I have passed my PMP exam on 6 Jan 2018, after five months of study, with a 5 above target. Here is a description of the plan I used.
First, I discovered what type of learner I was, which is almost exclusively a visual/reader. I knew I had to augment audio lessons with reading.
Second, I learned my personality type, which is INTJ. This was very enlightening for me and helped shape how I would approach learning.
I had five months to study, which I studied every morning at 5AM for about an hour or so, every lunch break, and after work. My study time initially was very heavy.
The resources I used were the Prepcast, PMBOK, Rita's, Head First, Shiv's Notes, Prepcast simulator, Prepcast Coach, Prepcast Formulas, and various on-line resources and my computer flash card program called Anki. I also set up a Gantt chart to map my time and set time limits for every section.
My strategy would be to learn this iteratively, memorise the 47 processes and the formulas outlined by Pepcast.
Heres the process.
I started by watching the Prepcast videos and following along with Rita's book. I initially followed that with reading Head First too, but stopped that. I immediately started learning the 47 processes and formulas, by creating my brain dump. I found patterns in the formulas and used memory techniques to memorise the 47 processes. This was done at least five days a week from start to finish, whether I really understood or not.
About half way through, I started the Prepcast Coach, and followed that verbatim. My learning exploded once I went back to the beginning of the processes. This while completing the Prepcast videos. This was my iterative approach that helped.
During this time I did all the quizzes in Rita's book, Prepcast, and various on line questions. It was not until I was three months out that I started the Prepcast simulator. My scores during the Prepcast videos were all over, as well as Rita's quizzes. I averaged below 80%. Once I started the Pepcast Coach and the simulator, my scores on the full simulator scores averaged just over 80%; I took six full tests.
Also, I was doing at least small quizes five days a week in the simulator with Prepcast Coach. I continued to learn the formulas and processes. Later, I switched from full tests to 50 questions, due to time constraints, and my scores went steadily up to over 80% consistently.
Closer to my tests date, I could throw out all 47 processes and and something like 40 formulas and values on a paper in 10 minutes. My quiz scores were right where I wanted them and felt good.
On test date, I decided not to do a brain dumb as my memory of everything was solid and only wrote some process sequences as needed. During the test I marked many items to revisit and ended finishing the test in three hours. I spent another 25 minutes going back over the marked questions and changed many of them. I had around 30 minutes left and st there with my heart in my throat for a couple and decided the torture was enough, so I pushed the end button. After waiting the congratulations screen popped up and I was done. I ended up with 5 above target, which surprised me.
The test was heavily situation based with some formula/match based questions. The wording was slightly different than Prepcast and most questions seem to be shorter than Prepcast. I felt the questions were pretty much as difficult in some ways, but worded oddly. Questions were a mix from what I would call easy to way out there.
I am glad it is over and have to say that Prepcast resources helped greatly and probably would not have been successful without them.
I hope others find this useful.
Thank you.
