I took my exam recently and can happily say that I passed... No, I beat... No wait... I defeated the PMP exam!
It was a journey that started for me back in early March 2018. I was hasty and thought I could take the 5th edition of the exam in 2 weeks. Bollocks to all the people that said I will need to spend months to pass this. Well... I started learning the material more seriously and realized that I had no chance of passing the exam if I rushed my studying and finished it off within 2 weeks.
I decided to take a break (more so become lazy) and get back to it later. I eventually came back around to it around August of 2018, when my colleague/friend (who is also a PMP) suggested I use Rita Mulcahy's book to study for the PMP. I was originally going off the lecture videos on Udemy and while they provided good information - I took it more so as basic guidelines and it put the PMP framework in my head.
I then used Rita's PMP book to begin my journey (once again) for the 6th edition, and I must give a lot of credit to this book. It really helped me to understand the concepts of PMP and how things just work together. I'll be honest, though... I did not do ANY of the exercises the book told me to - once again, probably because I was lazy and also because I thought reading the answers would be good enough. I read the entire book once, did the quizzes (where I scored about 60%) and never referred to it again. I did memorize the Planning Process Group that Rita's Game talks about. That definitely helped me learn the order of events in the Planning module.
I then went through more of the Udemy lectures for 6th edition, and that kind of just helped solidify the foundations of PMP for me.
I also got this PMP Pocket Prep iOS app on my iPhone. I used to do random questions/quizzes on it. They weren't similar to the exam or anything like that, but it kept me going on the PMP material, so I could at least practice some questions every day. My overall score on the iPhone app was about 68%.
Now, I was looking for some actual practice... So when I researched online, I saw that the PrepCast had really good reviews and people said it was very similar to the actual PMP exam... So I went ahead and got the Simulator (3 month) for some PMP Practice. I started doing quizzes of 10 questions because I like doing the questions and then learning immediately after how I did. After about 15 quizzes (spread over a week), I did 3 practice exams and scored 76%, 74%, and 71%. I was slightly worried because my scores were trending downward. After every practice exam, I had gone through EACH and EVERY question to learn/understand why I got something right and why I got something wrong. This, in my opinion, is the MOST IMPORTANT part about my practice, and I give the PrepCast full credit on this. This is where I felt I learned everything that I did not know properly and clarify the differences between related terminologies (for example: Quality Control Measurements vs. Quality Metrics vs. Quality Management Plan vs. Manage Quality vs. Control Quality vs. Quality Inspection vs. Quality Audit etc. - you get the point).
A lot of people had suggested scoring 75-80% on practice exams and I saw that a lot of people were talking about how they read the PMBOK cover to cover, read Rita's book twice, did multiple website practice exams, did over 2000 questions etc. - Compared to that, I had read Rita's book once, had gone through Udemy online lectures, used an iPhone app that I didn't use very much, and did about 3 practice exams on PrepCast. Overall, I did about 1000 questions in practice... Suffice to say, most people would have considered me unprepared - but I felt like giving it a shot. My expectation was that I'll fail the first time, but at least I'll know exactly how the PMP is like, figure out my weak areas, then I'll come back, and pass the exam the second time.
Well, I went for the exam and took about two breaks (one at 65 questions and another one at 140 questions). I found the exam a little harder than the PrepCast and as I went through it, I wasn't sure if I truly passed or not. I was really hoping that I did. I went through all questions, marked the ones I was confused on, and then went through all the marked ones, and then clicked submit with a couple of minutes left on the clock. I said a little prayer (and after the test center survey was over), I received the glowing screen of "Congratulations!" I was rejoiced, celebrated internally/quietly, went to the next screen, and was pleasantly surprised to see that I passed with Above Target in all five domains.
The biggest advise I can give to you guys is to really know what all the terms mean. I feel like I haven't seen this piece of advise, but it's what helped me the most - and for that, I really must credit PrepCast for it. I am not paid by anyone to say anything, but I truly think that the definition piece of the PrepCast is what helped me pass the exam. Knowing what each plan does, knowing what each term means etc.
I hope this de-stresses/helps anyone that is striving to pass the PMP exam.
Thanks guys!
