I hope this lessons learned will help someone in the similar initial mindset to pass the exam without having to try again.
I initially sat for the exam in late September 2020 with ~2 months preparation. I only used PMBOK and Linda.com learning platform on Linkedin learning and thought I could clear the exam. I was wrong and I failed.
I never gave up! I wanted to clear the exam somehow before the changes become effective from January 2021. So I scheduled the exam for the 3rd week of December 2020 even though I had less than 2 months to prepare while managing a full-time job and a family.
This time I went all in. I listened to podcasts, studies ~3h on average everyday, made careful notes on every knowledge area (It was easy for me than following Process Groups). Most importantly I invested on the right mock exams (PM PrepCast), which built my confidence in understanding the questions really well. I did 20 questions by knowledge area and process groups before I did 3 timed full exams. I scored 76%, 82% and 86%, progressively and it assured me by the last week that I am ready (As Mr. Fichtner has advised).
Even though the questions in my 2nd PMP exam were quite lengthy compared to my 1st attempt, I was able to get to the core of it easily, thanks to the mock exams I did using PM Prep Cast. I definitely recommend this to anyone who is aiming to sit for the PMP exam as I am sure they will update the question banks in accordance with the changes that PMI are going to make starting from 2021.
Thank you!
-Gayan
