Hi All
I cleared my PMP exam on 13th May. Many thanks to Cornelius Fichtner for providing an excellent preparation package.
My Study Plan
My study plan was pretty irregular due to work and travels. I started preparing for the exam in October last year and by the time I finished reading the PMBOK for the first time I got very busy on my project. Then there was a long break of 2 months and in January I started again. This time more aggressively and with a better study plan. I watched most of the prepcast videos and read the PMBOK one more time. This time I got a deeper understanding of various processes and tools and techniques. I prepared my personal notes for each process groups while watching the prepcast videos. This approach helped me in the end while I was revising the concepts just before the exam. I booked my appointment at prometric in April. I then went through various websites to prepare a collection of lots of sample questions. I did as many sample questions as I could do in two weeks and kept referring to PMBOK to clear doubts and strengthen any weak topics.
My Exam Experience
On the day of the exam I just revised my notes and went through the ITTOs one more time. My appointment was at 5PM, so took a light lunch and took some eatables with me at the exam center. My exam started after a basic tutorial and then came a real tough time for me. The first 4 questions that came to my screen completely slowed me down for at least half an hour. I ended up marking dozens of questions in first one hour. My pace increased after that and I got more confident on the answers. I took my first break of 10 mins after finishing 150 questions in 2:15 hours. I completed my exam in 3 hours and took another half an hour to review around 30-35 marked questions. And finally the word CONGRATULATIONS popped on the screen.
In my view, the PMP exam itself is not very difficult. But the preparation definitely is. One needs to have a definite study plan and a thorough understanding of all the PMI concepts. I believe 3-4 months are enough for the preparation of PMP if one is studying regularly. PMBOK, PM Prepcast and tons of sample questions are sufficient tools to clear the exam.
