Hi,
So I passed the exam yesterday 10th July!! Proctored - 4 AT and 1 T (for closing)
Here is a description of the resources I used - and which ones I think were good, which ones not so good.
I have not done any face-to-face course, and for me it was really important to keep the costs of this as low as possible.
I have used one course from Lynda.com with Sandy Mitchel - I used this one also to qualify for the exam for the 35 PDUs.
I applied back in January and life took over with other things.
This one is for free using my Library card - All the Lynda/ LinkedIn courses are for free with that which is awesome, and I will definitely use again and again.
Also in January, I purchased a PM bundle from Stack which was 45 dollars, and I got a discount from "honey", & ended at a cost for the bundle of 15 dollars for 11 courses.
From there 4 courses were supposedly good for preparing the exam, but one was really really bad, 2 ok but nothing really amazing, and one last one really good.
So that good one from Stack and the one from Lynda were my main source for studying.
I read PMBOK once from end to end, but I find it really dry material and very often I was falling asleep or easily procrastinating - It took me an indecent amount of time. I bought a second hand PMBOK so I could highlight instead of the PDF one.
I went through the two online courses several times, in pieces - per knowledge area, creating my own summaries - re-write the summaries - listen to the corresponding chapters again.
All that while working and studying other things, pandemic, kids on online teaching... so I was really slow, but actually in retrospect the cycle of "forget and revisit and forget and revisit" was rather useful.
Sometimes being slow is important to make sure concepts stick.
2 months ago I got more time to prepare for this PMP, and after a bit more intense studying, I thought I need to start doing mock exams and get a different source of explanations.
I found Ricardo Vargas' video and loved it, and I borrowed Rita's book from the library.
But after reading 2 chapters of Rita's, I really got sick of the tone which in my opinion keeps on telling you "you know nothing - our way is the only way, so if you don't do this, you will fail".
Maybe it would have gotten better if I kept reading, I am happy to report that I will be ignorant about that.
So from there, I used Rita's book only to get through the chapter tests. And because of the pandemic, the library has sort of extended the borrowing time.
Continued several times with my online courses on repeat, redoing my summaries, repeat to see Ricardo Vargas, Rita's chapter tests, making flashcards, and few other places for free questions.
I wanted to get more books to get more free questions, but because of the pandemic, the library was not making it possible,
so 15 days ago I purchased the simulation access here and I have done the simulations with following results: 87, 81, 88, 77, 73 (ITTOs test, really demotivating), 86, 82 and 80.
It seemed I was not getting that much improvement, and I really did not have much more motivation knowing that it will be impossible to memorize ITTOs:
I understood the flow of ITTOs since the beginning with my PMBOK reading, but still it felt I keep on getting questions wrong because I don't remember the ITTOs.
So even if I have heard "don't memorize, try to understand them".... it felt like memorizing could have been handy.
On exam day, I had to try 3 different computers, because even though I had the cable plugged in (and WIFI disabled) and the connection was stable, the system was saying that it was not stable.
I started trying 2 hours before the exam, and I was prepared for this possibility by having borrowed the alternative computers, but still, it was super stressful- I should have prepared this better.
I was able to do some neck exercises while on the exam to avoid back pain, and the adrenaline kept me more awake than in the mock exams, so it did not feel as long as it was before.
While going through questions I answered all, even if marking some that I was not sure of,. I also used highlight and strike-through functions as I was going.
I think that helps because if I end up not having enough time for review, I can still be sure I have put my first gut feeling, and the review goes faster if you have highlighted/ eliminated some items.
In the last part of the review, I didn't manage to review all and the timer stopped, and I did not press on any "submit" or "finish review" thingy
- so it was rather confusing that it passed me to a "congratulations" page and then asked me to go to a survey - I thought it was supposed to be the other way around.
It also rushed me automatically to the survey so I didn't really read the congratulations message very well.
So, I used a total of about 180 dollars (apart from the exam fee), indecent and unspeakable time reading PMBOK, and about 45 days of more intense study.
Hope it helps someone,
Berta
