I just passed PMP exam today after a long journey! I would love to share my experience here.
Firstly, lte's talk about the closest experience -- my exam day. I'm owl, so I chose the afternoon test time as 12pm. I'm not good at driving direction, so I checked the test center location, test drove there and remembered the driving direction and crossing street. I had a good night sleep and got up at 10am. After fighting with my morning sickness, I had my brunch. I arrived the test center 20 minutes earlier. The staff checked my ID, and asked me to put everything inside the locker! Remmeber everything--means you can only bring your ID and locker key insdie the test room. All other stuffs, such as watch, drink, and food, must be kept inside the locker. Since we can't access the locker during the test, I left the water bottle on top of locker cabinet. The staff is very nice to allow me kept wearing my sea-sick bank to fight for the nausea from pregnency sickness, which must help me a lot during the test(or I was too concentrated during the test to forgot the nausea?) Anyway, the staff allowed me to start the test after I settle down, but before scheduled 12pm. They gave me paper, 2 pencils, ear plug, and allowed me take some tissues they provided(you must kept the tissues on top of desk during whole process and can't put into pocket) to enter the test room. The staff showed me the test cubicle, and test started.
During the first 15 minutes tutorials, I quickly went through the turorials, and started the memory dump as all past warriors suggested. I had to admitted that the pencil writing on the dark colors paper is very difficult to read, though I didn't really use my memory dump during the test since I've rememmbered them all clearly in my mind. I memory dumped that table with 5 process groups, 9 knowledge areas, and 44 processes. I also wrote down all EV formulars, sigma %, conflict methods, power types before 15 minutes ends. The exam started. My anxiety level suddently increased a lot after I marked the first 3 questions. I didn't know the answer at all. It seems like I haven't prepare those area at all. I had a deep breath, marked it, and continue. The questions seems more difficult than my practice, since I almost spend 1 minute per question during the test, while usually I only need less than 30 seconds per question for those after chapter practice. Due to the slowness of answering, I changed my plan immediately. Initially I planed to break every 50 questions, now I decided to take break only after every 100 questions. I felt very thirsty during the test, since I usually sip a handful of water every couple minutes to keep myself hydrated after pregnant. I said sorry to my baby in my heart, and asked her to bear with the thristy for 4 hours. At the first break time after I finished the first 100 questions, my lips was totally dried up. During the break, I tried to drink as much water as possible before nausea caught me. Then I returned the test room. The second half questions seems much better than first half. I finished them faster and marked much less questions comparing to the first half. Then 2nd break. I spent a little bit over 3 hours to complete all questions, which is much longer comparing to 2 hours I tried during practice. Then I went through all marked questions. That's the time I started to feel hungry and the abdomimal cramp, which occurs to me almost everyday after pregnant. I had to softly touch my belly to sustain the cramp pain. I had around 40 questions marked, and 50 mintes left after my break. So time should be sufficient. After couple deep breath, I continued my review in a more relax sitting. I only felt more confirmative about 10 questions after review and changed some answers. By the time I finished review marked round, only 10 minutes left. I decided to use up all rest of time by going through the unmarked questions. After around 30 questions quick review, the popup windows shows the time is up. A survey comes first to ask how's your experience about the test. I finished the survey very quickly, and clicked next to wait for the exam result. Due to those marked uncertainty, I got a feeling that I might pass the exam just above the threshhold. The result came out--way better than I estimated. I got 5 P and 1 M to pass the exam, which makes me feel like flying. I went out to sign out, got the print out from the staff, and got all my stuff inside the locker. I started to eat the apple I prepared but not get time to eat during the test, and happily drove home.
