All

It was the D day for me today, and I finally joined the proud PMP gang after the long awaited 4 hr long battle.

I understand the pain of those freinds who are still in mode of preperation, hence without wasting more time praising my achievement, would straight away come to the LLs.

My LLs would be divided to two parts, motivation specific and exam specific.

Motivation Specific:

1) Visit PMZilla daily and read the success stories. This gives you amazing drive to achieve the goal.

2) From the day you decide to achieve the prestigious certification of PMP, consider it to be yours, do not even by mistake let the thought of failure hit your mind.

Remember 'What you think is what you become'.

3) Prepare a plan and stick to it, no matter what happens consistency is the key. The duration of plan can depend on your experience/exposure to proper project management and PMBOK etc.

4) Finally, believe in yourself.

Exam Specific:

1) Read the PMBOK and a supporting guide (Rita in my case) once to be aware of the material, and post this just go ahead and schedule the exam. No matter how many times you read the books, the sense of responsibility and dedication will not come untill you commit by scheduling the exam and then preparing seriously.

2) PMBOK is the key, and your study from supplements should always be secondary to it.

3) The questions on the exam are not riddles written to make you fail (like most mock tests) the test, they are just asked in the manner as you would hear day to day problems in real life.

4) There are many straight forward questions too, which give you a fair chance to score well and cover up even if you left some tough ones.

5) Remember no where is it specified in exam format that a complex time consuming math/scenario question has more weightage then an easy question. So do not spend much time on long ones, mark them and come back later. 

6) The questions on the exam are unique and none of the mock test can match them, but reading those sample questions can just help you revise and clear your concepts.

7) Do not get hurt or fly high because of the mock test scores, they are no where near the real feel. 

8) Clarify your concepts like Contracts, S Curve, Tuckman Ladder, Lead and Lag calculation, SPI, CPI, CV, SV, EMV, Conflicts, Risk Responses etc.

9) Mugging the ITTO, is a waste of time and will only help with 2 of 3 questions. Just have a logical understanding of the main concept.

10) Rita's Chart was no use to me on the exam, do not suggest mugging it up either, give a normal read through, thats it. 

11) If you understand the logic of EVM formulas you would not need to remember them, or create brain dumps, i did not even wait a minute to write any dumps, just started.

12) Revision is a never ending process, but you have to put a stop to it at some point. Try to stop atleast 6 hrs before you sleep, so you can relax and have a nice sleep.

13) Rise and Shine ;-)

PMZilla and all the members and admin have been so helpful in the complete 6 weeks journey. Some members gave complex too ;-) (Mock test scores i meant)....but i always got the motivation here to be better and find the ways to proceed to our common goal.

Now is my time to giveback to this community, will always be here helping some or the other new aspirants....

My scores btw INI, PLAN, EXEC - P

M&C, Closing - MP

Thanks so much