I have to say this was the hardest exam I have ever taken. I read the PMBOK and Rita, chapter by chapter. Once I completed these once, I added the prepcast series onto my routine and went back through PMBOK and Rita to fill any knowledge gaps. I also took all of the chapter quizzes and tried to close those gaps. I then did Lehmann's exam and scored a 62. This really bummed me out. I started taking the Prepcast simulation tests, and was only able to do 3 (i wanted to do more). My scores were 71, 76.5, and 77 - so not the recommended 80% avg. I didn't want to reschedule my exam, 1 - because I didn't know what else I would do to close the knowledge gaps. I had been studying really hard, on a consistent basis. If i didn't know the material by now, there was no plan that I could think of that would help. I forgot to mention that I was avg. about 30-45 min left on the prepcast exams to review my answers.
When i sat down for my test, my test anxiety overcame me. My heart was beating out of my chest. Every noise in the testing room was amplified, i seriously thought I was going to pass out. Which would have been a relief to save me from the exam. But i persisted. the questions were no like what I was experiencing in prepcast nor lehmanns, nor Rita. I read each question about 3 times and sometimes still didn't understand what I had read. i was sure about 10 of my answers out of the 200. the other answers were either process of elimination or pure luck.
i finished answer 200 with 3 minutes to spare. so i went back through the answers that I left blank - one of which was a network diagram. i didn't have time to go through my marked questions.
when the PASS came up on the screen, i layed my head down in disbelief and tried to hold back my tears of happiness as best I could. It's been a couple of weeks since passing and I still cant believe it. I never want to put my body through that emotional and physically stress. I did follow Rita's test recommendations and did breathing exercises and smiled and tried to give myself positive thoughts. i was also in the front of the testing room, next to the door. and multiple people kept walking by - in and out of the door - very distracting.
i kept getting caught on questions about the change process. i couldn't remember which came first - analyzing a change or submitting the change request. I have about 4 questions that relied on that information.
I'm not sure if i have any valuable lessons learned, as taking simulations didn't prepare me for testing anxiety. my nerves definitely got the best of me. so if you have testing anxiety, try and get a hold of that before the test. my brain couldn't retain the questions that I was reading. because of my anxiety.
good luck!! be confident. you got this!! you've studied and prepared.
