Hello All,

First, let me thank all those who have contributed to the lessons learnt as it was a great learning for me by using their experience.

I have cleared the PMP on 26th May (First Attempt). Below is the summary of how it all started and my lessons learned...

I started reading PMBoK back in February 2011 but couldn’t succeed in reading even 4 chapters as it’s too wordy for me. Then on suggestion of one of the PMZILLA members I started reading "How to Pass on Your First Try - Andy Crowe" and believe me I found it very interesting. I used to read 2-3 hours on weekdays and 7-8 hours on weekends. There were many times when I was off-track due to office work and etc. and was able to complete reading the book only by March end.

In April I had my PTMBA exams and until 18th April I didnt resume my PMP prep. I started reading the PMBoK and now it started making a lot more sense to me. I was targeting 1 chapter every day and by 5th May I read the PMBoK for the 1st time. I started reading the PMBoK the 2nd time and this time I also glanced at the “Tricks of the Trade” in Rita Mulcahy’s PMP Exam Prep, Sixth Edition and the highlighted notes from HeadFirst. Due to this multiple reading I was more confident and my performance in the chapter wise tests at the end of these books was pretty consistent at 80%.

Later I started doing the chapter-wise tests from PMStudy and ExamCentral was scoring around 80 - 85% consistently. The last 4 days I did the 4 simulation exams from PMStudy (one exam a day). I used to give the test in the morning and later reviewed all the question answers throughout the day to get a better idea. This helped a lot and I was much more assertive. I believe it’s very important to review even the RIGHT answers to know the reason as to why it’s the correct choice.

My Simulation results are as follows:

Simulation 1 - 84.57%

Simulation 2 - 81.14%

Simulation 3 - 87.43%

Simulation 4 - 84.00%

On the day of exam I got up in the morning and just viewed the ITTOs and definition of all the processes.

I reached the center early and they allowed me to give the exam one hour early. I started the test and completed the test in 3hrs 40 mins without taking any break because I thought I would not be able to complete all the questions. However it all went fine. After answering the last question I went back to the MARKED questions and corrected a few of them. After that I pressed the END EXAM and was way too tensed to see the result. The screen goes BLANK (white) for a couple of minutes and after completing the survey the results came. I was very happy to see the CONGRATULATIONS.

I should say the exam is TRICKY and one should have clear concepts to even attempt the test.

Best of luck to PMP aspirants.

Best Regards,

Manish