Hello !
I am a French PMP since early March. Thanks to this website it helped me a lot.
I really got my noney back.
Now that I can look backward, I'd say that I probably overstudied and it's obviously possible to become a PMP without working as much as I did.
I worked more than 250 hours over 6 months and mostly during the last 2 months.
I used Rita's book as well as courses I got during my contact hours and, of course, this prepcast along with it's flash cards. I also had the formula study guide and Andy Crowe's quick reference guide. Shall I mention the PMBOK ?
I made tests with Rita's material and the PMP Exam Simulator.
Now I think that it's better to use one book (and of course the PMBOK) and read it again and again. The flashcards and the formula study guide helped and made me save time.
Tests are a very fine way to learn and to learn where are your weaknesses.
It's an important step on the way to success.
I passed my exam in Paris. The center was fine. It is in the middle of Paris nearby the Comédie française and the Louvre. Pretty central and it was easy to get ther with a subway station nearby and a parkling lot under the test center.
I passed the exam both in French and English. For 90% of the questions, I read them only in English to avoid loosing time and because the translation is sometimes misleading but when you have a difficulty with one or two words whose meaning you are not sure an 100 %, it's helpful.
I marked about 25% of my questions. But when I finished I had one hour left so I had plenty of time to read them again. I marked any question I wasn't 100 % sure of the answer.
In Paris, they told me that 66% pass the exam thus it's a one third failure and the time I waited to get the result from the computer seemed so looooooong.
Fortunately, it was ok.
At the end of the day, I think that one of my big mistakes was to wait nearly one year in betwwen the contact hours courses and the moment I logged on the PMI website to find a day for the exam. It's far too long. You really can work less and get your certification faster if you pass the exam soon after these 35 hours and work hard during a couple of months after the contact hours. I met a guy who got it 2 months afet the contact hours and he worked less than me with less material but he started studying the day after the contact hours.
Good luck and remember to train and train again.
Habib
