TOPIC: Passed!

i passed my PMP exam last week (first attempt)
I started learning in september using the PMP Prepcast. I covered one chapter / knowledge area per week. Normally that mean doing one podcast on weekdays and the remaining ones on the weekend.

In december I also attended a 5 day training course (my company paid for it). Because I already covered all the topics with the podcasts the course was nice to review but I felt I did not learn that much.
I think if you get a course paid by your company then that is an efficient way to prepare. But if you have to sponsor yourself the PMP podcast is the way to go.

Over Christmas I read the Rita book and did some mock exams/simulations. During the mock exams I noted down areas where I had some uncertainty answering questions. After the simulation I googled those topics. Usually I found some good explanations in blogs. I also checked the results to see which areas need improvement (it was quality and stakeholder management) and re-listened to some of the related podcasts.

I did learn the order of the processes in the planning group by heart (out of the Rita book) and this was valuable for the exam.
In retrospect I should have spent some more time learning ITTO. There were a couple of questions where this would have been needed.

Exam went ok. I knew I had some gaps (kind of followed the pareto rule for learning and accepted that I will only have 80% covered). I would have liked to take a bit more time for learning but I HAD to take the exam latest mid of January (there was a hard dependency: I had to take my exam before I was too pregnant to travel to the exam location)

Christina,

Congrats on passing the exam and thank you for taking the time to post your experience and lessons learned to the forum. Best of luck to you as a newly certified PMP.

Cheers,

Mark

Congratulations Christina.on your PMP success.
Cheers.