My journey of getting my PMP certification was a total of 7 months and I passed the exam the first time! The PM Prepcast online class was great! I enjoyed listening to the lessons and the combination of Cornilius’s voice, the online reviews, and the course outline is why I chose this class. I was not sorry! I would definitely take another certification class from OSP International LLC. Here’s the breakdown of how I accomplished my goal. It took me four months time to complete the PM Precast doing approximately 5-10 hours a week class time and reading the PMBOK. It took me at least a months duration to gather all my project management experience, obtain feedback from my former manager, fill out & submit the PMP application, and receive PMI approval to take the exam. When I scheduled the exam, I didn’t realize that the lead time would be a few months since I was looking to take the exam on a Saturday. But in hind-sight, that was a perfect amount of time for me to study for the exam. Here was how I prepared myself for the exam.
First I re-took the 100 question pre-assessment test found in the PM Precast class to see how much I had learned/retained from taking the course. I found that I had jumped up from 55% to 72%. So I still had studying to do to get up to my goal of greater than 80% consistently.
Then I took a few short timed tests and took the Formula Guide 100-question test, followed by all 9 practice exams using the PM Precast Simulator. The simulator was awesome! I highly recommend it. After each test, I reviewed every question that I missed and reviewed the PMBOK for those areas. I memorized every equation and I created my own flash cards containing all ITTO’s & other problem areas, memorized Table 3-1, and Figure 3-5.
In the last two weeks prior to the exam, I spent time reviewing my ITTO flash cards almost daily, finding patterns of input/outputs and fully understanding all process interactions, and completed the last 4 of 9 practice exams. I visited the exam location a week prior to my test, got a good nights sleep the night before, ate breakfast the morning of, reviewed the flashcards and arrived 45 minutes ahead of time at the test location.
At the start of the exam, I did a brain dump of all equations. The test took me 3 hrs and 53 mins (I did not take a break)...leaving 7 minutes to review those that I had marked. I changed a few of the answers only. I am excited to say that I passed the first time with 4 P’s and 1 MP!
