All,

I have been reading lot of LL's so thought I should put in mine once I pass.

Passed PMP today:

1.Initiating - P

2.Planning -MP

3.Execute -P

4.M&C - MP

5.Closing -MP

Exam Experience:

I think the exam was quite tough today and after finishing first 50-60 questions I was not sure if I was going to pass. Questions between 100-200 were relatively easy.

Lots of questions on Risk,Procurement,Conflict,Quality & Charter. Quite a few numericals on Earned Value but were relatively easy. Questions on critical path were not straight foward.

Like lot of people have said PMStudy is closest to real exam but I think the bar is significantly raised in the actual exam. All PMStudy tests, I could finish under 2.5 hrs but in the real test I could finish only in 3.5hrs though I was taking little bit time to answer.

My Simulation Test Scores were as follows:

1.PMStudy - 74.5 , 74.5,84.5,80 (test#1,2,3,4)

2.Oliver -  72 %

3.Rita Fast Track - Mid seventies. After couple of tests I was more focussed on tests based on knowledge area.

4.Head First - 80%

5.Exam Central - I used to answer 25-30 questions rather than giving a full test.

Preparation Books:

1.PMBOK Guide

2.Rita

Lessions Learned:

1.In my opinion PMP is 99% based on PMBOK guide. So I would suggest one to read it line by line.

2.Memorizing ITTO will help but I saw only 7-8 questions on them so its upto the individual to take a call on it.

3.Lot of people suggest Rita & Fast-Track but I would not suggest them because Rita & Fast track are very expensive ($300) and for some reasons Rita's book mention everything w.r.t exam instead of focussing on project management concepts. With the Fast-Track, lot of times I was not satisfied with the answer and Fast-Track has questions with un-usually long text which one would not find in real exam. Real exam has very few questions which will have more than 4 lines of text. In Rita's book I liked only earned value management,project selection methods,HR Theories. After First pass of the book I referred  to this book only for above topics. With the amount of money you spend in Rita, one can easily afford lot of other books and simulators and still save some money. Moreover, I was using google to find details on gantt chart,hammock activity/summary activity, forward/backward pass etc.

4. Cornelius Fichtner video's are good but I would strongly suggest one to watch them in parallel with PMBOK reading. If one just listens to those video's continously without reading PMBOK, lot of learnings will be lost in time.

5.For exam anywhere between 1-2 months are sufficient for self study.

6.Cornelius Fichtner has a subscription where you would get 15 questions per day. It has some good questions.

Use Google as much as possible to clarify the concepts you don't understand from PMBok or any other guide.

Finally, don't get disheartned or complacent based on somebody's experience, just try giving your best and everything should fall in place.

Thanks,

Kishore Negi