TOPIC: Passed on April 17th - AT/AT/AT

I passed my PMP exam with AT/AT/AT scores. It was possible in large part due to all the folks here who shared their success story and that kept me motivated. Thank you all!

I too would like to give back to this community by sharing my experience. The PMP exam was hybrid and Agile focused. It was ~30% predictive and 70% hybrid/agile.

My background - some PM experience, minimal agile experience.
I did not even attempt to learn the ITTO or even understand the relationship between different knowledge areas and process areas. I felt that I am past the age where I can memorize stuff and I didn’t find it directly applicable to my past or current projects - so it was very difficult for me to relate to them! I literally used the exact meanings of each phase or tool and tried to rationalize my answers based on that. I also relied on the Prepcast exam simulator to get a better understanding,


Study Materials:
Purchased the 35hr PMP course from Master of Project Academy. I took notes from their videos and skimmed through them once after that. Didn’t take any of their quizzes. Agile content was minimalistic.

Rita Mulchany's book 10th edition- it turned out to be a slight more detailed version of the notes from Master of Project Academy-so I just highlighted any new topics that I came across. I found the quizzes at the end of each chapter to be very helpful. I skimmed through the book once again.

Agile PMI book - read once, skimmed once, read annexes before the exam day.

YouTube videos - searched for agile PMP videos and watched a few videos which explained Agile concepts. In fact, I never even watched them but just listened to them while cooking or walking my dog. I really believe this was more helpful for me than the Agile PMI book. Just listening to the YouTube videos helped me differentiate the roles and events/ceremonies of Agile. I did not watch any YouTube videos suggested on this forum like Ray, Andrew, Ricardo, Aileen etc. I tried watching them but they seemed to be focused on the different process and how to memorize the different process groups and I was just not interested in them at all (and I am glad I did not spend my time doing that and getting frustrated). On the flip side, if I didn’t pass my PMP exam, I may have regretted not doing that

PMBOK book- tried reading the book, slept off after reading the first 5 page, tried again and got the same outcome and then never attempted to open the book again!

Prepcast Simulator 2021: Most helpful for me. I took a few quizzes, scored between 50-60% each time. Quizzes don’t have a lot of agile/hybrid questions but worth taking at least 20-40 question from each knowledge area. I knew I was getting some questions wrong because I was not clear on the processes but I accepted that. I took all the four times exams and scored 60%/68%/69%/70% and read the explanations for all the questions that I got wrong.

Exam experience:
I took the exam from home and had no issues with the setup. Proctor didn’t bother me at all during the exam. I used the chat function to reach out to the proctor before my first 10 min break to confirm that I could step out of the camera, the proctor was prompt to reply yes. Many people on this forum were bothered by the proctor when they "mumbled", in order to avoid that I just kept my mouth open a bit during the entire exam (feels like breathing from your mouth instead of just your nose) . It sounds stupid and looks dumb but that helped me "read" questions without really moving my lips a lot. I believe that prevented me from getting any warnings that other people have mentioned on this forum.

As others have said on the forum, the questions are PMP exam questions very vague. At no point in the exam, I felt that I was selecting the "right" answer and always thought that I was "guestimating".

My suggestion to PMP aspirants
1. DO NOT study too much - if anything it will make you anxious. Read your prep material twice at the most. I felt that the PMP exam really focused on the application of concepts rather that the details.
2. You will never feel you are prepared to take the exam. Just pick a date in the next 30-45 days after you have finished your 35 PDUs and take the exam!
3. Don’t spend a whole of time trying to figure out the different process and making tables and flowcharts esp. the predictive stuff. Instead focus more time on agile/hybrid.
4. I found the Prepcast questions to be more wordy than the real PMP exam. The PMP exam questions were very open ended and vague. Even if the questions didn’t specifically ask, what the project manager would do "next", I selected the answers assuming that's what they are asking for. I believe that strategy helped me select the right answer.
5. If you have experience managing people and are not a controlling boss or a micro-manager in your day job, you will be able to "guesstimate" the right answer.
6. Taking the all four of the PrepCast exam and reading all the explanations will give you enough understanding of the predictive part to pass PMP. If you are getting 60-65% in your PrepCast exams, you will be good to go! These simulator results may give you anxiety but as long as you review your wrong answers and understand them-you will be okay. Some questions in the real exam appeared to be similar to PrepCast but the answer choices were completely different (and vague!).
7. For agile: Know who does what in Agile and what happens in each ceremony. For e.g. a product owner only prioritizes backlogs and does nothing else; the agile coach only talks and guides; daily scrum - what was done, what will be done today and what the impediments - THAT’S IT, no discussion on how/when impediments will be resolved. Once again be very clear on the agile roles and events. It seems like a very short and simple list but you will be answer most of the questions based on that.
8. For predictive: Apart from Prepcast Exam questions, know change control, how to deal with known and unknown risks, when to select what kind of contracts would be helpful.
9. If at any time, you feel overwhelmed with the PMP content or feel that you have too much to study and too little time, my recommendation would be to focus on the four Prepcast exam and read the explanation for each question. I think it will give you enough breadth of knowledge to pass the PMP exam.

Good luck to all!

Sneha,

Congratulations on passing your exam!

Thank you for sharing your success and lessons learned. We are glad to hear that our products helped you prepare for and pass your exam.

Good luck in all your future endeavors.