Project Management experience: 19 years
I passed the PMP exam yesterday with 4 above target and one on target score.
Here is how I got there.
First I signed up as a PMI member to avail the discount on the exam fee and download the PMBOK guide.
Then I purchased the PM Prepcast from Cornelis including the Exam Simulator and the formulas guide.
I did not use any other material.
I started with taking the initial self assessment in the Prepcast. Scored 52% which was very motivating.
I then made a study plan, scheduling 1 module per day. I studied full time for 2 weeks where I watched all the Prepcast videos and read the PMBOK guide.
I would first watch all the videos of a module, and next morning I would read the same PMBOK module. While reading the module , I made notes/summary of the information that I had to revisit. After reading the module, I would proceed with watching the videos of the next module.
Next day I would first go over my notes/summary of the previous module and then start reading the module I watched last. And next watch the next module. So it went on for 2 weeks.
I did not memorize the ITTO’s but tried to make sense of it.
It were long days; I studied 8-10 hours per day with small breaks inbetween.
After 2 weeks I had finished all the videos and the PMBOK guide.
Then I started doing the full exams of the simulator; 1 exam per day.
My score of the first 3 exams was 78-85%. That gave me confidence to schedule the exam. While waiting for the exam I finished the remaining 4 simulator exams; so in total 1400 question. After each exam I would go through the questions I had answered wrongly and read the explanation provided with the answers. The scores were between 80-90% and I felt confident. I stopped studying and waited for another week for my exam.
The day before the exam and the morning before the exam I went one more time over my notes/summary.
Then it was the moment I had been looking forward to for so long! The questions were very similar to what I had practiced in Cornelius’ exam simulator.
But something unexpected happened; after answering question 89 I pushed the ‘Next’ button, but instead of going to question 90, the system jumped to the review page. No matter what I did, I couldn’t proceed to question 90. I called the exam administrator who came and tried restarting the system but same thing happened; exam would not continue to question 90. The administrator then called Pearson Vue who told her to push ‘End Review’ button on the review page.
She did so, but by doing so I was no longer able to go back to the questions I marked previously. And the system then prompted that I could take the scheduled 10 min break or continue. Apparently the system had scheduled the break after question 89. It was announced before the start of the exam that there would be a break but not when. I was expecting a break after question 100 or after half the time was up; not after question 89.
This issue cost me 10 min. of my time and totally distracted me going forward as I didn’t get the 10 min back. However I managed to finish the exam 15min before the end. I pushed the ‘End’ button and instantly the congratulations message popped up!
I was super happy!
I have to say that the Prepcast and the Exam Simulator were a tremendous help in the study. It really is a must to take the exam simulator; the questions add a lot more understanding; you literally learn from your mistakes.
Thank you Cornelius for putting such an amazing package together. I highly recommend it to everyone who wants to go for PMP exam.
