Friends, I am happy to share with you the good news, I scored 5P’s in first attempt.

My preparation time: 3+ months 

I had attended following free mocks, 

Rita book ***

PM Study ***

Christopher Scordo **

Kim Heidman **

PM Zilla 30 Tough **

Pm Prepcast ** (Both 90 Qs free simulator and Mathematical questions from Scribd)

PMPforSure **

Frank T. Anbari * (Good review of pmbok)

Effective PMC * (200 Tough situational questions, was useful to me)

Edwel *

Simpli Learn *

Head First PMP

Andy Crowe - Insite (one week free trial)

Oliver Lehmann

Farndale

BrainBoK (185 free Q)

PassionatePM

Pmbootcamp

TechFaq360

Tutorialspoint

[If you are short of time, give priority to the starred ones. All others are more for your practice.]

I bought PMPforSure 1100 Qs.  They are good practice questions but I found discrepancies in answers to some questions which I know for sure in pmbok. And the quick reference material also – I felt that it was NOT up to the mark that I was expecting and so many typos, old edition references. If I had to, I would NOT go for PMPforSure next time.

On average, I was scoring 80+ % in all mocks, But who cares even if we get centum here? PMZilla Tough 30 which I took early in my preparation - I scored just 60 % which I would say, more valuable as it helps identify gaps and learn new things. So feel happy about your wrong mock Qs as they give us a chance to review pmbok once again, for those sections, That REALLY helps.  Lower the mock scores, the more you Revise, the Better you are prepared - for the big day!!

Exam Questions- I got most #, in the order,

1. Procurement (Mostly situational with 3-4 lines, need to understand if its Seller or Buyer point of view since options tend to confuse, and various contract types, its application)
2. Risk  (All most, all of this chapter was covered)
3. Quality (Direct questions, easy)
4. Cost (EVM, plug and find missing value types, easy)
5. HR and Communication (Organizational theory, Conflicts etc)
6. Integration & Scope (Requirements, change control procedures are all blended)
7. Time (Very tough CP questions, 3 PERT calculation easy) 

3 Direct ITTO easy Qs and No PTA, Professional responsibility questions of any kind

Exam was very close to Rita (Concepts explained in her book) and PMStudy (Situational, length, difficulty level)

Some wise things I did during the exam,

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I got around 5 critical path questions and 1 MBA mathematical question type and none of them were direct.  CP questions explain the precedence definitions not directly saying FS, FF, SF,SS between activities and to add complexity they were saying, we fast-tracked/crashed this with that, duration of some activity was reduced/increased this to that etc etc.

o       

So what did I do?  I smartly marked them all and came back at last, It’s a trap like.  Am pretty sure they would kill my valuable time wherein it is possible to attend around 15 other Qs.

o       

Because stress dominates as end-time nears, this may reduce the tendency to think through situational questions. Who knows? These CP may also be some pre-test questions because they were totally new to me and have not seen that kind in any mocks

·        

Double check your calculations for EVM questions, Silly mistakes are possible, they are easy scoring areas. Don’t miss them out.

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Don’t mark too many questions for review; you may lose focus at the end on which Q needs more of your attention or review. I just marked where I am < 50% sure, All others, I reviewed finally together.   Hope you get my point.

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Eliminated - very tempting answer responses, as no such things/plans exists

“My Sincere thanks” to PMZilla, Pawar, BK, PmpCrush, Yzoh and all contributions.

PMZilla forum is too good for healthy discussions, constructive criticisms, valuable lessons learned etc. Not so many people can afford time and money for classroom trainings or boot camps.  And this forum is much better than all those. Stay tuned with it during your preparations. If your time permits, try participating in those discussions as much as possible. It drills the concepts straight into your brain J

Thanks for your time,

Badly need a break, so leaving for a vacation to beautiful landscapes of Austria J

Good luck to all new buddies!!

Geethika.