I am very glade to inform you that I have passed PMP exam on 1st August 2014.
It all started 5 months back with a discussion over a beer with a colleague of mine about the PMP certification. He completed his PMP certification in February this year. He advised me to go give a thought. The discussion was done and dusted and one fine day somewhere in April I decided to go for it.
Though I am avid reader, but still going the PMBOK was great source to get sleep J. I knew I had to look for an alternative. So I ordered my Headfirst PMP and started. It was fun reading through it and the pictorial representation actually helps to store things in your brain for a long time. Work travel commitments slowed down my progress a bit and I was able to finish head first somewhere in May.
Then I started with Rita and it greatly helped me in filling my knowledge gaps. My advice is to do all the exercises in RITA apart from Q&A. And in parallel I ordered the PM Prepcast and started with it. I used to listen to one chapter from prepcast and then reading the same from RITA. This technique helped me lot in understanding the fundamentals.
I was able to finish the both things in parallel by end of June and July I kept for revision and full tests.
Though I was consistently getting above 80% in exercises from RITA, headfirst and Prepcast. But I tell you going through individual area and full length exam are two different things.
I took the full length tests from various sources and here are my results.
Headfirst – 86%
Olivier Lehmann – 72%
Exam Central 3 tests – (75%, 78% and 86%)
PrepCast PM Simulator 5 tests – (75%, 78%, 79%, 81% and 84%)
I had some prior work and travel commitments. So I was not able to fully utilize the PM simulator, but it helped me a lot in improving my time management for the final exam.
I used to do brain dump occasionally, but I don’t see the need for it. If you practice enough and understand concepts, I don’t think you need to do any brain dump.
During the day of exam – 01.8.2014
I woke up at 6 in the morning and gave a final look at the notes that I had prepared during the entire journey. Had a good breakfast, watched some news on TV and then started for the center. I came to the testing center in Brussels, Belgium – about 30 minutes before planned start. It is luck that the center is situated on a quiet place so there is no traffic noise from the street. Before I entered the testing room, I had to leave all my stuff in the second room (I had to show my pockets that they are empty. I also prepared small snack and bottle of water for all planned pauses.
You have 4 hours to answer 200 questions. Though how much full length exams you practice and It may sounds like easy task to do it – do not underestimate it.
I decided to make a short pause at 100 and 150th question. I had completed the first 100 questions in around 90 minutes so I went outside had a coffee. Followed by this I had two natural breaks, exams make me nervous J So after 3 short breaks I needed to finish last 25 questions and some marked revisions. Finally I answered the last, 200th question with around 70 minutes to go. I had 20 questions marked for later revision. After short check I changed the answer to 3 or 4 question and after 3 hours and 30 minutes from start I finished the test.
This is the toughest part of your entire PMP journey. The screen goes blank, so does your thoughts. My heart was pumping as if it’ll come out and my legs were like totally drained. After 40-50 seconds came the questionnaire, which of course I skipped and then came the screen, which I wished to see from the beginning of my journey, “CONGRATULATIONS”. I had following result:
Initiation – Moderately Proficient
Planning – Proficient
Executing – Proficient
Monitoring and Controlling – Moderately Proficient
Closing – Moderately Proficient.
That was my journey. Thank you Prepcast team for wonderful products, it really helped me a lot.
Regards,
Chanpreet.
