TOPIC: Passed, first time, 3 AT

Hi all, after a convenient decompression since my examination, I'd like share my experience with the PMP examination.

1) the more the books you study, the better. I've started with the PMBOK, sixth edition, but I found it quite difficult to go through. May be I was expecting a comprehensive introduction to the world of project management, but I found it to be a huge bullet-oriented powerpoint-like document. I therefore resorted to study 2 other books in addition, an Italian one (Martinati - Caccamese / Professione project Manager) and the O'Really Head First PMP - A friendly guide by J. Green and A. Stellman. On the last week I spent some time deeping my knowledge on the Rita Mulcahy PMP Exam Preparation 10th edition, which I found to be quite aligned with how I expected the PMBOK to be.
2) There's no way you can prepare for the exam just by reserving some hours during the week. I started this way, but after some time I realized i was going nowhere. Sure, I took a lot of notes from studying, but there was simply no way to fix them in my memory. I'm 44 and my job can be very challenging, therefore a couple of days after reviewing the material information in my head were simply gone. Things changed dramatically when I decided to study everyday, at lest 2 to 3 hours every day
3) practice auto-compassion. There's no point in being frustrated if things do no stick in your head. As a mindfulness-based exercise, just observe and learn. Yes, it can be quite frustrating, but if you're studying while working and taking care of your family, expecting to be a super hero could be.. well.. like asking too much.
4) reserve some time out of work the days before the examination to decompress and practice in wearing the pmi hat for the examination. You could be quite experienced in the matter, but I realized the exam is asking for a somehow different approach.
5) practice the simulation exam at least 2-3 times: 180 questions can be quite challenging especially the multiple choices because you can get 2 out of 3 corrects.. and yet score a zero!
6) expect the following scenarios. You read the question, you read the answers provided and:
6.1) answers are quite unrelated to the questions, like if they took a question and provided you with the answers of another question.
6.2) answers looks all correct, but you only need to choose one
6.3) anwers looks all somehow wrong
6.4) some terms shows up you're not confident with and since you are not allowed to have a dictionary, you need to figure out by the context or wait for divine intervention
I really like to thank Mr. Stan Po for preparing me to these scenarios the moment I resorted to the "live feedback" functionality. Best way to deal with these scenarios in my opinion are the following techniques:
- do not rely on just a simulator. I mean, Prepcast in my opinion is really worth the money but it happened to me that after having a consolidated 80-90% both on exam and single test, to end up with a 50-60% on RMC and a creepy 50% on the PMI official one. Before you mention, yes, on the prepcast simulator I paid attention in selecting "unanswered ones" as much as possibile. I found the prepcast simulator to be the best tool in order to consolidate things I studied on the pmbok, while RMC helped in reasoning and deepening them. PMI simulator I found useful to scare you to death because it was no longer about testing the knowledge, rather, it was about testing the pmi hat. I disagreed with most of answers, and I really felt i was going to be unsuccessful beyond repair
- remind you've got to choose between the answer you've been provided with. everytime I found myself on the 6.1 scenario, I realized I was pursuing my personal answer rather than choosing the best one among the ones provided. Well, unluckily (or luckily, it depends!) you've better to immediately stop this type of thinking and analyse the answers you have.
- try to eliminate at least 2 out of 4 answers. most of the cases you can do it
- if you're getting tired and you're prompted with super-lengthy questions, a viable option can be read just the final part of the question. It might happen they're trying to stun you with lot of useless details (how kind from them!)
- remember you've more than 1 minute per question: make use of this time. do not rush.
- i personally found quite useful the highlight and strike-through functionalities during the exam. Especially when I marked questions for review.

there're a lot of other things I've found useful for my preparation, but they've been already reported, so I stick to these in order to add my personal 2 cents.
Best,
A.

Alessio,

Congratulations on passing your exam!

Thank you for sharing your success and lessons learned. I remember the valuable inputs you provided via the Live Feedback service. We are glad to hear that our products helped you prepare for and pass your exam.

Good luck in all your future endeavors!

What do you mean by RMC?

RMC is Rita Mulchay's company, so it is referring to their resources.

Correct, thanks for pointing it out