TOPIC: Is full-time study for a month enough?

Hi,

I know there is no real answer to this question. I only ask because I scheduled my exam for a month from now believing that is plenty of time to prepare for a test. What concerns me and why I post this question is that when I read the lessons learned from people who have passed they cite having spent 6-7 months in preparation. They mention studying for hours every day. Is that normal? That seems like an extremely long time to prepare for a test. I say that because my brother, who didn't have any interest in law or any formal education whatsoever, took the LSAT after 2 months of study and scored within the ninety-ninth percentile. Again, that is purely at home study; no prep classes, no pre-law degree, no external help at all. Funny enough, he now teaches LSAT prep courses. His experience is what I used to develop my schedule, which was that a month worth of study should be enough to pass a certification test. Are there others out there that successfully passed the exam after about a month of preparation or is this on average really a 5-7 month endeavor and I should reschedule my test date immediately?

Thanks.

Brian

Can you share what type of prep work you have done to date? What tools/resources have you/are you using? Have you used any of the exam simulators to get a feel of what the exam questions are like? Although I have taken other certification tests in my career, this one was more challenging than I expected it to be.

Good Luck

Kevin

Hi Kevin,

I have been studying for 2 weeks now. I have the PMBOK and have been going through it. Since I've started to read forums I found I should get Rita's book too. So I'm about to order it. I have taken random free online tests. I score anywhere from 50% to 90% so it's a tough gauge for me. It seems there is a wide spread of difficulty for these simulators. I'm debating if I should purchase the simulators and online prep courses this site offers.

Could you please elaborate on the difficult nature of the exam? Do the questions intentionally try to trick you with a keyword hidden in wordy descriptions? Are there a lot of math questions you need to decipher? Did you begin your test by doing the "brain dump" I read about?

If you had to do it again, what would you have studied better?

Sorry I just pommelled you with questions....

Thanks,
Brian

Brian

I took 3 months to prepare for my exam, and I passed on the 1st attempt. I used the PMBOK, the" Rita Book", "PM Prepcast". and the corresponding Exam Simulator. For my first pass I started with the PMBOK and The Prepcast section by section. I read a section of the PMBOK and listened the the Prepcast while I worked out shortly there after. My second pass was the PMBOK along with the Rita Book. Once I did this, I started taking the quizzes and the tests with the Simulator. I took many short quizzes and about 3 practice tests before I took my exam. I reviewed my results and each question I got wrong to understand the why which helped greatly.

The exam requires you to understand the material and not just memorize it to say it back. I found the Exam Simulator associated with this site forced me to understand the material better, given the types of questions that were asked. You are given a scenario with details and you must choose the "best" answer. Given the number of questions, and the amount of time you have, you need to be able to read the question and quickly understand what it is asking. You then need to look at the available answers and quickly which two you can discard right away and which of the remaining two is the correct answer. Through these practice tests and quizzes you will learn the skills on how to do this quickly.

I took the test when you could still use the "Brain Dump Sheet". I actually found I only used it 3 times for reference purposes, and not on every other question like I thought I would. The exam does appear to have tricky questions, but it goes back to being able to read the question and first Identify what they are actually asking, and then what information is relevant to help you answer that question.

I hope I answered your questions that you had, please let me know if you have any others. I am here to help and give back how others helped me when I was prepping for the exam.

Kevin

Brian,

In my opinion, one month isn't enough. Aim for about 2-4 months and you will be fine, assuming you are using appropriate study materials.

-Steven