TOPIC: Passed! 4 AT so pretty happy

Hiya Folks,
Just thought I'd share some lessons learned from my successful PMP journey.

I took my exam about a month ago and was thrilled to have received 4 Above Target ratings. My journey to preparing for the exam is a bit untraditional and drawn out. While I was working overseas in Ireland, I took a "crash" course on the PMP exam. This was 4 days spread across one month and totaled around 36 hours. Now, unfortunately, I took the class and then was repatriated within a month or two so taking the exam was put on hold. This was in May of 2016. By the time I got the family all situated and back into my new role stateside, I found myself thinking I should go ahead and sit the exam. That being said, I realized that there was no way I'd pass given I had taken the course nearly 8 months before. So I took another course. This was a 14 week course put on by the local PMI chapter. Then life happened and I still didn't sit the test for nearly 8 months. Finally, with the 6th Edition testing staring me in the face, I decided it was now or never so started to study in earnest. I put in about a month of prep before the test. Here are a few things I learned:
1. You really have to give up the idea of "well that's how we do it at work"....focus on how PMI does it and wants you to do it. It's too easy to select an answer based on what you would do in your current job when in reality, that may conflict with how PMI wants it done.
2. Learn the ITTO's. I can't stress this one enough. I found after an hour or so, I could easily draw the chart showing all the processes in their process groups/KA's. I thought I was good until I started taking simulated exams. At that point, I realized I needed to know them more in terms of how they all link together. Outputs of this feeds that type of stuff. I put together flash cards for all of the processes and put them up on my wall. For each one, I'd roll through it in my head and try to recall all of the outputs and what they fed. I was worried as I really didn't start this deep dive into them until the last week or so of my study month. But learn them......not just to be able to recite them but to really understand the inter-relationships between them.
3. Being an engineer, I was really focused on all the formula stuff, Earned Value, etc.....to be honest, I had that stuff pretty well down and was actually disappointed when I found very few questions of the sort on my exam. Most questions didn't have you actually do a calculation but to understand if a value was high, what did that mean?
4. Simulated tests. This for me was the very best tool I had. I couldn't put to many 4 hour blocks of time together so would even just do 30 minute exams. The only simulated exams I used were from PM Prepcast and I think they did a pretty good job of A) Scaring the crap out of me after the first one and got me prepared pretty well for the actual exam. I actually found the simulator to go a bit overboard with extra information and wordiness in the question vs. what I saw on the exam but it was good prep.
5. Make use of as many resources as you can. I had Mulcahy's book and Andy Crowe's book (which was used for my 14 week class). I couldn't stay awake for Mulcahy's book unfortunately but did read a good bit of it. Andy Crowe's book was pretty good and as part of my study, I did all the chapter exams and then the final 200 question exam. I also quickly read the PMBOK and where I had questions, I read it more thoroughly (it's free to download if you join PMI by the way).
6. Finally with regard to the exam, some of the questions were just so far out there. You know the type where you read the question and before seeing the answers, you've already formulated what the answer should be. Then you look at the answers and are dumbstruck because not a single answer is even close? Yeah, I had a number of these. However, what I found was that by reading the questions carefully and fully understanding the terms, by PMI standards, I was able to piece together a "most" likely answer. I would love to see the individual questions/answers now because there are still a few that I really hadn't a clue.
7. Continuing with the exam. I started the exam after doing my brain dump. They don't give you a specific time slot to do this so put it together during your tutorial. I sat and did 100 questions. I think I marked 2-3 of them for further review. At that point, I took a quick bio-break and then launched into the rest. After 75 more questions, I took another break just to clear the head a bit. Finally, hit the last 50. I finished with about an hour to spare so went back and looked at the handful of questions I had marked. I didn't spend much time on them to be honest as I have a nasty habit of questioning myself on multiple choice tests and have found that the first answer I choose is generally the correct one.

For me overall, I found my niche in terms of studying and it worked out for me. Many are visual learners (I am)....the flash cards on the wall was most helpful. I prefer to study by myself and not in a group setting. My point here is to understand how best you learn and then tailor the studying to that.

