Well, as much as it hurts to admit, I failed the exam twice and finally today things happened for me. I don't give up easily and told myself not to give into despair! I thought I would share my experience incase this help someone in the future.
For the record, I am 7.5 months pregnant with a 4 year old toddler whom I have being home schooling since March 2020, a part time job, AND English is my fourth language!. I have always being a straight A student my entire life, and graduated college with great honors., as you can imagine, with all the work I put in, I was stunned!
My journey started in August when I purchased PM PrepCast Elite. In additional I purchased the PMBOOK and watched the prepcast after reading each chapter as well as utilized the online digital copy of PMBOOK from PMI because of the easy search functionality. As you can imagine I could only study after hubby and son went to bed until 2am, then I would wake up around 9am when husband was ready to leave for work.
I used: PM PrepCast Elite, PMBOOK, and watched some youtubes especially Ricardo Vargas and Aileen Ellis
I first took the exam on 12/11/20 - failed because I didn't manage my time well and was thrown off by the unbearable check in process and then the exam suddenly stopped at #89, which I wasn't expecting, and by the time I got myself out of the review window I lost some time. you could barely tell the difference between the target line and my score which made me so mad and reassured me I knew the material I just needed better time management. I had done 5 full length exam simulator with average of 83% and the PMI practice exam twice with 58% and 92%. On actual exam, I had 2AT, 2T and 1NI, so was excruciating painful and knew I had to retake ASAP, big mistake, was too soon, needed a bit more time to grieve.
Second attempt 12/18/20, my biggest regret, I didn't give myself enough time between the fail and retake to fully practice all the domain areas fully and I should probably have taken another full length stimulator exam, but instead I only took short quizzes with only one week apart I should have done more but I wanted to finish before the holidays. Big mistake and was more stunned when I scored lower than first attempt.
I then realized I had absolutely nothing to lose If I didn't take my chance now before the end of the year, with a new baby on the way, I probably wouldn't have time to do this for the next two years, so I had less pressure on myself today, but also made sure I continued to study just as hard if not more and did two additional full length exam simulator and a bunch of practice quizzes to make sure I did not leave any stone unturned and if things didn't happen, it's not the end of the world.
The start of my exam today 12/30/20 was a bit scary, I checked in 15 minutes before my start time, but sat there for about a hour praying and telling myself do not give into despair. I eventually decide to chat Pearson via live chat on their website and not sure if it helped, but finally no greeter or proctor to say anything, and exam launched. I couldn't see the navigation bar at the bottom after they locked my screen except the arrow at the bottom right corner and because I had done the exam twice already I had an Idea of what to do. I tried multiple time getting a proctor, nothing, until I got to #89 and had to review by just clicking the button until the screen popped up. I started saying out loudly "I need a proctor, technical difficulty, I repeat technical difficulty..." in hopes to get someone's attention, but didn't want to waste too much time as the clock was still ticking. I decide to end the review for the first session and took my break and strategized how I was going to pace myself for the next section since I lost about 10 minutes. Finally a proctor chatted me and had to refresh the exam which took about 15 to 20 minutes while I sat there staring at myself, again I reminded myself not to give into despair! Alas, I continued as soon as the exam launched again, and was able to finish with 3 minutes left to quickly review flagged question and submitted with 1 minute left while I closed my eyes and prayed and the long awaited for congratulations came up!
What I learned learned:
-If I could do it, anyone should and can, trust your journey no matter how hard it may seems, don't give into despair, perseverance wins!
-The Elite program is totally worth it, I followed the study coach guide each week and put in the work. Additionally I made sure I read ahead of each lessons, and used the PMBOOK to follow along, wrote notes in the books and highlighter.
-Practice, practice, and more practice with simulator. The time pressure on the real exam is real and only the exam simulator can prepare you for this. If you understand the concept in these exams, you should be fine.
Good luck to everyone for the upcoming year and as Mr. Fichtner always says, and that concludes my painful lesson learned and journey, until next time...Cheers!
