TOPIC: Passed (5P)

I passed my exam in Prague (Czech Republic) on Wednesday with a „5 Proficient“ rating. As I really enjoyed the lessons learned from former exam examinees, I want to share my little PMP story with you.

My journey began in February belonging to a group of PMP aspirants in my company in order to clear the exam in 2014.

My first approach was to just follow Rita Mulcahy’s PMP Exam Prep, but when reading the introduction chapter i noticed the need to get the big picture first. I decided for the PrepCast option (recommended by a colleague) in order to use my daily travel to work (2 x 45min) for learning.

Although being far away from a native speaker’s comprehension skills, I never had any big issues to follow the lessons while driving the car, NOT watching the slides of course. Great product!

In September, things got more serious and I startet studying the Rita Mulcahy’s Book (Eight Edition) and used the PMBok Guide as I would use a dictionary. I created a little dashboard (javascript) application where all processes including ITTOs are displayed, can be printed out as flashcards and where I’m able comfortably enter my notes for each process.
By the beginning of October I sent my exam application and was selected for the audit („WHY ME?" ). So I gathered the requested documents and sent it to the states. I was surprised how quick I got my feedback. Four or five days later, I got my eligibility id to schedule the exam. I scheduled it for November 12th 9am.

At this point in time, having three weeks left, I had finished the Rita readthrough including all questions from the book except the CoE chapter. My notebook app was filled with everything I ranked as „need to remember for the exam“. I had been answering approximately 300 sample exam questions and now it was time to find my gaps.

In the remaining weeks I answered 1325 exam questions and reviewed all incorrect and some correct answers afterwards (I tracked it in a spreadsheet). After the last question I had an average of 83,5% correct answers and within the last 1,5 weeks I took four 200-exam-questions. My average question time was 59,7 seconds. This may not be a good value, but it may be a result of my moderate english skills . So what, with this value you have 40 minutes left for breaks and answer reviews.

The day before the exam I travelled to prague (from my location in Germany it is closer than any other german Prometric site). I reviewed all my flashcards in about one or two hours, had a good dinner at the hotel and went to bed early. What can I say… I had such a terrible night and only slept about one hour.

When I started my exam 9am, I was very tired. I have to say „thank you“ to adrenaline, which pushed me through the next four hours. When I say „four hours“ I mean „four hours“. At the 50 questions mark one hour was already gone and after answered the 100th question I missed seven minutes! Not such a good feeling and I knew I had to increase speed significantly. And so I did. There were 17 minutes left on the clock when I answered my last question and I immediately began to review the marked (maybe 20) questions. I reviewed around 15 of them, not changing a single answer and exactly 12 seconds before running out of time, I decided to press the „End Exam“ button by myself instead of „being ended“.

I had no idea what result I could expect, but my expactation was way more negative than positive. I skipped the survey as I felt not able to answer any single question within the next year. One second later the word „Congratulation“ lifted me to cloud number nine. What a great feeling!

If I had to do it again, I would take care on the following:
- Understand the overall context. I layed the foundation by listening to Cornelius Fichtner.
- Answer and review many sample questions. Whenever possible, review the correct answers as well.
- Do NOT consider any questions you have ever seen before when evaluating your performance (correctness and time!).
- Do not expect the same kind of questions in the exam.

I wish you all the best for your examination!
Peter