Well done Justin!

Your post is one of the best I have ever seen concerning the exam. Please take time to update the valuable insights contained on this post into the "Lessons Learned" section. Your advice will be very helpful to others.

Congratulations on passing the PMP exam, and thanks for sharing your experience and recommendations!

Gabriella

Aloha,

I passed the PMP certification in my first attempt last night with "Above Target" performance rating in all domains. I took my exam at a Pearson VUE testing center.

Testing Center/Exam Format
Despite what I had read, my exam at the testing center had the highlight, strikeout, and even a "comments" feature. I was pleasantly surprised as I had read that the feature was removed when PMI switched testing providers. I do have to say that I may have got carried away with highlighting at the beginning. If the feature does exist at your testing center/online, I strongly suggest using it. It is helpful to highlight in the question prompt when it tells you what phase you are in and also what a PM "should do," "should've done to prevent," "do first," "do next," etc. The nuisance in the question is everything and highlighting the important bits was helpful.

Consistent with what I had read, the test is now split into two parts. About halfway through, the test will ask whether you want to take a 10-minute break. The break is not mandatory, but I strongly suggest you take it. If not to go to the restroom, at least to stand up and take a breath. Prior to the break, the exam won't allow you to proceed to the next question without giving you the opportunity to review the first half of the questions (for anyone that uses the flag/mark tool). You have to review those first half of questions at this point, once you click "next" and proceed to the second half of the questions, you cannot go back and review the first half of questions. It is only after confirming you have reviewed your first half of the questions that the break is offered.

Content - PMBOK and PrepCast ONLY
I purchased PM PrepCast, Exam Simulator, and Formula Guide on April 6 and started studying the next day. I would watch the videos (required only) of the PrepCast, and then read the associated section of PMBOK after each video. This helped break up the monotony of both the reading and the videos. I took a baseline practice exam (100 questions only) two weeks into studying. I finished reading the PMBOK and watching the "required" videos a week before my exam. I spent the week leading up to my exam taking 100 question practice exams. Finding four hours to carve out between work, and being at home all day with the family was not practical.

Simulator Exam Scores
My exam scores were 75% average.

Exam 1 (67 days before exam) - 62/100 Questions
Exam 1 (5 days before exam) - 74/100 Questions
Exam 2 (4 days before exam) - 76/100 Questions
Exam 3 (4 days before exam) - 77/100 Questions
Exam 4 (3 days before exam) - 80/100 Questions
Exam 5 (2 days before exam) - 77/100 Questions
Exam 6 (1 day before exam) - 80/100 Questions

After each exam, I would review only the questions I flagged/marked, and the questions I had got wrong. The questions I flagged were predominantly because I was making an educated guess between 2 or more options and wanted to understand the right answer and why. In reading the answer explanations, if I didn't understand something or wanted more, I'd refer back to the PMBOK and reread that section/review the process diagram.

I found the actual exam to be a bit more narrow in scope than the Exam Simulator--which is to be expected after taking 600 practice exam questions. Therefore, I thought the Exam Simulator was a bit more difficult.

Time Studying
I spent 116 hours studying over 80 days. So, not even 1.5 hours a day. Of that time, I spent about 11 hours 45 minutes taking practice exams (PrepCast Exam Simulator tells you in "My Statistics").

I hope this helps people with their studying plans and also to assure people you don't need five different testing material providers to pass! If you have a decent amount of Project Management experience, particularly on large projects that use a lot of these processes (albeit called a different name or done in another way) then you should be fine reading the PMBOK and taking practice exams.

Thanks!
Justin