I took the PMP exam on 12/28/2019 and PASSED!!! It was my 3rd time taking the exam this year. So this was the last time I could take the test before having to reapply.
The first time I did Joseph Phillips’ Udemy class. The second time I read through Rita’s book once. Both were helpful with gaining a general understanding, but did not contain enough practice exams. For my third time, I refused to paid over $1000 for a PMP bootcamp class. I found online that PM PrepCast had the best reviews and was the best value. I spent a month and a half reviewing the material and another month focusing on the practice exams. What was most beneficial to me was that the material followed the PMBOK and the practice exams. I would read the section in the PMBOK first, then listened to the lecture, and did the practice questions. Also I did all 7 exams (not the ITTO exam). I passed 6 of the 7 exams with my scores ranging from 69-75. For all my exams, I took the first 10 minutes to do a brain dump of all 49 processes (found a video on YouTube) and formulas. On the actual PMP exam, I found the questions to be very similar and easier than the practice exams. I would highly suggest completing all 7 exams as I felt it was a great indicator and built my stamina.
My scores were I:AT, P:AT, E:BT (not sure what happened but it is done lol), MC:AT, and C:T. I used the full 4 hours, with 20 minutes to review my flagged answers.
My two previous exams I took with Prometric and this one with Pearson. I know it may vary but I found the check in process more streamlined and the testing environment better.
Other test day suggestions:
- drive to the test center before test day to check out parking and etc
- dress in layers, my exam room got extremely cold towards the end my exam
- arrive at least 30 mins early
- be prepared for potential chaos as staff are checking in other exam takers for various exams, there were a lot of moving parts
- you can request earplugs. Although it did not completely cancelled noise it helped a lot. Also there are headphones but knew they would be too heavy to wear for 4 hours
- you get a basic calculator and laminated flip notebook to write
- you can not do your brain dump until question 1. I saw on here that some did it during the tutorial but the instructions and proctor explicitly said no writing until the test starts
- the timer on the screen is in minutes, countdown starts at 240 minutes whereas on the practice exams the format is in hour:minutes. I wrote in my notebook 180, 120, 60 so I can remember to do hourly adjustments to pick up speed
- once done with the exam you must raise your hand and remain seated. I was so excited I passed and grabbed my stuff to leave, but the proctor stopped me. She said if I would have exited she would have to report a violation
I can honestly say if I passed the PMP you will as well!
Thank you Cornelius Fichtner for providing great material and practice exams that helped me pass my PMP!
