Greetings from Russia, Moscow!
As almost everybody here, I had passed on my first try on May, 19th.
My preparation took about 4 month and I had to spend around 300 hours. Here is approach I used:
- Read PMBoK just to get familiar with core concepts;
- Read PMBoK and highlighted areas I was not sure about or wanted to memorize;
- Wrote out by hand highlighted text and key info from PMBoK into copybook;
- Read chapters on hard topics in Rita Mulcahy's book;
- Watched PM PrepCast;
- Completed 7 test exams in Exam Simulator.
It w
as enough for me and I barely managed to finish on time.
Some of LL:
- Make a plan (with milestones) and strictly follow it;
- Track your progress;
- It is of no use to prepare less than 1,5h per day;
- Writing out by hand hard topics and info to memorize proved to be excellent trick to learn easily and quickly seemingly hard-to-learn info. It surprised me, but I learnt all EVM formulas with a single attempt;
- ITTO is not to be learnt, it is to be understood. This way it becomes your strength;
- EVM formulas are not that hard if you understand what they are about and how are they used. It took me about 4 hours to go through all of them and memorize them;
- Whilst exam questions and Exam simulator questions are not similar that much, they make I think the right way;
- PMP status is really valued even in Russia;
- The hardest and the saddest part of my preparation was to sit still and complete test exams. In average it took me 2,5h per exam to complete.
Exam-time experience:
If you are easily annoyed by keyboard typing, coughing, or chairs creak - prepare and use earplugs properly;
Exams could ask you any question on any area related to project management. I met a question asking how I would handle issue with labor union.
if somebody from Russia will be going to pass PMP exam, I would gladly help you. You can find me on LinkedIn or contact me here.
Cheers,
Sergei Romaniuk, brand new PMP
