Decided to pursue PMP cert mid-July. A brief outline of my preparation and the exam experience on 9/17 follows.
- Signed up for Joe Phillips "PMP Exam Prep Seminar" on Udemy
- Read Rita's book, PMBOK Guide, and watched the video lectures for each chapter
- Completed end of chapter quiz from Rita's book and Udemy course
- With the first pass done for all materials, did a quick second pass of PMBOK guide. The content became much easier to comprehend and also interesting in the 2nd pass.
- Took Oliver Lehmann's 100 free sample Qs online and scored 82%
- Signed up for PM exam simulator and took 4 mock tests and reviewed answers for both incorrect and marked Qs. Scores were 84%, 82%, 91.5%, 85%.
- Took Oliver Lehmann's 200 Qs pdf exam. Scored 87%.
- Took exams 5,6, 7 from PM exam simulator (took the 7th exam a day before the actual exam at 8 am). Scored 83%, 84.5%, 86.5%. Typically completed the mock tests between 3 hrs and 3 hrs 20 min range.
- I did not take the ITTOs test. I tried to understand the logical flow of what data/information/tools/techniques would be most useful for each process and that helped me answer the ITTO Qs without much effort.
- Did a cursory review of the outline and EVM formulas and got a good night's rest.
- Reached Prometric exam center 30 mins early and was allowed to start the test at around 7.45 am
- The first 50 Qs took about an hour as I was trying to be thorough and more careful than in mock tests. Once I got into the rhythm, picked up speed and completed 100 Qs at 1 hr 40 min mark.
- Took a quick bathroom break and walked around to relax for about 5 mins.
- The next 100 Qs felt much easier and I was marking fewer Qs. Completed all Qs at 3 hrs 25 min.
- Reviewed about 30 of the 50 marked Qs and clicked "End Exam" with 1 min remaining.
- Completed the survey and was shown the "Congratulations" screen.
With a good conceptual understanding of how projects ought to be done, applying my real-world project management experiences, and a disciplined use of a quality simulator such as PM exam simulator, the actual exam felt less-intimidating. Good luck to everyone pursuing the certification, and thank you to all PMPs for sharing your experiences and lessons learned.
A big thanks to the PM PrepCast team for creating the PM exam simulator and for the detailed explanations of concepts and tips for picking the best answer to ambiguous Qs. Your product is wonderful and helped me pass the exam.
