Hi All!!

I've been working as a PM in a semiconductor manufacturer for six years here in Taiwan, and was interested in the PMI because even though I have a Electrical Engineering degree I am really more interested in the career path of PM that I'm following now.

I started with studying the PMBOK, and fell asleep a gazillion times.  I went through it once and couldn't handle it anymore so following advice on the net I purchased Rita's RMC and read through that twice.  Next I enrolled in the Project Management Prepcast and listen to it while I commute, and I again fell asleep a Gazillion time.  Not the fault of the podcast though becasue I usually do it on my way home and I am always dead tired after a full day of work.  

So, from the above, I learned most of the stuff through Rita's.  

Now for the mock exams.  I have Rita's Fastrack system, did the PMP and Super PMP.  I scored around 75% for PMP and 69% on Super PMP.  Next I went thorugh the head first free 200 questions and got about 80%.

I do find going though mock exams after mock exams to be the most helpful in my preparation.

Now onto the actual exam.  

The only dump I did was the sigma numbers and the formula for Point of Total Assumption. That was all.  Maybe because of my engineering background I always find when dealing with formulas you need to know the derivations and meaning behind them to be able to say you know the material well.  On the exam I didn't have much problem doing the calculations and considered them free points.

The other questions, oh boy I found them harder than Rita's PMP, and on par with Super PMP.  The questions were easier to understand compare to the SuperPMP but many times there are two answers making sense so I couldn't decide which were right at a first glance.

I find talking in my head (not to disrupt other test takers) and pretend I'm discussing with a fellow PM on which answer is correct helped me answer the questions tremendously.  You know when sometimes you just can't make a decision but figured out what to do by just talking to someone who didn't need to respond, and basically boucing off ideas to reach your decision.  It's like bouncing off ideas with your brain.  

I spent about 2.5 hours going thorugh all the questions REALLY SLOWLY (only take mini 10 second breaks to stretch or rub my eyes when I needed them), another hour going through all the marked questions (I mark any question that I am not 100% sure), and the last 30 minutes skimming thourgh all the questions.  REVIEWING QUESTIONS are important because I caught at least 10 mistakes!!!

So I clicked on the finish exam button with 30 seconds to go, heart pumping while listening to the computer HDD chugging along... only to find out that I had to do the soul crushing survey to prolong my wait.  After answering the 9 survey questions, with the computer chugging for another 10 seconds, the screen showed CONGRATULATIONS!

I was beaming and smiling ear to ear!! I got proficient on all the processes except closing where I got a MP, which was funny because during Rita's Fastrack  I always score the highest in closing.

So my experience is, studying is important, but being able to apply yourself and find the linking logic with all the subject matter is more crucial.  I really didn't study a lot, mainly going through Rita's book twice, do the mock exam as much as possible and google any terms I am not 100% sure of.  

I really enjoyed learning the knowledge, even though unfortuantely it's so far away from *my* real world :(. But, I do find this to be a valuable experience and hope I can apply the knowledges I gained to my future work.