So that's my story. Glad I did it but glad it's over as well.
Hope this helps a bit.
Cheers,
cc

Great plan, thanks.

How much time did you spend studying in the 1 month prep you put in before the exam? Did you have a study plan?

Congrats James!
I'm looking to take mine in a month as well, which feels really rushed...how much time did you put in to studying during your 1 month prep per day?
And did you also have a study plan for the month?

Thanks folks.

I did put together a study plan. I knew there were sections that I was already strong in (ie. Critical Path calculations, Schedule, Scope, etc....) and those I was weak in (HR, Risk, Procurement). With that in mind, I worked on one section of Andy Crowe's book each night. As an example, night one (weekday) I spent reading his first chapter and taking his exam in the book. Day two was his second chapter etc.... I should also mention that I also watched the PM Prepcast videos for that section. After that, I would take the exams in the book at at the end of the prepcast sections. So each night was probably 3-4 hours of reading/studying/testing. I did this with the goal to finish his book, the prepcast, and the exams within 2 weeks. My weekends were spent catching up to my plan because there were sections I couldn't do in a single night as well as closing out new sections. I probably spent 8-10 hours on the weekend days on the material.

At the end of the two weeks, I went back and reviewed how I had done on the various sections. The worst ones were noted and I did more review of those with the goal to start simulated exams about 1.5-2 weeks prior to the actual exam date. I launched into the simulated exams thinking I was pretty ready at that point. The first exam was an eye opener as it really pointed out my weaknesses that I thought were covered. After each exam, I would look at the stats provided and spend more time on the sections I fell down on. The goal was to do an exam a day but there was just no way to do that with the time I had so for some days it would be a 1 hour "Quiz" vs. a full 4 hour exam. So during the week, quizzes were my primary focus along with following up on the sections I fell down in. The weekends is where I hit the 4 hour exams doing 1-2 each day. The way it all ended up, I had two weekends of exams.

I was scoring generally in the mid 70 percentile on the exams/quizzes initially but as I took more, it crept up into the low 80's. Not having seen much info about the Exam Simulator and how its scores correlate to passing/failing, I still wasn't sure I was ready. But it was what it was so I pressed on the last few days. Specifically, I spent more time doing the Flash Cards on a Wall routine daily, writing out my brain dump daily (did this at work a few times when I'd have 5 mins to spare). The last day before the test, I did one last 2 hour "Quiz" and went to bed.

Regarding my brain dump, as I mentioned earlier, I'm like visuals to help me remember things or connect the dots. So my brain dump consisted of the full matrix of KA's/PG's/Processes. I found a system that worked for me and I could draw it out and have it fully filled in in about 4-5 mins. I also put down any of the formulas that tended to give me trouble. I found on the exam, having the process matrix was helpful on several questions as I could visually trace the question being asked process to process. The formulas were helpful not so much in terms of calculations but in terms of relating values given to come up the answer. For some, a brain dump may not be needed but I tend to have serious test anxiety so I spent a lot of time making sure my brain dump was solid just in case. I found it to be quite helpful.

So to kind of summarize here, I studied hard for 2 weeks or so but then threw myself into taking simulated exams. I can't stress enough that the exams need to be done, or at least they did for me.

Keep also in mind that I had seen material 3 times at this point. Once while in Ireland, again with my local chapter 8 months later, and then finally while I was preparing for the exam (8 months after my local PMI course). A month of study worked out for me but if it was my first time seeing the material, I don't think I would have made it. Given the test is now based on the 6th Ed. of the PMBOK, if you don't feel you are ready or are not scoring in the upper 70's/80's on the Simulated exams, it might be worth considering pushing the test out a couple of weeks just to put the finishing touches on your study.

One other tidbit I found. There is so much information out there from people trying to prep you for the exam. Be careful not to fall into the trap of "trying to do it all". While spending some time on Google, I just decided to put most of my eggs in Cornelius' offerings and ran with it. I've known a few folks to try to do it all and they had a difficult time. It's good to use various resources available but limit it or you might drive yourself mad!

Anyway, hope this made sense. Let me know if you have any further questions and Good Luck!
Cheers.