I am very much a procrastinator, and so when I started my course with PrepCast, I made sure to book the exam 1 month after the course end date so that I would have finish line in sight. Before the course, I did not study or watch the videos (however keep in mind that I had already done a similar course in the past to get my 35 contact hours and so I had a base. I also had some field practice with Agile).
I had opted for the 8h classes on saturdays (for 5 weeks). During the course, I had a family member for whom I had suddenly become a caregiver, and so not only was I unable to study between classes as I was still working full time. In fact, I found myself having to leave 2-4 hours early every saturday to attend to my family member. As such, I made sure to revise the parts I missed a few days later. Tip: if you find yourself in a similar situation or just want to revise the videos, use the x1.5 feature, which accelerates the video by 50%. It is slightly faster but still understandable.
During class, I took notes on EveryNote and screenshots of the slides. Writing while the teacher explained the material was helpful to me as it helped me remember the material, but I did not find myself looking at my notes later on at all. Once the course was complete, I started doing practice exams and studying almost every night or between work meetings. I studied on average 15 hours a week (4 hours per practice exam plus 1-2 hours a night of studying). Here are the practice exams I did and the grades I got:
- Practice questions: 50 learning exam questions (70%)
- Practice questions: 50 learning exam questions (70%)
- Practice exam 1: 180 timed exam questions (69%)
- Practice exam 2: 180 timed exam questions (75%)
- Practice exam 3: 180 timed exam questions (81%)
- Practice exam 4: 180 timed exam questions (80%)
After each set of questions or exam, I would review each question I got incorrectly as well as their explanation. I made a list of the material I felt I needed to review. Most of the review I needed to do had to do with the 49 processes and the documents and plans. I don't think you need to memorize them, but you definitely need to understand the logical order of the processes, which actions and artefacts require a change request, and what each plan and document includes and when it is created and used. To make sense of it all, I made a table in Excel with the process groups as the title of the columns and the knowledge areas in the rows. In each cell, I then wrote the process group, it's summary, and the documents it created. As I'm a visual learner, putting it in a table like this and writing it out helped me a lot. I used the book as a reference for this. I then expalined it verbally to my (very patient) partner. Saying it outloud was very helpful to me. As most of the questions on the test are situational, I watched a few YouTube videos on how to pass situational questions on the PMP exam. This helped me a lot in regards to how to select the best answer, and the answer that PMI is looking for.
Finally, the exam! I opted for the at home exam. The nigh before, I did a quick read of my table with the processes, and read the instructions for the at home exam, tested the testing environment and did a deep de-clutter of my office. I also told my roommates and my partner clear instructions to not disturb me. My partner was kind enough to be on guard for the door incase someone rang it. My exam was at 9:00am, so I woke up 2.5 hours early, drank some tea, ate a small breakfast, went for a walk. Basically, I strongly suggest you do whatever you need to make sure you're alert. I took almost the entire time of the exam (I think I finished abotu 20 minutes early). I took all of the breaks, but they lasted only 5 minutes (they allow 10 minutes). As you are not allowed water or food, so I used them just to go to the bathroom, drink a bit of water, and stretch my back. Once I finished my exam, I got my results right away. I was quite frankly too exhausted to celebrate, and I am glad I did not plan anything after the exam as it is emotionally and mentally draining. Most of the questions are situational, and so you find yourself trying to find the best answer through process of elimination which is taxing.
