TOPIC: Passed PMP exam on the first try with T/AT/AT/AT/AT on Jan 25th 2019

Hi all,

I would like to share the good news with all of you that I passed the PMP exam last Friday Jan 25th 2019 with
TARGET
ABOVE TARGET
ABOVE TARGET
ABOVE TARGET
ABOVE TARGET

Feeling very grateful especially for utilizing PREPCAST. Here is what I have done the in the past three months in order to pass:
1. I went through the entire Prepcast course videos. This was a longer process for me than most people (or I expected), as I was taking/typing notes while watching videos so sometimes need to pause or play back if I missed some points. However, IT TOTALLY WORTH IT!
Since I took notes, after I finished all the videos, I was able to go back to my notes to review, or sometimes when I was doing practice questions and some confusion came up about some knowledge area or terms, I was able to go back to my notes to do a 'search' and find the notes easily.

2. I came to this forum even before i started my Prepcast online course, to have a thorough idea of what the exam looks like, how other folks prepared their exams, and how the results turned out for them. Then I analyzed myself a little bit to conclude which studying method works the best for me. THIS FORUM IS VERY HELPFUL!

3. After I finished the Prepcast online course, I started to do the practice questions in the SIMULATOR. It began to give me a much clear idea what questions will be asked during exam.
I started with the Time and Learn Quiz option, because I didnt want to get overwhelmed instantly about how lengthy the real exam will be. So i was really taking baby steps. Started with 10 questions each time, then after I got more comfortable, increase it to 20, 40, 50, at the end 100 questions per time.

4. Something to note is that shortly after I started practice questions on SIMULATOR, I realized how poor I have been doing on the questions. I put a STOP sign to myself. Thats when I started to go through my notes from beginning with the ITTOs as a guideline. Forgot to mention that I also created my own ITTO chart/grid while watching Prepcast videos as part of my note taking:)

5. After I went through my notes one time, I resumed practice questions (SIMULATOR) again, and I started to do so much better! So this process (notes-> questions -> notes) is iterative, means after the first full review of my notes then SIMULATOR, any time I got answer wrong or I got confused, I always went back to my notes. - If notes doesnt have the answer, I went to PMBOK guide, or even a research on Google.

6. I also fully utilized the SIMILATOR options such as only quiz on the 'unanswered' or 'answered incorrectly' questions, or if I see I tend to do poorly on a certain knowledge area, I practised more on those questions. You know what I mean if you have been using SIMULATOR In total I did 1400+ questions out of the 1610 questions in the question pool.

7. The last week before my exam, I started to read the PMBOK book I know... lots of people do that way ahead of time or read it for several times. But personally for me, I feel the Prepcast course gave me a very in-depth idea and also with my notes and practice I gained quite a bit of understanding already. Plus I do have years of project related experience so they all helped:)
I read the PMBOK once mainly to go over the ITTOs, again with my ITTOs table as a guideline. I also tested myself on some ITTOs that I often got confused/mistaken with.

8. On the exam day, like most people, I arrived 50min earlier. Had a light breakfast but didnt drink much which is good because I stayed for the full 4 hours and didnt take any break during exam.

9. I got pretty overwhelmed still during the first half of the exam. Found a hard time understanding the questions, so had to MARK quite a few of questions when I was not super confident about the answers. I did answered them though. So DONT LEAVE BLANK! Because honestly, you dont have much time and thought you could fill the blanks later. So please try your best to answer them but if it's taking too long, pick the best answer then MARK it.

10. I ended up only having 10+ min to review my answers. and I realized I did wrong on some of my MARKED questions so good that I marked them so I revised quite a bit of them. I DIDNT GET TO REVIEW ALL OF THEM before the time was up. So again, try your best on the first try but dont take too much time on each question or you would lose time for other questions. 4 HOURS is not a lot for 200 questions. At least it's true for me.

11. After the time was up, it asked me to fill some survey questions before it says CONGRATULATIONS blah blah blah. I couldnt believe it's true!

That's it! My journey to prepare and do the PMP exam. I didnt spend a fortune for the preparation, but I believe I did invest wisely on PREPCAST online course, simulator, a second-hand PMBOK book, and my time taking notes and ITTOS. No other guide books I have used, but it's totally up to you.

Hope it helps! Good luck everyone!

Sincerely,
Zhenni

Hi Zhenni,

Congratulations on passing the PMP Exam! Thank you very much for sharing with us here in the forum your journey to becoming a PMP!

We wish you all the best in your future endeavors!