Hello,
I sat for exam and passed on first try, 2 days ago. This is a brief description of my study plan and preparation.
First of all I want to say that I had not a time constrain in my preparation for exam, so I've been thinking for the last 12 months to take the exam.
Until 60 Days prior of exam, i have not followed any plan for preparing. Nevertheless, i have had a Comptia Project+ certification which I think it was very useful in the end.
When I booked the exam, that's when i subscribed on an "online course + simulator" provided by PM PrepCast.
At this time, I decided to try the following approach on my preparation:
1. I Took the first self assessment test to see where I was standing. (70-73 %)
2. The following 3 weeks(Whenever I had some free time), i used to see all the videos of the PM PrepCast course.
3. During this time, this was my only activity for the preparation.
4.The 4-th and 5-th week (2 hours daily, Saturday and Sunday off +the occasional day off),I used to take the first 3 full length exams that was provided from my Simulator. This was done in an iterative way, meaning the first day i would spend 2-3 hours to take the exam, and the second day to go thoroughly to all wrong answers. For each wrong answer i would research the internet and read different sources. Also re-watching the videos from PrepCast.
5. The 6 and 7 week (2 hours daily, Saturday and Sunday off +the occasional day off), I used to read the PMBOK cover to cover, And also taking 3 new full tests.
6. The 8 week (2-3 hours daily, Sunday off), I finalized the last remaining 3 tests, and going over wrong answers, to really understand the topic.
7. The last week spend 2-3 hours daily watching videos on Youtube from Praizone, where ITTO and Process groups were explained in different ways. There are some good sources that show graphically the way the inputs are transformed to outputs from different process.
8. Sat for Exam and Passed
Some things I want to mention:
1. Had full support from my family
2. Had full support from my employer, (I got to study some times during working time)
3. The only literature i Read was PMBOK, once cover to cover, and some times for referencing.
4. World Wide Web was my friend.and would use to see explained one topic form different sources.(Youtube, Prepcast,PMBOK, and other internet Sites)
5. Results of my mock exam testing scores, from my first to the last went from the 70-75 % to 83 -87%.
6. I prepared the table with the process groups and knowledge area, but never needed it during the exam.
7. Had just 4-5 formula based questions (one with number of communications channels, two for the ETC, and one for the TCPI)
8. Had a lot (I mean a lot) Change Requests and Risk Management based questions.
9. Almost 80-90 % of questions were situational, and half of them with a best guess approach.
This is what I can remember.
Got "Above Target" scores for all 5 process groups.
Hope this helps someone out there.
Be well and regards!
Ermal Xorxi
