TOPIC: Passed on 1st try

I just completed my PMP exam earlier today, passing with an overall "Above Target" on my first try! While I did the hard part of studying and taking the test, Cornelius Fichtner and PM PrepCast were a large part of my success.

Here was my routine for going through everything to prepare for the exam:

1. Study the Formulas - I did this throughout my whole study process, so I wouldn't have to stress about memorizing them. I got the PMP Exam Formula Study Guide from PM Prepcast and used that to create my own flash cards; I find making my own helps to embed the information in my mind sooner, but feel free to purchase flash cards if that's easier for you.

2. Studying each Lesson - I usually divided this section into multi-day chunks, completing 1.5 to 2 Lessons each week; I was laid off in November, giving me a lot of free time for studying even after applying for jobs each week, so you may need to separate things out in to smaller chunks, depending on your schedule.
A. I watched the PM PrepCast videos for that lesson in their entirety.
B. I read the corresponding PMBOK chapter; watching the videos first made understanding the PMBOK easier since Cornelius does such a great job of elucidating the concepts. It's important to read the PMBOK since it does go into slightly more detail than some of the videos, as well as presenting the information in another manner so it sticks in your head better.
C. For each section, I took the corresponding 15 question sample questions and recorded my score; I read through the answers and explanations to all questions (even the ones I got right) and for any section where I missed more than 4 questions, I made sure to retake that set of sample questions when I took the next batch.

3. (optional) Take a break - It's important to give yourself a small break if you are going through this material quickly; I would reserve weekends for no studying and took a few days off after finishing the last lesson.

4. (optional) Retake the Sample Questions & review as necessary - If you struggled on any of the sample question batches, this is a good opportunity to take those particular ones again. If you do well this time, just move on; if you don't, go through those sections of the PMBOK or watch the specific videos on that topic again. For some reason, I didn't wrap my head around the Project Stakeholder Management sections well enough the first time, so I had to go back and study that again.

5. Take the PM PrepCast final quiz - Since you can take this test as many times as necessary within the time limit, you may as well take it to see how well you do on it. If you pass, great! If you don't, you'll have a feel for how well you're doing and at least have a rough direction for which sections you need to study for more. Repeat previous steps as necessary until you pass this quiz.

6. Take a (small) break - Once you pass the quiz, take a few days off; relax a little. It helps to let more of the info sink into your memory.

7. Sign up for an Exam Simulator - I used the PM Exam Simulator , again from PM PrepCast, as my exam simulator. Once you take the first practice test you'll have 3 months access and you can retake tests if necessary; there are 1800 practice questions in sets of 200, though, so repeating a test probably won't be needed.
A. Take an exam and review your results. Whatever Exam Simulator you get, make sure it shows you detailed results of at least your incorrect answers after you submit; you need to know what the correct answers are and the areas you need to focus on for future studying.
B. If you did not pass, make sure to study the questions you got wrong, review the sections you need improvement in, and then take another test. Repeat this as many times as necessary.
C. Once you get a passing score and if you have not already done so, sign up for your PMP Exam through PMI. Make sure you have enough time to do more studying, but give yourself a deadline. I don't know about you, but I always do better with a reasonable deadline rather than keeping things open-ended.
D. Space the work out appropriately, but keep taking practice tests and studying/reviewing until a couple of days before your test. As Cornelius advises, give yourself the day before and the day of the test off from studying; I would even advise taking those days off work, if you can, to do something fun and be as relaxed as possible when you go into your testing center.

Tips & Tricks

• Once you've gone through the videos the first time, you can speed up review watches by downloading the files to your computer and use a player such as VLC to watch them at a faster rate. For subsequent viewings, I found that I could watch them at 2.2x speed, but each person is different (I have a friend who listens to all of his podcasts at 3x speed!).
• If you are an anxious test taker, the Exam Simulator is a great tool; just like the real test, it limits you to 4 hours, so you can get an idea for how the real test will feel.
• Everyone is different about how they like to take tests, but since the real PMP exam (and the PM Exam Simulator) lets you review any and all of the questions again, given time, I like to go fairly quickly through the questions the first time, answering all of them, and then do a thorough review of each one on a second pass through. Sometimes a later question will either give you an answer to an earlier one or at least trigger your memory, so this method forces you to look at each question a second time with that potential new information. Also, we often are not at our best for the first few questions on a test, so coming back to those later will sometimes reveal some fairly obvious mistakes; when I took my test earlier today there were two questions in the first twenty that I made changes to on my second go-around due to obvious errors.
• Don't stress too much about the time limit. Most of the questions are fairly short, with answers that are a few words or less in length, so you can get through those in less than a minute. There are some longer questions on there, but from what I saw on the test they do a good job of not giving you too many of those. You should be able to manage the 50 questions per hour average no problem, especially if you take practice tests.

I was a tutor and student teacher for a long time before getting into project management, so if anyone wants to pick my brain about other study or test-taking tips (or if you're in the LA/Orange County area of California and want some face-to-face help) let me know!

Hi Josh,
Congrats on passing your exam! I'm getting ready to take my exam in 2 weeks. I have done well on the PM Exam Simulators 77%, 80%, and 84% so far. Are the questions similar on the actual test in difficulty? I took the 75/175 Oliver Lehman practice exams and score in the 60s. So I'm wondering if I should continue taking only the PM Exam Stimulator practice exams or try some other practice test to mix it up.

Congrats Josh. Hearing about your experience is extremely helpful. you mentioned the time limit. During my simulators, I had about 30 min to spare to review my marked questions, etc. however, during the actual exam, I only had 3 min to spare. oh vey! I think it was just the stress of the test and all of the disruptions that were occurring in the test taking room (like people going in/out).

Hi T Fields. The Lehman practice exam (the 175 question one) is extremely hard. In my opinion, the actual text questions were a little harder/trickier than PM PrepCast, but easier then Lehmans. Using both PM PrepCast and Lehmans gets you better prepared. However, make sure that you are actually reviewing the questions that you, both, got wrong and right. This reinforces your knowledge and understanding of the material.

Hope this helps and good luck

Thanks, everyone.

T Fields: I would say "Good luck" for your exam, but it sounds like you're studying well and taking all the necessary steps to knock it out of the park.

My experience is, of course, anecdotal, but I wouldn't say the PMP exam questions are necessarily harder than the PM PrepCast ones, but rather the format for some of them is quite different. Taking practice questions from more than one source is a great way to get your mind to be flexible about the question writing. If you have the time and resources, I would advise keeping a good mix of different sources.

Jada Garrett: The testing center atmosphere is certainly going to impact how quickly you can go through the test. I was lucky and got placed in the corner of the room, and the people around me were taking tests even longer than the PMP since they were there when I arrived and still going at it when I left. For one of my practice exams, there was a lot of construction noise outside, though, and that led to a significantly lower score than any of my others, so I completely understand what you went through.

As for my question answering method, I take tests in what I call the "lapping method:" I tend to blaze through most of the questions on my first pass and then take more time on the complicated questions for my second pass. For the simpler questions, on that second go around I take a few seconds and look to see if I made any obvious errors, but then on the more complicated ones I'll do a deeper dive to make sure I didn't make any mistakes. It's my way of forcing myself to use the first instinct answer on most questions, which after all of the studying should be correct. When I was tutoring and student teaching only about 20 to 25% of my students could use that method, so it's certainly not for everyone; most people seem more comfortable timing things out for just one pass through the test except for the most complicated questions, which they mark in some way.

Congrats!