Hi All,
I successfully passed my PMP exam last month, on my first attempt. I was able to get 2P and 3 MP. Although I bought my PM Podcast and PMBOK early in the year but due to work commitments, I was unable to do anything till the last month when I decided to give my exam, as I could foresee some important commitments in future. I was on a tight schedule so had 3 weeks to prepare for the exam so make the following plan and followed it:
- Schedule at least 3-4 hours daily for your preperation
- Read the whole PMBOK 3 times (I am a good reader so it took me on average 3 days to complete it once)
- Go through the PM Prepcast lectures once after reading PMBOK from start til finish. It gives you much better understand about what is happening.
- Give as many PM PrepCast exams as I can (They really are good exams and you can have a good idea about your preparation). I average 78% if I consider all 6 exams I gave.
I was able to do all this within 3 weeks, while working. I have experience working as PM for last 3 years and I have worked as Project Sponsor for few projects too so what I mostly did was to see how my experience correlate with what is written in the book. That is how I tried to give the PM Prepcast exams by applying my concepts and practical experience. Then I found what is different and tried to work on the differences between PMBOK and my own personal experiences.
On exam day, I just followed the usual tips. Had a good night sleep, arrived early with a good breakfast and hydrated. Keep the time in check, if I know the question answered it straight away otherwise marked it to answer it later instead of wasting any time. I was able to complete the test with 29 marked questions within 2h15m and then I was able to go through all of them once and was able to answer all the marked questions.
Exam in my view was not that difficult. Not too many formula questions (maybe 4 or 5 max), but mostly were conceptual or situational questions. You can disagree with some answers especially if you have worked as PM but they were not that many.
In the end, the test was good. Not that difficult especially if you have done your preparation. As per my experience, if you only read the PMBOK and gave PM Prepcast exams you can adequately prepare for the exam and can score good marks.
