Passed PMP on 9th Aug 2016

Submitted by whitepage4u on Thu, 08/11/2016 - 02:34

Hi All,
I passed PMP on 9th August.
Got 3P, 2MP.
Time to give back. Thank you all for your suggestions and inputs and details in this forum.

During the exam:

Exam was difficult. Especially the first 30 questions were really difficult, but I learnt from “Lesson learnt” that sometimes these difficult questions might have THOSE “25 questions” which are not counted. After completing first 30 questions, I thought I am gonna fail. But then I remembered the Lessong learnt that its too early to decide, so I didnt loose the sight.
Most questions were scenarios or situation based, with lengthy background, so I had to read each question twice. I thought I am gonna check myself at every 30 minutes to compare with the clock. First 30 minutes 30 questions like wise
I had around 60 questions MARKED coz the questions were quite confusing, so I had to have atleast 30 minutes to REVIEW them at the end. Less than 3 questions were “around one line in length”. Most questions were 3-4 lines long. One or two were questions were 5 lines line
Questions were pretty confusing, so I had to read MOST questions twice. What I did was as below
I always first tried to read the ASK statement, like “what PM should do, what is FIRST thing PM should do, What is NEXT PM should do, EXCEPT, NOT”
Then I read the complete questions
I tried not to skip a single word
It was quite easy to FILTER two answers, but it was REALLY very difficult to select from the remaining two, whatever mistakes I made, I think that would have been selecting from the remaining two types of answers coz of the confusion and similarity
I had around 5 questions on EVM, mostly to calculate whether the Cost variance and schedule variance are good or bad and whether the project is ahead and delayed with respect to cost and schedule variance
There were many questions on Stakeholder management. Please read and understand it correctly
Many questions on Change request as well, I think around 7-8 questions on change request
Please understand well about BUSINESS CASE, coz I got around 3 questions on business case
Only one question on Procurement as far as I remember, that to very direct. Just to identify the type of procurement contract
Around 4 or 5 questions on DIRECT ITTO (so don’t memorize ITTO)
Only one question to calculate the communication channels
Around 5 questions on “whether you are in Perform quality assurance or in Quality control”, like you will conduct Audit or inspection
Around three questions were on WBS
Two questions on COMMUNICATION management, like what type of technology will you use and how will you share, whether formal or informal
No questions were on Maslow, Herzberg, McClelland type of theories (for team development)

Preparation
1. I prepared 4 months study plan in the begging of Apr 2016.
2. Initially first two weeks I just listened to PMBOK 5 using smartphone application called “CAPTI” on IOS and also PDF narrator
3. I suggest below for studies
4. I took the PDU from www.project-management-prepcast.com but honestly I didn’t listen to the PODCAST coz I already finished the RITA by the time I bought the project-management-prepcast.
5. I Read only two books, don’t over read and over study (I think I over studied in some cases)
6. I read Rita’s book and PMBOK 5 (didn’t touch any other book)
7. Read one chapter on Knowledge area per day and take simple exam
8. Take as many tests as possible. Take lots of tests and try to understand what you did right and what is wrong
9. I took all 9 tests from project-management-prepcast.
  
  Here are the scores for the exams I took on Simulators.
Test Results of PMP PrePCast Simulator
PMP Exam 9 (ITTO) 189/200 94.5%
PMP Exam 8 164/200 82.0%
PMP Exam 7 157/200 78.5%
PMP Exam 6 162/200 81.0%
PMP Exam 5 176/200 88.0%
PMP Exam 4 151/200 75.5%
PMP Exam 3 164/200 82.0%
PMP Exam 2 152/200 76.0%
PMP Exam 1 144/200 72.0%

Other tests:
www.examcentral.net/pmp/question-answer?...st&cl=Mjc1MjM3&tlt=2 - 77%
www.examcentral.net/pmp/question-answer?...st&cl=Mjc1MjM3&tlt=2 - 82%
www.headfirstlabs.com/PMP/pmp_exam/v1/quiz.html# - 72%
www.oliverlehmann.com/pmp-self-test/75-free-questions.htm - 61%
www.techfaq360.com 78%

Some other tests on processes only:
Rita 50 qustions 84%
Rita only Initiation 80%
Rita only Execution 68%
Rita only Monitoring and controlling 62%
Rita only Closure 60%

I tried to deeply understand the ITTO during the last one month by drawing some flowcharts. I suggest you take “Control QUALITY” as centre of the flow chart and create the flowcharts and you can easily understand all the processes.
Control Quality process takes and gives inputs/output to many processes and that will help you to CRACK the entire "Execution, Monitor and Control Project Work".
There are some places where I tried to memorize the ITTO but at very basic level. But I tried to understand ITTO more than memorizing it.
For ITTO I used below chart (though it has around 2 or 3mistakes)
www.slideshare.net/PedroArcas/mapa-procesos-pmbok-5

FINALLY
1. Don’t memorize ITTO. Never! Never! Its difficult, and waste of time and memory
2. Don’t read TOO many lessons learnt, it will make you nervous:) I know you can ignore mine as well
3. Don’t over study, over read, but rather have a PLAN to crack PMP
4. Take as many tests as possible and
5. Above all, please understand the ITTO information flow and what does it indicate.
6. I have created a sheet called "ImpPoints" in the attached excel, that might be useful for aspirants.
Good luck