Jayant Passed the PMP Exam with 4 Above Targets and 1 Target
After the introduction of the new PMP Exam results classification, more and more Aspirants are reporting great results from their exams. Jayant from Bangalore, India got 4 Above Target and 1 Target recently. Below is his sharing:
A note of thanks and my lessons learned (PMP)
This is Jayant from Bangalore, India.
I am very happy to announce that I earned my PMP credentials on 27th September with 4 Above Target and 1 Target (Monitoring and Controlling).
I would like to thank Edward for the great work he is doing by maintaining this website. It helped me a lot right from filling up the application form till earning PDUs to maintain my certification. I had promised myself that I will contribute to this website once I completed my certification.
I got the 35 contact hours from the PMP course offered by GreyCampus. The application process was smooth and I got the approval to schedule the exam within a week on 8th May 2017.
The study guides I used for my preparation were:
- Head First PMP (3rd Edition),
- PMP Exam Prep (8th Edition Updated by Rita Mulcahy),
- PMBOK® Guide 5th Edition (free with PMI membership).
Along with this I used multiple online resources as below:
- https://edward-designer.com/web/pmp/ (It helped me starting from filling up the application form, mock exams, study notes, earning PDUs)
- https://www.izenbridge.com/videos/ (Saket Bansal videos)
- http://www.dummies.com/careers/project-management/pmp-certification/
- PMP Exam Mentor Android App (lots of practice questions)
- Various online mock tests and questions (All Free)
- Lessons learned from PMPs around the world which helped and motivated me a lot during my preparation.
Serious preparation started from Mid-July 2017 and I dedicated around 1-2 hours daily on preparation and about 4-6 hours per day on weekends, I did skip studying a few days during this time. My pace was still slow as I had planned to complete the first pass for “Head First PMP” and “Exam Prep by Rita Mulcahy” by the end of July but I was still only halfway through “Head First PMP”. I took couple of days off from work and spent my weekends studying and was able to finish the first pass of both the books by Mid-August, I did not do any exercises at the end of the each chapter. After I finished reading the books, I gave 2 Mock tests and scored about 60-65 % in each. I knew I still need to fill up a lot of gaps but the mock tests helped me find my gaps and how to structure my study areas.
I took a break for 1 day from studying and then again I started studying from both the books (“Head First PMP” and “Exam Prep by Rita Mulcahy”) simultaneously reading each topic from each book one by one, I spent almost between 2-2.5 hours daily for this and about 6-8 hours per day on weekends. I also did the questions at the end of each chapter and kept a track of scores, during the day I also practiced a lot of questions from various sources online and the PMP Exam Mentor App. I tried to maintain a score between 70-75% for each topic. I started feeling confident now though my pace was still slow as I had planned to complete the 2 books by end of August but was only able to complete by the end of the first week of September. During this time I also made it a point to do at least 1 full length mock exam every weekend along with practice questions.
I would strongly recommend everyone who is preparing to start taking up mock tests as soon as possible, it really helps to develop a strategy to attack questions. It does not matter how many questions you attempted but how many different types of questions you attempted. I spent considerable time on each question and for each wrong answer I did the complete analysis on what I did wrong.
Initially I thought I would not have time to read PMBOK® Guide but I felt it would not be fair to skip the most important book the exam is based on. So I started reading PMBOK® Guide and planned to complete it superficially but as I started reading it my concepts became much clearer and helped me understand the data flow (ITTOs). I would also recommend reading PMBOK® Guide once as it really helps, though it may feel boring initially but as soon as your concepts become clear you will start enjoying reading it. I continued to give 1 or 2 mock tests every weekend.
My exam was scheduled on September 27, I took that week off from work to revise. I had stopped all preparation by the afternoon of September 26. Woke up early on the day of the exam and had a nice breakfast and left for the exam center immediately. I skimmed through my notes and Edwards notes just before the exam.
On the final exam I got a lot of scenario based questions in which I was asked to choose what a project manager is supposed to do in a particular scenario. I got a very few EVM questions (about 4-5) but that too were not direct. I finished the 200 questions in approximately 3 hours 35 minutes with one 5-minute break I took. I had marked around 20 questions. I quickly started reviewing all the questions and changed a few options which I felt incorrect. I was only able to review 50 odd questions and stopped reviewing when 1 minute was left. The exam stopped itself at 4:00 hours. There was a small survey and I tried to spend the full time to take it as I felt really nervous to see the result. Finally I saw the Congratulations message and felt relieved to see my performance.
Thanks Jayant for sharing the details of the PMP Exam journey. I totally agree that practising mock exams early on in the exam prep helps a lot to understand your strengths and weaknesses that would help you direct your prep focus tremendously!
Wish you PMP success!
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