PMP Lessons Learned: 4 Ds for the PMP Exam

Great! Another piece of in-depth PMP Exam lessons learned received here! Congratulations Sharon Reid-Baxter. The lessons learned by Sharon on this PMP Exam prep project is detailed below:

I sat the PMP Exam on March 2 and passed with Above Target in all 5 Domains on my first attempt. My advise to PMP aspirants is to not be nervous, but to be prepared. I found that the questions are scenario-based and the intent of the questions are for you to think like a Project Manager. My advise to you is to:-

• Do as many mock exam as you can. This will helps you to manage your time (4 hours goes by fast!) and also gives you different perspectives on the type of questions. Make sure to analyse and clarify questions that you got wrong during your practice exams.
• During your exam, pay close attention to the questions and by that I mean, answer what is being asked. Some questions are quite lengthy but make sure to read each questions carefully because the question may start out with what is happening during the Planning stage and end up asking about Executing.
• Don’t be surprised if you come across a couple questions that you do not remember reading during your studies, but don’t panic, use your Project Manager experience to answer them. My observation is that there are usually two answers that are definitely wrong so just eliminate those, then choose the best answer from the remaining two answers….your first guess is usually correct.
• Don’t get stressed out about memorizing all the processes, the key is understanding how they flow from each knowledge area. I personally did not do a data dump because I wanted to use my time to answer the questions. I was lucky because I only had 5 questions that required me to use formulas. But if you choose to do a data dump you will need to do it during your exam time.

Lastly, relax, it’s not as bad as you think, if you’re prepared well, you’ll do well.

Edward, I really do appreciate your work and thank you for sharing your experience and knowledge with PMP aspirants on your site. I spent many hours going through all the resources that you made available especially the free Mock exams sites, as well as the section on “Commonly Confused Terms”. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

~ Sharon Reid-Baxter, PMP, ITIL®, SAFE Scrum Master

Thanks Sharon for the PMP Exam lessons learned!