Hi There ,
Congratulations on passing the exam with flying colors !! This writeup provides a lot of positive motivation on preparing the exam. I had a question on Rita's Book and wanted to know as how can i get the same. Additionally , I'm not familiar with Flashcard concept , Request you to let me know as how can i start preparing flashcards.
Thanks in an advance.
Hi,
Thank you for sharing, your inputs are definitely very useful in my preparation.
Just wanted to check which test simulator did u use?
I am thinking of selecting either of the below 2 options -
PM Master Prep
or
christopher scordo pmtraining
let me know if you have any recommendations.
This past Saturday I passed my PMP, first attempt! For reference I spent the beginning of March to middle of April hard studying, about 3-4 hours almost every day. I even moved part time workwise so I could focus on my preparations. I would consider myself a young PM and young to the field.
What I used and how:
1. Rita's book -- GREATLY helped understanding the material in an approachable way, read this all the way through once and annotated as I did, did all practice exams and exercises provided. Read it again over only what I pointed out. Took the chapter tests again to see how I improved, studied what I still felt unsure about.
2. PMBOK - - honestly, I didn't even crack this baby open until the last two weeks of my studying. I used it more to glance over the glossary and compare differences of Inputs/Outputs. Having read Rita's book, it was MUCH easier to digest.
3. Ricardo Vargas () -- AMAZING video on how to put it all together. I found myself not really seeing how the processes intertwined.
4. Memorizing processes () -- helped learn all 49 processes for my dump sheet
5. Flashcards -- I made these myself, going through Rita's book to write down anything I needed extra practice to understand. I did not "memorize" these, just reviewed every night to really familiarize myself with them. In my opinion, you are going to be hard pressed to memorize everything in the PMBOK. I only memorized formulas pointed out in Rita's book as well as a few that popped up in Test Simulator
6. This here test simulator -- Amazing, amazing, amazing. Even though I used it to take tests, it helped me learn more about agile and other things not covered in Rita's book. I think this is one of the biggest reasons I passed. I got familiar with the kinds of questions asked as well as the format of how the test actually looks (PRETTY spot on). The biggest thing is that I learned HOW to read the questions and what to look for in those tricky PMI questions. Then on the actual test, they aren't scary or disorienting. I averaged 76% on the 5 full tests I took. I only took a couple quizzes.
My biggest advice is to be honest with yourself on what you don't know -- even if you HATE a topic (*cough cough*, procurement, *cough cough*) you have to learn it. Don't focus on memorizing, focus on getting familiar and understanding the MEANING, how things flow. By time I took the test and had my brain dump, I barely looked at it because I practiced everything so much I knew it really well.
GOOD LUCK OUT THERE! You can do it. Don't underestimate the test OR yourself.
Training for Project Management Professional (PMP)®, PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)®, and Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM)®