I won't go too far into detail, but I will share what worked for me and what I found most useful.
I bought the PrepCast Elite PLUS and tried to follow the Study Guide as best as I could. At first, I was following it perfectly and planned to finish in 6 weeks. However, I lost my motivation and things got busier for me. The test I took today was six months minus a day since I first started studying back in May. I actually felt comfortable with my studies about a month or two ago, but this was the closest available test. So, in total I would say my actual study time took me about 4 months.
The Study Guide was useful, but not really necessary. The formula guide wasn't really necessary either, since I saw very few questions involving formulas on the test. I did use the simulator quite a bit for quizzes, but I had to renew it to take the exam simulator. The exam simulator and quizzes were very useful to me. I would say you could get by with buying the base level of the PM Prepcast, and just buy the simulator as needed.
Even if you buy the Elite, that's way cheaper than paying the $2,000 a bootcamp was going to cost me! I decided not to get the bootcamp because the exam simulator was giving me a 90% chance of passing on the first try, and a 97% chance to pass it on the second try. So, it wasn't worth it to me to purchase a $2,000 bootcamp when taking the test two, or even three times, was only $400 an attempt.
The exam, in my opinion, was easier than the Prepcast Simulator. Many of the questions had obvious "that's not even remotely correct" answers you could easily eliminate. There are also some tricks you can use (which are in this PrepCast) which can help you identify answers quickly:
- * NEVER escalate
* ALWAYS attack problems head-on
* NEVER request to extend the budget or schedule
* ALWAYS try to negotiate or compromise
* ALWAYS communicate directly with the individual causing problems
* CPI and SPI over 1.0 is good, and under 1.0 is bad
May not be accurate, but whenever I was confused what to answer I would eliminate any answer which did not follow those rules, and usually only one answer was left from that.
The first potion I was nervous and some of the questions seemed difficult. As I progressed, I started getting into a groove and answering easier and faster. The first 60 questions took me about 60 minutes to complete. The second portion seemed much easier but took me about 70 minutes to complete. Then the third portion seemed much harder, and it took me about 80 minutes to complete. I had 10 minutes left over. You have plenty of time, as long as you're answering at a consistent pace. Focus on answering the ones you know right off the bat as soon as possible, and if any question is taking too long, just guess and move on.
On the subject of the questions being 50% Agile: I was specifically trying to pinpoint the Agile questions, but I couldn't figure it out. The simulator is much less vague and makes it more obvious you're using Agile methodologies. In the actual exam, I assumed all questions were Agile, unless specifically referred to as a predictive approach. For me, it seemed as though the questions were close to 90% Agile.
That's about it! That was all the tactics I used which I found most useful.
