First let me thank PM Precast Team for All the Good Work. I believe it’s they have the best course material.
In 2013, I got a job as a manager with a developer in India. I worked for almost 5 years a design manager, working in all knowledge areas of construction development. Being an architect, this provided me a broader outlook towards building construction and role of a project architect in a project. In 2018, my husband and I decided to relocate to New York, USA for better growth and its then I decided to pursue PMP certification.
I started by becoming a PMI member the same year. By being a member there are many advantages, like discounted exam fees, free course book and opportunities to earn PDUs. I purchased Prepcast’s online course of PMP, after reading great reviews online. They offer 35 hours of PDU which I needed to apply for PMP exam. I went through the course briefly just to get my application started and got the approval to sit for the exam. However, my plan of giving exams in 2018 did not work out. Most of my energy got vested in relocation and setting up a new home. By the end of the year it was holiday time for my family and I lost all the motivation to study or prepare.
So, to motivate myself I set up a target exam date as March 2019. I had 2 months to study and sit for the exam. My strategy of reading PMBOK chapters first and then listening to online lessons, of the same chapter, helped me a lot. It provided me a sort of revision and a better understanding of topics which I thought were my problem areas. Online videos are so user friendly and well prepared that later I completely relied on it.
Three weeks before exam I secured a job and because of all the work hours put into this new job I couldn’t study that hard. I quickly devised a new strategy of using Prepcast exam Simulators. I finished my course barely 7 days before exam and then used exam simulators for final preparations. Believe me or not, Prepcast’s exam simulator is so accurate that there were many questions in my final exam same as simulator. I would highly, highly recommend using all the exam simulators once before sitting for the exam. My exam simulator results were not that great as I could only score somewhere between 51-58% after attempting all the questions. I used 5 simulated exams and for the topics which needed more attention I used quiz based on time and learn. I was not feeling very confident about my preparation as I had read in many forums that you need atleast 60-70% passing score in these exams. Being aware about weightage of each knowledge section in the exam, I prepared a chart of my performance in detail, in each knowledge area, to know which topic I had to concentrate more on. I must say this really helped me a lot as I passed my exam in the first attempt.
I attempted all the questions in the final exam and managed to save some time for review answers I had my doubts on. I was very confident of my answers as I had practiced similar questions and answers in simulated exam. It gave me a detailed sense of processes and IITOs of all the knowledge areas. I must say that team Prepcast works very hard in analyzing what’s the best way to learn PMBOK. PMBOK is easy to read but very intense to co relate and understand.
I passed my exam with one above target, two with target, one with below target and one with needs improvement. I still surprised I passed!
Quick takeaway, as Mr. Cornelius Fichtner says
• You can strictly follow Prepcast video lessons and PMBOK guide
• Definitely take all, if possible, exam simulators as it helps in getting a sense of expected questions and time management. It’s a great tool
• Review all the questions in exam simulator thoroughly
• Apply your work experience in learning and understanding, but follow what PMBOK says.
• Know all the tools and techniques very well of each knowledge areas.
• Prepare graphical charts and note for understanding difference between all the processes.
• Last but not the least be sincere and be smart to know which processes or knowledge area you need to work hard on.
Thank you, team, once again for making me pass in the first attempt. I will definitely come back for more certifications.
Until next time…
