Kian,

First of all let me correct you. The handbook doesn't say "3 years". The handbook says "3 years / 36 months". That is an important difference, because PMI is looking for a TOTAL of 36 months of experience. And your example explains it quite well: If you work on projects in 2009 and 2010 then you will have 24 month. No work in 2011 means "no months". But then you work again for all of 2012 means you have another 12 months, so you now have a total of 36 months, which is the minimum you need to have.

So count each calendar month as "1" until you have 36 no matter how many interruptions.

And by the way... the PMI online application system calculates this automatically for you. You will clearly see how much you have or need.

Hello,
PMP handbook notes that project management experience for bachelor's degree should be 3 years/4500 hours. I am confused by the 3 years. For example if I had done projects say starting 01/01/2009 until 12/31/2010 (accumulating 4160 hours of project time in 2 years) and then did not do any projects during year 2011. But then starting 01/01/2012 through 01/31/2012 accumulated another 340 hours project time which adds up to the required 4500 hours. So from 01/01/2009 till 03/31/2012 is 3 years and 3 months in total, but no project was done in 2011 which means a total project time of 2 years and 3 months. Is this still acceptable? I guess I am not sure what 3 years requirements really mean. Does it mean that during 36 months, every single months some project works had to be performed? Or like the above example 12 months was skipped and still the 3 years requirements was met? Thank you.