yes I did read rita and kim heldman to understand the hidden concepts of PMBOK. I didn’t attend any lecture or watch any video on youtube for the preparation.

Exam was tough for me since my preparation was not that great. Anyway I got almost 10-15 EVM, CPI, SPI type questions. I did all of them good except for couple because they were more trickily worded. Also critical path and network diagram questions with dependencies, I could not understand one question well. Also I got mixed of HR, Risk and quality related questions, but no communication channels or PTA based question. Few contract type questions and rest were more situational based from different areas. Yes I did get 3-4 direct ITTO type questions as well. I memorized page 43 but it was also imprinted on my mind during the exam so didn’t use it at all, even though I had practiced and copied the same during 15 minutes tutorial time. I didn’t memorize ITTOs but tried to understand the logical relationship; few were mixing in my mind during the exam like which one is for which K.A because literally they are too many.

In general, my whole pmp journey was enormous. My advice to new aspirants is, please understand the logical flow, understanding PMIsms are extremely important, clear your concepts before writing this exam and memorize necessary things including formulas. Indeed you have to use combination of both of these to pass this exam. When you logically understand, it means that you are memorizing it as well. In my opinion answering the situational questions requires that you must know the sequence of 42 processes and to know which knowledge area and process group they belong to. It’s a risky thing if you appear in the exam without proper preparation the chances are you won’t pass it as I did in my first attempt. I guess people fail not because of lack of project management knowledge; they fail because they do not follow the approach what is described in the PMBOK. If you are well prepared of course you can hit the target quiet easily like other dudes here when they share their LL they normally pass with 3Ps or sometimes with 5Ps, WOW!!!

Lastly, I wish everyone (especially seniors) please continue to contribute in this forum and provide your expert opinions continuously for new pmp aspirants. If I can be of any help, pls do not hesitate to contact me here and I will be pleased to answer your queries, if possible.

Sincerely,

A.H