I started the Prepcast program on November 11, 2015 and passed the PMP on December 24, 2015. Here is what I did to pass the exam on first attempt.
1- Study seriously. The exam is not a cake walk. I studied for 4 hours a day during the week and 8 hours Saturdays and Sundays. Make a plan of attack.
2-Listened to the Prepcast for 2 weeks. Reviewed sections of the prepcast again in a process group order in final week. This helped me understand better. It worked for me.
3 Did all the self assessment tests.
4- Did about 2000 questions from free online question and exams. Although, I did not like Oliver's questions as they are very wordy and I actually did the 75 questions only. I found it difficult to get more than 60 % from the free online exams in general. They are designed to make you learn and it will be very hard for you to get 80 % or more on these tests. Just go back to the prepcast and take as many quizzes and exams as much as possible. I was scoring 80 % on the prep cast exams.
5- Did 4 Prepcast simulator exams with a score of 80 % on final 3 exams. The simulator questions were very GOOD and instrumental in my success. I highly recommend doing as many Prepcast exams as much as possible. I did quizzes when I couldn't sit down for full 4 hours to do exams.
6- I reviewed all correct and wrong answers and made sure I understood everything thing. This step is very important in order to re-emphasis the knowledge gained. I used YouTube to help me understand some concepts such as the organizational theories and contractual terms.
7- I didn't memorize the formula's. Instead, I understood the meaning of every part of the formula and everything fell in place.. i.e. what is really meant by PV, EV,BAC, etc....
8-I didn't memorize any of the ITTOs. Don't try to memorize the ITTOs because many questions on the exam are situational. Just try to understand why they are inputs, TT, and outputs. For example why EEF is an input to a particular process. In addition, you will confuse your self if you try to memorize them. Just try to understand.
9- One final note-- I had made a plan to go through the test and do the easy short questions first. However, I didn't do my plan for some reason. My plan disappeared once I was in front of the screen. This was actually a mistake because I found myself about 30 questions behind with 1 hour left in the exam. This meant I had to finish 80 questions in 1 hour or I would have probably failed. I just put my brain in speed mode in the final hour and I was able to catch-up. I simply answered any complicated questions very quickly and moved on to the next questions whether my answer was right or wrong. I had to keep on moving on.
Please take the exam seriously. My exam was very hard.
