Just passed my PMP exam today! What a relief!
Here are some of my experiences and lessons learned:
Learning Material
I only used the following materials for my study.
- PM PrepCast
- Rita's book
- PM PrepCast Exam Simulator
- PMBOK Guide
I started with PM PrepCast, once I am done with one knowledge area, I read Rita's book on that knowledge area. I found that I rarely use the PMBOK Guide. I mainly use the Glossary section of the PMBOK Guide for reference. I read Rita's book cover to cover twice, and completed all the practice exam questions. I found that the PM PrepCast does a great job on explaining Earned Value Analysis.
I completed 6 exam simulations over 2 months' period. I reviewed
all answers (correct and incorrect) and make sure I read all the explanations. The exam simulator helped me to identify my knowledge gaps, and so I know where I should be focusing on. The exam simulator also helps me to avoid common pitfalls, and to recognize keywords/important phrases in a question. I would say that the format and level of difficulty of the questions from the PM PrepCast exam simulator are very close to the real exam. In fact, I came across 2-3 questions in the exam that are almost identical to some questions from the exam simulator. That being said, I feel that the options given in the real exam are usually more ambiguous.
Lessons Learned
- Don't memorize the ITTOs without understanding the process. If you understand the process, you can easily spot the right answer from the options. There are only 4-5 questions on EVA.
- Do not just memorize the EVA formula, it is more important to understand the meaning of each formula.
- DO memorize the project documents, especially what is in each project document. A lot of questions will assume that you, as a project manager, need certain information; and the question will ask you from which project document can you find such information. It is important for you to remember what information is captured in which project documents, and in a lot of questions there are ambiguous choices such as "Project Calendar" vs. "Resource Calendar".
