I passed my Pmp exam my second try. I took my first try back in January 24,2018. I had less than a month to prepare!
On my first try of the Pmp exam I have done the prep cast simulator and I did 10 mock exams scoring between 77% and 85%, I thought I was ready and I went and failed my first attempt.
I left the exam that day with one thought in my mind, which was close all the gaps that I had an issue with and start over quickly. I studied for 6-8 hours per day, while I was still recovering from a surgery that I had on November. I had no job because I wanted to put all my attention on my studies and focus on my recovery.
After January 24, 2018, I went back home and started to see where my mistakes were at. I managed to cram all the information and had a great study partner from the USA and India who helped to overcome the issues. My knowledge and skills enhanced significantly and I really understood the knowledge areas instead of just memorizing the information.
I signed up for pmtraining simulator and I already had Rita v8 Fasttrack and the prep cast simulators. The first time I took the exam I just did prep cast and studied from the pmbok.
For my second try I decided to go with Rita and she was a much better resource for me because the way she writes her chapters, it was like she was telling me a story. I found this to be very beneficial because Rita was talking to me.
I just did knowledge area quizzes on prepcast and did 400 questions mock exam on pmtraining. I kept practicing quizzes from pmtraining and prepcast but the mock exams and knowledge areas at the end (the week before m exam) where all from Rita. I put most of my attention on the Rita v8 Fasttrack. I highly recommend people to go with Rita. I failed to do that the first time and I realized pmbok and prepcast alone were not enough.
My scores on Rita were decent, I scored 77%-81% on her mock exams. I just took 3 Rita mock exams and passed those. I did her knowledge areas quizzes and I felt pretty good about it. Rita's questions are tougher and much trickier than the exam and prepcast, this helped me to improve my skills and really understand what the question was asking from me.
Lesson learned:
- focus on one source for learning Pmp, I chose Rita the second time and it worked wonders
- do her knowledge areas and mock exams constantly. (I only did her mock exams three days before the exam, but I highly recommend everyone to do it earlier)
-pmtraining and prepcast (where I did all the knowledge areas quizzes and two mock exams from each) are good for enhancing your knowledge but they only simulate the easy questions on the real exam. Unlike Rita she simulates the tough questions on the exam
- review your mistakes after every quiz or mock exam you do.
- I also had other PDFs mock exams and simulators, I used to do between 400-600 questions per day. On my last few days I just focused on Rita exams and quizzes
-review your notes daily. Keep a list of the things you keep on missing, review those on the day of your exam
On the exam:
- you have 200 questions for 4 hours
- read the questions one, twice or even three times. Don't spend more than a minute on the question.
-if you spend more than a minute on a question, mark it and move on
-make sure you finish 200 questions between 3h20m-3h30m
- don't mark more than 50 questions. You will then have a good 30-40 minutes to review those marked questions.
- spending a minute or less on the questions will help you to mark less questions because you have read the question properly and chose your answer.
- I had 8 minutes left to review 4 questions but I finished those in 4 minutes, I was really confident with my choices of the other 250 questions including the 50 marked questions
Takeaways
- don't freak out if you have 10 minutes left checking the last few marked questions. Trust your guts because it will tell you are on the right track and your information are correct.
- don't rush reading the questions, remember, you control the exam, the exam does not control you.
- I highly recommend focusing on Rita planning column and her steps to making changes.
- the exam will not use question such as "which of the following" or "what's the ITTOS"
- the exam will ask you situational questions on the following "what should have been done to prevent this" or "what should you do next" or "what should have been done to avoid this"
- overall the exam was not that hard on the second try because I really understood the concepts and the processes.
- know the major ITTOS, don't memorize all of them. It's useless.
As for me I am officially a certified PMP. A damn proud one too!
My grades on the first try January 24,2018
- initiation: target
-planning: needs improvement
-executing: needs improvement
- monitoring and controlling: needs improvement
- closing: above target
My second try results March 19,2018
-initiation: target
- planning: target
- executing: target
- monitoring and controlling: target
-closing: below target
If you need anymore help or questions please send me!
Good luck to all of you!
