Hi there,
passed my PMP - all scores with "proficient"...
What did it for me?
Effort:
- Three months time, spent about 2 hours per working day (more or less) on the topic
Main study activities:
- Worked through the "Users Guide to PMBOK Guide" and created flash cards for my iPad (utilizing "Mental Case" app).
- I used these flash cards, but refrained from memorizing all the ITTOs. It became just too boring.
- Listened to Cornelius' Prep Cast while running - kept me going, and I always picked up the one or two more crucial pieces that make or break the exam
- Worked (!) through Ritas Exam Prep with all questions - that was really helpful, as it goes beyond PMBOK into real world problems. Ritas process chart did not do it for me however (I hate memorizing).
- Used Cornelius' exam simulator. Ran 4 tests, and scored around 75-80%.
- Worked through Oliver Lehman's questions.
I spend some serious time on the questions that I got wrong in the exam simulator, in Rita's Book and on Oliver's stuff. This way I got a knack for my mistakes and those tricky questions with double negation, "which is not true" etc.
The PMBOK itself put me soundly to sleep whenever I tried to read it, so I mainly used it as a reference when I could not believe as a solution to a sample answer. The same applies to the Users guide. IMHO, safe yourself the pain and the money...
Looking back, I would spend even less time with trying to memorize ITTOs (I spent too much time writing the flash cards, while I did not use them afterwards too much). Working in parallel through Rita's book and listening to Cornelius' Podcast does it. At one third into the prep, I would start with the exam simulator to understand where you loose ground in the exam and focus on these areas, while ensuring to cover all areas at least once through both Cornelius' and Rita's Material.
All the best
Timmo
(reposted from the exam discussion)
