I passed my PMP exam, first try with 4 Above Targets and 1 Target, so grateful to God!. I studied for 5 months and I started with an Udemy course by Joseph Phillips. I went through that at my pace for 3 months and I made notes. I tried reading the PMBOK but found it too wordy, read only the first 2 chapters. Then my employer booked me for a classroom course (not sure whether it's worth paying out of your pocket for based on the plethora of available resources online). However, the trainer was really good and I found it very useful. It was 5 days long. I then booked my course for 7 weeks after my training. In the time, I decided to try Rita's book, I found it way better than PMBOK, but still only read like 3 chapters as I felt I understood the concepts. I then purchased the Prepcast (best investment for the exam). The questions were VERY similar to the simulator. I only did one full mock test on the simulator though, I did mostly 30, 40, 50 questions as I didn't really have time to sit for 4 hours due to work and family commitments. My score on the simulator mock was 80.5%.
I also used Edward Designer website (particularly the 47 commonly mistaken concepts) and watched a few videos on Youtube (Pmc lounge), the videos were short and sweet. My scores for the timed/learning tests were between 75 and 90%. To be honest, I wasn't worried that I didn't read the PMBOK and could only go through 2 chapters of Rita, I understood the concepts and I re read my notes many times, I wanted to spend more time answering questions and I answered about 700 questions in total in the simulator.
On the day of the exam, i arrived too early at Pearson (Holborn) and the lady said I couldn't study in the waiting area, so I went outside and found someone to go through my notes for about an hour. Upon registration, the lady handed me 2 laminated cards, I said I needed more, so she gave me like 8. I dumped my formulas and also about half of the knowledge area/process group chart. I found the first few questions really hard and I got slightly worried, but as it went on, it wasn't too bad. I had A LOT of change control questions that I got really worried, then I remembered that 25 questions were not marked, that perhaps they were only testing those questions, who knows... Not many calculations (about 5). In total I marked about 25 questions for review. I got up at the 2 hour mark for a toilet break and to stretch/drink water, I had reached Q140. I finished just over 3 hours. I started reviewing the questions, then realised that I was already mentally tired and I wasn't re-reading the questions properly, I decided to keep to my first answers and after reviewing the first 3, I decided not to review any more, I ended the exam and saw the almighty 'Congratulations'. So happy and thankful that I got the simulator. It was the singular most important decision. I felt the questions were of the same difficulty level (people have said Simulator is harder), but I didn't feel that way, the real exam actually started really hard for me, I found it easy to eliminate 2 options straight away and it was just deciding between the last two options that was the issue. One thing I did with the simulator though, I reviewed every single question, whether I got it wrong or correct, so if I spent 1 hour doing the questions, i would spend another 45 minutes reviewing all the answers and explanations, that I think is really important for understanding the rationale behind the answers.
I have previously done the APM & Prince2 Practitioner exams and neither was any where near challenging compared to the PMP.
Thanks to all who shared their stories previously, those lessons learned were useful, hence why I'm sharing mine.
All the best to all who are yet to take the exam!
