Passed PMP yesterday

Hi All,

I have cleared my PMP exam yesterday 06th May, 2014 in first attempt. Following are my Lessons Learned.

Study Time

•Started my preperation during second week of March. Booked my slot for 06thMay. I had 55days for preperation.

•No specific timetable by topic. But was able to cater 4hrs a day on weekdays and 6+hrs on weekends.

•Last 15 days i went into 8+hrs a day mode (including mock exams).

Exam Preparation

•Rita...Rita..Rita..only Rita - Very nice book - Explained all knowledge areas in detail. Read it for 3times(1st time in detail-took about 35days for me, 2nd time revision-abt 15days, 3rd time-3days,skimmed through the book).

•Memorized Rita process chart and can still write in sequence all the actions listed from all the process groups in that chart.

•If you can memorize this chart, you can solve nothing less than 10questions in the real exam.

•Didn't tried to memorize Inputs/Outputs. But one should memorize to Tools and Techniques.

Mock Exams

Mock test helps you to prepare seating for 4 hours – solving or understanding situational questions and understanding your progress.

•PMZilla tough 30questions - 47% (Before revision)

• techfaq360 - 75%.

• Head First -72%

• Questions from Rita Book - Avg 65% (before revision)

• PMPForSure - 64%

• 175 Oliver Lehman - 67%

• 75 Oliver Lehman - 56% (before revision)

• PMStudy exam1 - 59% (before revision)

• Simplilearn - 64%

About Exam

•Exam was not easy but not tough

•First 15 minutes tutorial which is very basic

•Good number of formula based questions, from EV in particular. I got nearly 15 questions from EV alone(including graphical form of EV), 4-5 from Communication Channels, 3 from Critical Path and 4-5 from PERT/Triangular Estimate Durations(this is quite confusing, you are not sure which one to use either PERT or Traingular :) )

•Good number of questions from Quality

•Very good number of questions from HR, from Conflict Management in particular

•Considerable amount of questions from Initatiing and Closing process groups

•Lot of questions from integrated change control questions.

•Few questions from procurement and stakeholders

By the time i complete 200 questions, the time meter was showing only 27mins left. Utilized this time to review the questions marked for review and then clicked on 'End Exam' button. Immediately the screen turned white and after 1-2mins, it took me to the survey about the Prometric. This suvey will have 9 questions to rate the facilities available at Prometric. After completing this again screen went white and started calculating.

Finally I received a message... PASS… Congratulations... after this the staff at Prometric gave me a printed copy of the same message.

Advice to PMP aspirants

•Kindly draft a plan (like number of hrs per day) and stick to that at any cost.

•PMBOK or Rita or whatever...stick to one book.

•Be relaxed and keep your cool.

Thank You Note:

•God

•My wife and my two kids

Regards,

Sukumar

Congratulations Sukumar...very well written LL's.

admin's picture

Congratulations on your PMP and thanks for posting your LL. 

anmol2701's picture

Congrats dear.

 

Many congratulations boss, i do have one question if i may:

well i am new to PMP and i like your LL and i am planning to follow the same way, meaning depends totally on Rita without even touching the PMBOK..........do you think that will work for jonir PM?

You Must need PMBOK.  Rita only supplement to PMBOK.

During my entire 55days of preperation, i never ever used PMBOK. My advice is stick to one book, study cover to cover min 2times so that you can understand each KA. Coming to Rita, each KA was explained in detailed level and in an interesting way with good no of practice questions.

Hi Sukumar, Nice to hear you're passed.. Could you explain how Rita's proces chart helps to get 10 qns?