Hello everyone,
I took a proctored online exam today and passed on my first attempt. What was the key to my success? The short answer is a lot of practice. With that being said I will outline my story and how prepared. I started my
process late December 2019. I first purchased Andy Crowe's book on how to pass on your first attempt. I read this through two times. In the middle of January I purchased the pm prepcast package and completed the 50 hours of training. After this I figured out when I wanted to take my exam and then decided on when to activate the simulator.
After I activated the simulator did one simulation once a day with 50 questions from each group. I liked using the learning quizzes the most. I would show the answer to every question after I answered it to verify why I got it correct and to read the explanation of why it was wrong. This was by far the most valuable thing I could do in my prep for the exam. I logged almost 90 hours on the simulator. I would say that it would be very difficult to pass the exam without using a simulator. My first exam was canceled due to testing centers being closed. I wrote to PMI several times asking to take it online and they eventually offered that as an option.
As for the exam. It is difficult no doubt about it. The questions are tricky. You have to know your stuff. No two ways about it. Many questions have more than one answer that could be correct and if you don't know this info like the back of your hand you will have an issue. I only had one math problem on the exam. The math stuff scared me going into the exam but I was fine. You cannot use paper and have to use an online whiteboard. The whiteboard
in opinion is hard to use and is very cluggy. That being said I thought for sure I was going to fail the exam. I never thought as I was taking it ,that this is a piece of cake or I have this. When I finally finished and the screen came up saying congratulation I was ecstatic. One word of advice when taking the exam. Do not change your first answer. The simulator taught me that. If you have studied hard your instinct will help you choose the correct one. Any time in simulation I went against my instinct I was wrong. At least 20 times to 1. So stay with your first answer. Trust yourself if you have put the prep work into it.
That being said I am ready to now move on in my career with my new certification. I hope everyone takes the time to study. You only get out what you put in. Don't waste your time and money if your not committed to putting in the effort. As for the other prep classes and boot campus and other offer they may work for you but the best advice I can give is read a good book like the one I purchased and use the simulator.
