I felt the need to share my lessons learned and my journey into the PMP world.
I attempted the PMP on my first try in the beginning of July after I began studying around the end of April. I started out by obtaining the PMBOK (read it only once) and purchased the Andy Crowe "How to Pass on Your First Try". I read Crowe's book about three times and took a handful of free practice tests that I could find around the internet before my first attempt on the PMP. I wanted to keep the costs down as low as possible to obtain the certification. Let me just say, it was not enough. I was crushed when I saw the screen light up at the end that stated that I had failed. I scored AT/NI/BT/T/AT. I then took a week off and decided I needed to approach studying a different way as all the practice tests I took were not even close to the real exam. I purchased the PMP Exam Simulator and was immediately blown away with how close it was to the actual exam that I had taken. I attempted all 7 exams with my first score at 68%, then my last two scores at 78% and 65%. I took the last practice exam the evening before my real exam and was really upset to get that 65% the night before the exam, but I pushed through as some of my other scores were in the low to mid range 70's.
I took the online proctored exam for the second time on August 7, 2020. I went in with the mindset that I needed to pass and that I was going to pass this time around. I started to get nervous for the first half of the exam as I was marking a lot of questions for review but after I took a break and came back for the second half, I noticed I felt more confident that I knew my processes and wasn't marking as many questions. Go with your gut! My heart just about dropped when I clicked the "End Exam" button and saw the screen say "Congratulations!". I scored AT/T/T/BT/AT. Just goes to show that you can indeed pass with a BT. Overall, I was very happy with my score. A lot of questions ranged around "What Should You Do Next". I probably only got 5 questions total related to Earned Value and Critical Path.
When it comes to my lessons learned, I think the only reason I was actually able to pass was by using the PMP PrepCast Exam Simulator. It allowed me to take my studying to the next level by actual applying it in real life scenarios. I was overall hesitant to yet again pay for another testing aid as I was trying to keep my costs low, but boy, did it pay off! I wish I would have used the simulator before taking my exam the first time around or I'm fairly confident that I would have passed the first time. I really hope this helps other aspirants in their path to obtaining their PMP certification as I really found it helpful to read through these post after I had failed my first attempt.
Stay confident and know that if you put in the work, you can too pass the exam!
