TOPIC: Passed PMI-ACP with all Above Target (31-Dec 2019)

Today I have passed the PMI-ACP with Above-Target on each section.
I am summarizing my study and preparation plan for rest of the PMI-ACP aspirants, hope it helps.

Total preparation time – more than 6 months, studying on and off due to work load.
Actual Preparation for the exam – 2 months, Study 2 hours a night, 3 hours during weekends.

Study/Preparation materials –
Book: PMI-ACP Exam Prep, Updated Second Edition by Mike Griffiths
Online training: Udemy, PMI-ACP Exam Prep for PMBOK 6 by Joseph Phillips
Exam Simulation: PMI-ACP Exam Simulator by The PM PrepCast

How did I start?
1. Read the Exam Prep book, cover to cover and taking notes of new knowledges.
2. Complete online training to achieve the PDU.
3. Review the Exam Prep book and prepare my own summary notes. Which makes 470++ pages books to 67pages notes.
4. Sit for Exam simulator’s full exam once and achieved average of 70%.
5. Review each exam and grasp the idea why the question is wrong or right.
6. After reviewing all 4 exams, start time-based quizzes, 40-60 question everyday for 2 weeks. It helped me to setup my Agile mindset, find the knowledge gaps and understanding the Agile practices in different scenarios. During the review, score was quite high as most of the questions are reused from the 4 preparation exams.

How was the actual PMI-ACP Exam?
I wasn’t expecting same questions from the exam simulator but comparable scenarios, and I was right. The Simulator exams setup the mindset to find the right answer for the question. As I am not a native English speaker, it took me full 3hours to complete the whole exam allowing me to review 4-5 flagged questions.

2 Cents from my side –
1. Make your own notes and do mind mapping.
2. Understand tools how it works and where to use, rather than memorizing the names.
3. Exam simulator is good enough for understanding and having a good feeling of the real exam question’s scenarios.
4. Only sit for the exam when you feel confident that you will pass. Trust me during exam, it was very difficult for me to guess whether I will pass or fail the exam until completed the whole 120 sets of questions.
5. Mikes Book is a very good resource, practice the questions from there to clear your understanding.
6. Some questions are very brief and vague, need to review the answers first to understand what the questions really asking for.
7. When reading the question, first try to identify the stage of the event. For example, try to find the scenario when its happening, during Agile chartering, Release planning, Iteration planning, during iteration, review or retrospective. If can identify the right moment, then its easy to answer the question as we know the tools, do and don’t etc.

Thank you PrepCast Team for your wonderful job and insipring us to go for PMI-ACP.

Well done on your success!