Hello Everybody,
I passed my PMP exam on my first try yesterday in city of Saskatoon/Canada. I got above target. Here I would like to share my study plan and few tips.
1- Watching Prepcast videos and reviewing PMBOK: I started on August 1 2018 with listening to Prepcast videos. After each chapter I reviewed the book as well, which took much less time since I have already watched the related videos. During watching the videos, I was stopping the video, making notes and while reviewing the book I was making more notes. This process took me almost 6 weeks. Note that I had some free time because of my situation and I could spend in average 5 hrs/day.
2- Take tests and find gaps: Then I started taking Simulation exams. I took Simulation exam 1, 2, 3, 4, and 8 at this point. The reason I jumped to Exam 8 was that this exam is just about Tools and techniques and could show me how good I am with the processes. As result of these exams I decided to spend some time and reviewed Rita’s book very quickly. It took me just 4 days to review Rita book. Then I reviewed my summary notes which I had made from first time reviewing PMBOK, Rita, and watching Prepcast videos.
3- I got audited. I was lucky that all my work experiences was with one supervisor. I took the audit docs to his office and he quickly reviewed and returned the documents. Same day I mailed the audit docs to PMP office, and next day I received the email indicating I have successfully completed the audit.
4- Review and take more tests: After finding my gaps, I reviewed more those specific areas, and took Sim exam 5, 6, and 7. My results was improved from 70% to 80% at this stage.
5- Book for the exam and final review: On Oct 1 2018, I booked the exam on Oct 17 2018. In these two weeks, I focused on reviewing my notes, taking few more free tests available online. Also I spend some time in this period to memorize the processes table, important and specific inputs, outputs, and TT, and the formula so I can brain dump on exam day.
6- Exam day: It took me 15 minutes to brain dump. However, it did not help me throughout the exam. I rarely went back to my brain dump notes. So if I needed to take the exam again I probably would not brain dump this time. However it really depends on the questions. Also Another mistake I made was marking too many questions. I though that I will have enough time at the end of the exam to review them, but despite my simulation tests which I always had 30-50 min extra time, I just had 5 minutes left at the end, which was not enough to go through all marked questions. At least marked the most important ones on your scratch paper, the ones that you really want to review them. I did not take any breaks.
7- Got the results and share lessons learned.
In summary I would like to highlight following:
1- I strongly recommend Prepcast videos. That was helpful. No doubt about this. Thanks Prepcast team and Cornelius Fichtner.
2- Take as many as Simulation test as possible and review the answers in details. I spend 4 hours taking the simulation test and another 4 hours to review the answers.
3- Be focused, not only on exam day, but throughout your studies.
4- Make a study plan.
5- Make good summary notes.
6- Do not be afraid if get audited. I even had a mistake in timeline in one of my reported experiences, but I explained that in the cover letter mailed to PMP, and there was no problem.
Good luck everyone and thanks.
Siyamak
