TOPIC: Passed the PMP exam first attempt - Lessons learnt

Hello All,

I passed my PMP exam in my first attempt with 4 P's and 1 MP. Planning is the key so prepare a plan which suits your current work/family situation. Here is my plan & lessons learnt.

1) Sign up for PMI membership and get PMBOK PDF version (very helpful for reading on iPad/Kindle/laptop)
2) Get just one supporting book like Rita, Andy etc. No need to buy 4-5 books. I highly recommend getting PM PrepCast, PM Simulator & PM Formula guide.
3) Go over the PMBOK & supporting book once to get comfortable with the material. Listen to the PM PrepCast in parallel. It takes A LOT of time to finish the audio lessons. I was just listening during my drive to work. Listening to too many lessons together might overwhelm you. One feedback for PM Prepacast team is that the music in the beginning and end is TOO loud. My ears definitely were hurting by the time I ended a lesson. Also if there could be a summarized course for busy professionals that would be great.
4) Get the 35 PDU's with PM Prepcast Book the exam 2-3 months depending on your comfort level of the material. Give 1 exam of PM Simulator. This will give you the areas which you need to focus on.
5) Go through PMBOK & supporting material 2nd time. with focus on key concepts and mark important definitions & concepts. Makes notes of these concepts as you can refer to them for revision. There is absolutely no need to remember ITTO's.
6) Do the 100 PM formula questions. This will give you enough confidence to do any formula questions.
7) Do Give couple more PM Simulator exams.
Based on your scores decide on topics for final revision.
9) On day of exam arrive 1 hour early. Surprisingly they let me start 1 hour early! So be careful if you are planning to do any final revisions prior to exam before you check in.
10) During the exam I found most of the questions to be situational . None of them had direct questions answers or obvious answers. Hence you have to apply process of elimination. Instead of looking for a right answer focus on removing the wrong answers.
11) Your speed in exam might be different than in Simulator so use breaks based on how fast or slow you are going.
12) Use the Mark option judiciously as you might end up too many or too few questions to review in the time remaining.
13) At the end of the exam take the printout of score sheet.

Thats it. Your hard work and perseverance WILL pay off!

Dear Mithun,

Congratulations on passing your PMP exam! Great achievement and a nice present for the New 2017 Year!

Thank you for sharing your success and lessons learned. Indeed, time wise, we should be very mindful of our progress while practicing on the simulator. I remember being consistently within 2 hours 45 minutes on my simulator practice which made me a bit over-confident. But on the real test, it took me about 3 hours and 15 min to answer all questions. This left me with 10 min break and about 30 min to go over the marked questions.

But we are all different, so each one should use their own "metrics".

Congratulations again and have a wonderful New Year!