Hello,
I passed my exam on November 24th 2015.
I started my journey discussing with other persons who also wanted to take the exam to understand what strategy to use.
The first thing I did (in July) was to become a PMI member and buying the PMBok Guide 5th Edition. I also bought an exam preparation book (Rita FastTrack).
I planned to read both books twice, listen to some free podcasts and practice, practice, practice. In total I spent 225 hours (from July to November) where 50% of the time was dedicated just to reading. Almost 30% of my study was on practicing questions (using online samples). I did 6 full 200 questions exams (with results between 75% and 87%).and several different sets of additional questions, including questions from PMP-PREPCast. (maybe 2000 samples questions). I started to answer questions even before reading PMbok in order to identify where I was and what gap I had to cover.
Then I planned all weeks of study from August until November, always with one or two days of rest (typically during the weekend). the last 2 days before the exam I just "shutdown" my brain in order to prepare myself for the 4 hours "marathon". The last thing I did was to review the handbook guide to understand how to proceed in the exam day. I answered all questions in about 3h40m and used the last 20 minutes to review the marked questions. I was not able to review all marked questions but when I clicked the end exam button, the result appeared in the screen (1 minute later) and I felt great to see the word PASS! I got the Proficient level in all first process groups except in Closing where the result was "Moderately Proficient". It was a big investment but now I feel proud! Thank you PMPrepCast: your free material was very useful (including the daily questions/tips). Regards, David Sora
