TOPIC: Cracked it! 4 Proficients, 1 Moderately Proficient

Hey Guys,

I passed my PMP today. Profiient in Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring & Controlling and Moderately Proficient in Closing.

I took 2 hours 30 minutes to be done with the exam, then spent like 25-30 minutes reviewing marked questions, and finally thought I am changing more answers than I would like, and hit the button, was feeling lucky! Seriously though, halfway through the exam, I knew I will pass. Here's how the confidence level comes from, I will put my experience.

Materials: Paid Podcast by Cornelius, PMBOK PDF (I am PMI member), RMC PMP Exam Prep 7th edition, RMC PMP Flash cards audio edition, RMC PM Fasttrack exam simulation software.

Totaly study time around 3 months. I work full time as a software development manager alongwith.

In last 10 days or so before exam, I gave two PMP exam simulations on RMC's software (77.5% and 85%), next gave the Super PMP exam simulation on RMC's software (70.4%), a day before gave the Head First PMP free exam (80.4%), and the PM Study free exam (80.57%).

Read PMBOK once in detail, simultaenously listened to Cornelius' PM PrepCast, then got RMC book, read it once, did all the exercises, again read RMC book and this time PMBOK along with syncing up.

Here is some nuggets from me:
- Exam level is as hard as the PM Study free exam as well as RMC's exam. The head first exam was easier.
- Exam went crazy on Earned Value techniques, they are obsessed with it, it seems!
- Many times reading through the question, you know what they are going to finally ask. 80% your gut will be right, and do not read ahead though, 20% of time, they are asking something else, so pay attention.
- A lot of questions, you can indeed narrow down to two answers. I had one where I felt all four were right
- There were 4-5 questions on network diagrams, and half of them were harder than those in RMC book or Cornelius podcast
- Few questions, I kind of felt, gut feeling, that these were one of the 25 pre-test questions, and will not be counted. They just didn't feel right. Nevertheless, I paid same attention to them as others.
- Exam center was comfortable, lockers were provided (the keys to the locker and the locking mechanism was easy), very security concsious, will check everything, ID is needed absolutely, also the printed paper having exam appointment confirmation is needed for the appointment number (some guys didnt have it, they had to show email on phone, and I could see that this is going to cause delays), most annoying was a guy typing behind me but I got habituated 5 mins later (I don't like to wear headphones, there was a pair provided), to me scrap paper booklet with 2 pencils was given, I did see though some people getting two sharpie pens and a dry erase kind of pad (seems like some exams you get those, not PMP), exam center guys do walk throughs, you can put your food and water outside on table, there was a clean bathroom
- There is a tutorial in beginning, which I used to draw the page 43 quickly as well as went thru tutorial. There is a survey in end which also I put in.
- After clicking end of exam button, for like 15 seconds nothing was on screen, and then a small dialog came, and then the survey. For those 15 seconds I was worried the system has crashed or something, since there was no progress bar or any dialog indicator.
- The calculator to use is a windows program, and is better to use than the default windows calculator. I manually calculated as much as possible, and used calculator to double verify.
- I did not memorize ITTO, used understanding for what is needed, how to do, what you will get etc. But yes, exam does test on some ITTO, there were like 12-15 questions like that I feel.
- Order of doing things in project mangement is important
- Exam tests on terminologies by applying in hypoethetical situations. Direct questions are fewer.

Glad to pass and be done. Work hard, it's indeed possible!