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Thrilled to clear PMP Today... My experience and lesssons learnt.

Submitted by taherk on Thu, 09/06/2007 - 04:39 PMP Exam Tips, Tricks and Lessons Learnt.

Password: * I am extremely pleased to announce that I have cleared PMP with around 73%. It was a huge achievement for me , especially considering that I had planned to take this exam almost 15 months back. What did I study ?

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PMBOK Rita Mulcahy Rita's Pocket PMP Exam ( 200 questions ) Simulation Tests on PMStudy.com ( 2 paid tests ), Headfirstpmp, crosswinds. Here is the list http://www.pmzilla.com/pmp-exams-and-resources-pmp Memorized ITTO to some extent and helped a lot. Did NOT Buy Rita's Fastrak.

How did I study? I first started with PMBOK, then i realized I was not getting much out of it, So I switched to Rita, read the book cover to cover and got a very good understanding of the concepts. Then i came back to PMBOK and read that. After that I read PMBOK and Rita 3 more times . This process took me 2 months. After that I took Free test on PMStudy.com, realized that I had too many gaps and I started filling those from PMBOK. All my studing mainly happened in last 15 days. When I used to take tests tried to fill gaps by reading the concepts. and In my final five days I glanced it 2 more times and went through all the questions that I had marked tough 2-3 times. Exam day. My way of working is different so I read on the exam day, that gave me confidence, mainly trying to go over ITTO. But I was very relaxed, I was not trying to do it hard. The day before exam , I took good rest. What was the exam experience like ?

I arrived at the center 30 mins before and they checked me in, I took 5 mins tutorial about the exam, and then i did brain dump. Basically i filled 1 sheet of paper with whatever I found difficuilt to remember. This helped me to ease out some tension. I wrote formulas, some tough ITTOs etc.

http://pmzilla.com/thrilled-clear-pmp-today-my-experience-and-lesssons-learnt-pmp

9/8/2011

Thrilled to clear PMP Today... My experience and lesssons learnt. | PM Zilla - PMP Exa...

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The first 2 questions I could not answers, I went on, when I finished 20 questions, I was not sure of 10 answers. That puts my score to 50%. When I completed 50 quesitons, I was not sure of 20 answers. that is still 60% score...... I went on to complete the test. When I completed 200 questions, I was not sure of 70 answers. That would still be 65%, so it was sigh of relief. I took full 4 hours , since I was trying to answer all questions. In my case after 100 questions , there were some easy and straightforward questions. I had marked around 30 questions for review and i must have changed 5-6 answers when doing it second time. Finally I decided to "End Test" when there was only 5 mins left. The screen went blank for sometime, I thought that the computer has freezed, but I waited paitently, I did NOT see congratulations, so for a second I thought I failed, but then i read, that it was asking me to take a survey. I skipped that and after few seconds I saw CONGRATULATIONS.... wow.... what a relief.

About the questions ? The questions on the exam are somewhat similar to PM Study and Rita but they are a lot different. they are worded very differently. I was surprized, only few questions were like Rita's book. However i do agree that doing the simulation tests it prepared me for real thing. So when you are taking the simulation test, try to understand the underlying concept.

I would say around 20 questions were straightforward. Meaing asking ITTO or straight from PMBOK. Just Like pmstudy.com I had 4 calculation questions, 2 on EV, 1 on Point of total assumption, one on NPV but it was tough. EV questions were very easy. Like pmstudy.com test No Network diagrams for me. Around 20-30 questions were very difficuilt to understand, I read it over and over again but could not figure out the right answer for sure. There were many questions on conflict resolution. There were 3 questions of Power of PM . like legitimate, referent. Because the referent power has conflicting explaination in books, i could not answer that question.

In the end I was glad that i cleared the exam without Rita's FASTRACK. Things I could have done better:

There was 1 year gap after i took my classroom training and the final test. I could have just studied for 2 months straight after my class. When reading PMBOK or Rita, I did not make notes, this consumed lot of time, during subsequent readings, I wish I had made my own notes. It would have accelarated my learning.

All the best to future PMP Aspirants. Just Do it T.K., PMP.

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Feels good to be a PMP 21/08/2011

Cleared PMP yesterday 22-Aug-2011 w/o memorizing ITTO

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Certification
Submitted by Gary Clark on Wed, 08/24/2011 - 10:10.

Hi, Helpful post. I had been struggling with trying to do it through self study (tyring to save some bucks!) but I was largely unsuccessful. I've been in Project Management for more than 5 years, but never got myself PMP Certified. I finally got it a few months ago, but it was with this training centre called Firebrand. That's why I posted, coz it was so different to the method you learned it from! I literally got certified in 5 days..it makes me wonder though - does this mean that they kept out a lot of things

http://pmzilla.com/thrilled-clear-pmp-today-my-experience-and-lesssons-learnt-pmp

9/8/2011

Thrilled to clear PMP Today... My experience and lesssons learnt. | PM Zilla - PMP Exa...

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and maybe taking it slow is better? Or just slogging your *** off 5 days and getting certified! What do you reckon? -Gary Login or register to post comments

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9/8/2011