Passed my PMP: 3-5 days of Prep 1/4/2013

Submitted by jetson_nitya on Sat, 01/05/2013 - 13:06

 Hey Guys,

Feeling so accomplished, cleared out my PMP cert yesterday with Moderate Proficiency on all areas of study (1/4/13). To be honest I had taken the free hard test here the night before exam and got about 14/30 right. Did not fret but tried understand the concepts of why I would have gone wrong and that approach helped me a lot.

Materials: My only advice if you are starting with 2 weeks - 1 month left, stick on one book.. I have not studied the PMBOK yet but intend to do so, at least parts of it. For my prep I used 'Passing your PMP first attempt' by Andy Crowe, paid about $50 for it on Amazon. It also came up with a one week free trial of Velociteach video tutorials, was very useful. 

Memorization: I could spit out 15 formulas and the KA/Process table at will, and I highly recommend doing that. Input, Output, Tools - Please don't try memorizing all unless you are super human and try to focus on understanding what will you need to do this activity? what are the things which I have completed would need to be updated? Try to understand how PMI looks at a project manager, like a PM is large and In charge, When someone does good he rewards, when a process is failing he jumps on it and fixes stuff by analyzing it, he is someone who is a leader etc. If you have that mentality you can score fine.

Exam: I finished about 5 chapters on the last day, did a couple of overnight study (about 19 hours) continuous study I believe. Coffee is your best friend. Exam is so lengthy, I could not finish it before 3:50 mins, mostly because I had to put every Q into my own words before eliminating answers, did I mention this.. on many questions it is easier to eliminate answers that trying to guess work the right one (This unless you are looking at a definition)

PM Zilla Kudos: Thanks for the forum, best part was reading through the others experiences, helped a lot especially the one from Raghav i believe who did it in 5 days too. 

Questions

1. I could not differentiate difficult questions and easy questions. They all sounder the same, watch out for ridiculous made up terms like Fast track training, Differential Analysis, Full Cycle Thinking etc. 

2. Math questions are very straight forward if you know formulas

3. Risk, Procurement, Planning are the three areas with most situational questions. 

YouTube tutorials for TPA, Procurements, Critical Path Analysis are great. 

@JetsonGospel

Forums: 
PMP Exam Tips, Tricks and Lessons Learnt.
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geewitz (not verified)

Sat, 01/05/2013 - 15:36

 Congrat! Thanks for sharing your experience!

uglory

Sat, 01/05/2013 - 18:11

 Congrats Broda!. This is amazing!!. It seems you have a sound project management background, prior to your preparation and exam.

keylopatra

Sat, 01/05/2013 - 22:26

 Congrats! Did you take any of the Mock Exams on the Andy Crowe Insite or just the ones from the book? Did you watch all the video tutorials?

jetson_nitya

Sat, 01/05/2013 - 22:49

 Yes, I watched all the videos keylo. They are all formatted as Introduction - Input - Tools - Output - Summary. They are quick to, 3- 5 minutes the longest was aroun 12 minutes. They way I did was, watch the video .. learn the chapter in teh book .. take the 20 question test behind. Consistenly I was getting around 18 - 19/20 correct so made me feel good. Took the PM zilla test and scored 14/30 right in the difficult session. Registered for PM Final, they have a free two test trial and did a 50 question test (which was my longest) and could score 90%. To be honest, my biggest challenge during the exam was sitting in for 4 hours, very intimidating. The prometirc guy said usually folks wrap it up in 3 hrs max.. I coudnt. The fact that the Prometric center was next to a Buffalo WIld Wings was also motivating through the exam. 

jetson_nitya

Sat, 01/05/2013 - 22:50

Thanks Bro.. My masters was in Management Information Systems and have taken classes in Project management couple of years ago. Aside, I completed COPC CSP certification last year which is a simillar one but foccused on call centers and customer service industry. As far as my work experience, mostly have been Software implementations as a project manager. Have done some internal organizational process development using six sigma appraoch and that was helpful when going over quality. 

If you are someone who is about to take the exam, the biggest thing to understand is PMI wants you to know a little about a lot, In other words no need to memorize all inputs and tools. In words of PMI, project management is a science. Focus for anyone going through the process should be to learn the subject and not memorize. Good Luck

Take as many sample questions as you can immediately after you are done studying a chapter, possibly purchase the one here @PM Zilla, its a great price. Cheers. 

Here are the links to best YouTube Resources:

PTA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1b5ISOOdyU

Critical Path:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2eKBP77P1I

Procurement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ln4Lqf9XJKo

uglory

Sun, 01/06/2013 - 07:53

 Thanks man!. Believe me, your sound PM background was helpful. congrats!!.