TOPIC: Just Passed - For people with little time for prep

All,

I just cleared the exam about 2 hours back. I was very scared when I started preparation as a lot of them had mentioned that you need at least 3 months to prepare + 5-6 prac exams, refer to Rita Mulchany etc... Well, I broke almost every other rule...

Here are some useful tips:

1. I prepared only for 1 month @ 3-4 hrs a day. I took a week off before the exam though. My schedule was crazy and this was the best I could manage. Some days it was just 1-2 hrs
2. I bought the formula guide from this site. It was worth a buy. It came with a sample exam and 105 problem based questions... FANTASTIC. BUY IT. I just solved all the questions yesterday.
3. The weekly tidbits that pmprepcast sent, like ROI, NPV, depreciation methods etc. were really well explained and simple to understand... I read about 20 over emails this morning.
4. Key Factors: Kim Heldman and the Formula guide. I used this as my bible. Read through the various chapters or sections of chapters every single day. After every chapter - I DID NOT solve the questions there. I just proceeded to the next chapter, then I would solve the questions of the previous chapter the next day to see how much I remember. Saved me a lot of time, so I knew areas I needed to touch on.
5. The book by Kim Heldman had some wonderful real life scenarios that really connect well with the topics in PMBOK. The book is arranged according to processes... So, it start off with initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and closing....
6. I finish each process or chapter in Kim Heldman and go to the resp. chapter in PMBOK. So, I used PMBOK as a means of revision.
7. The CD that comes with this book has a CD that has 2 tests to test your ITTO Skills... This is really excellent... The other PMP simulation test that came with this, was really cool.
8. Use Acronyms to remember ITTO. Many ask you not to memorize, but when you are in the hall, and when you have 200q in front of you, your thinking does go a little haywire ^_^
Ex. For Conduct Proc: PMPQSTOPS - PMP Q (queue) STOPS.
Ex. Plan Quality: BORE - Baselines, OPA, Register (Risk and S/h), EEF.
Form your own... you may not get a nice one the first time, but as it goes, you'll figure out THE acronym to remember.
9. Fast track CD from Rita's book. I did not do the full thing, the good thing about this CD is that you can search for terms and a list of questions with the terms will appear. Other than that, I did not do any prac exams from here due to time constraints...
10. Oliver Lehhman < www.oliverlehmann.com/pmp-self-test/75-free-questions.htm >. I solved the 75 q yesterday and passed. These questions are really good. This site also has a whole lot of other sites that offer practice questions...
10. I marked, wrote, scribbled on both the PMBOK and Kim Heldman... many people keep books in the best condition possible, but I prefer using it as a "book". A ship is safe in the harbour, but that's not what it's meant for...
11. I DID NOT go through the glossary of both the PMBOK and KH. If you have done the chapters properly, you'll remember.
12. PMRoadtrip helped a long way. But the site is closed for some reason now.
13. No. of Prac Exams I took? 1 - pmprepcast, got this with the formula guide. 1 - Kim Heldman, 2 - ITTO tests on the Kim Heldman CD.
14. Note: Occasionally, please solve some random questions from wherever. Just make sure they are from the correct edition of PMBOK. This helped me a long way to think out of the box.
15. Try not to solve a Full Fledged exam just before the main exam... The last full fledged prac exam I took was 2 days back...

There were some topics I did not know very well, like Config management etc. I just managed to read up whatever I could...
I had a good 8 hr sleep the 2 days before the exam.

It was a good exam.
All the best folks. you can prepare in less than a month

sri