PMP Lessons Learned: Managed to Pass the Exam Among Busy Schedule

Thanks and congratulations to Isha Shukla who just passed the PMP Exam! Every lesson learned is indeed very valuable for our Aspirants which may echo their thoughts and fears.

The lessons learned by Isha Shukla on this PMP Exam prep project is detailed below:

While skimming through the PMBOK® Guide the first time I noted down all the important points which remained in my memory even later and immediately took a chapter-wise test to understand the depth of my knowledge in the areas.

There was a difference of weeks before I could revise PMBOK® Guide again due to my busy schedule so I had to skim through it one more time. Therefore, it is advisable that once you start preparing you don’t leave many gaps in continuing the prep and taking the exam.
After the second PMBOK® Guide read I picked up Rita Mulcahy 9th edition and again noted down all the important points from the book while taking practice tests at the end of each chapter.

This was when I gained some confidence to take up a mock exam and that’s when I stumbled upon Edward Chung’s website and all the free practice tests. I took at least 5 of them with variations in scores depending on my moods, fatigue level, energy and confidence.

While sometimes I scored terribly I kept focusing on areas which turned out to be my weakness. Most of the questions that I marked wrong was because of not reading the question properly or not really understanding the process we are supposed to be in.
The day before the exam, while I read that many people relax and take good rest, I could not do so. I prepared a mind map for all knowledge areas and revised each chapter with the help of my notes and notes from Edward’s website and tried to go through all the questions that I usually marked wrong.

On the day of the exam, I took a last look at only those chapters which had too many processes and finally took the exam. I only attempted questions which I was confident of being correct and flagged the rest of them for revisiting. It took me 3 hours to attempt all 200 questions and the rest 1 hour to revise the flagged questions.
Utilizing all 4 hours of the exam is really important and if you have done solid prep I don’t think there is any need to worry.

~ Isha Shukla, PMP

Thanks Isha Shukla for the PMP Exam lessons learned!