Now, let's go back to my learning experience. I started the application last October, and got approval in a week after application submittal. I ordered whole crosswind package from PMI market place while I paid for the membership fee and exam fee. I wanted to read PMBOK, though it's great sleep pill due to the dryness of reading. I switched to "Head First PMP", which is much enjoyable reading experience, and finish reading it slowly once in about 2 months. Maybe couple hours every week. My learning stopped at last December, and I kept postponed my exam date from last December to this March, then this June to catch the last train before PMBOK version change. At the beginning of this May, I knew I'm pregnant while I haven't started picking up my learning. That made me make my mind to pass the PMP exam by end of June without postponing the exam again, so that I can focus on my baby afterwards. Only 7 weeks left for the exam preparation. A little bit tight. I spend all my free time on learning. I read the crosswind exam manual chapter by chapter, and read PMBOK related chapters after each chapter from crosswind exam manual. Then I tried the exercise and practice questions in the chapter end. This time PMBOK reading seems more smooth and easy to catch. One week before the exam, I quickly read through Rita's book to get different practice flavor. I think it benefits me quite a lot while I answer the situational questions of exam. I didn't have time to go through those mock up tests available online, though I hope I had to gain my confidence.
In summary:
- Head First PMP, 1 time reading, highly recommend to use it as the first reading material especially if you haven't have a systematic knowledge about PM;
- Crosswind exam manual, 1 time reading, recommend this manual, but not the whole package. (I didn't enjoy its Audio CD, and I didn't have time to try its exam CD). I use the first page from this manual as my memory dump base;
- PMBOK, 1 time reading, MUST, recommend read it after you have good idea about PM. At the time I read it, it can easily link to my experience and knowledge for understanding;
- Rita's book, 1 time very quick reading, recommend to understand PMI-ism;
- Kim's book, just chapter end questions, but I wish I had time to read the whole book since I like the way it presents the knowledge in a natual process sequence instead of grouping by knowledge area from all the rest of books;
- Oliver's 75 questions, I should not try it 2 days before my exam since I only scored 70% and 1 minutes per question which makes me very anxious about passing the exam.
I collected a lot of practice questions, and subscribed to quite some yahoo mailing lists. Though I didn't have time to read their contributed notes,, practice those questions, or even follow up those mailing list discussion. I did gain a lot of knowledge about other people's lesson learned at the beginning of my preparation. I do recommend you subscribe to those yahoo groups and follow the discussion if you have time:
The most important point is to understand the meaning instead of memorize it. I can't memorize ITTO for all 44 processes, but I tried to understand what's the purpose of those processes, why it use certain inputs, why it can create certain outputs, why it should use certain tools and techiniques instead of other tools, and why they follow certain orders during project life cycle. In this way, I can't write down all ITTO for the processes, but I can point out which one belongs to which process when I see ITTO. That is very important for the exam, since I did see quite some questions are asking about that in differnt way, and I was able to find out the best answer easily without memorizing all ITTO.
Also I don't practice mock up tests very much. All in all, I just finished one full 200 questions mock up test from Crosswind exam manual before and after reading its exam manual book. I did practice all those chapter questions from book lists above. I marked uncertain questions and pay much attention to understand why certain answer is correct even if I accidently pick the right answer. It is important to review each question after your practice, and really understand the reason behind the answer. Do not expect the exam question ask you exactly same sentence as PMBOK or mock up questions. There might be a lot grammatically incorrect sentences. I fully agree that PMP exam is to test your experience and knowledge instead of good memory, which proved from my exam experience. Again, the focus is to understand the concept, and know what has been used in the real life, what hasn't, and what can be learned to apply to the work to improve the real life work.
As I kept mentioning here, the understanding of knowledge and linkage with the real life experience is the most important thing. I usually follow 2 PM podcasts which helps me understand PM knowledge with real life work. I highly recommend you listen to them. It is not for exam boot camp, but it's beneficial for your professional learning:
Finally, it is a long journey! I started with engineering background. And based on Halo theory(if you've studied PMP, you knew what it means), my responsibility started to grow towards some project management and team management direction. Sometimes I felt the shortage of enough knowledge to handle certain conflicts during the work, I was thinking to take some classes in the communication area. I searched around and found "
Project Leadership and Communication" class offered by UCSC-extension. I love the class, and I love the instructor Kimberly Wiefling! I felt so lucky that she's the instructor for that class. I love her presentation and exercises, especially her chicken story, which motivated to continue the whole "Certificate Program in Project and Program Management", and whenever I want to give up in the real life. Of course, when I went through the classes for that certification, I encournted a lot of great instructors. They taught me a very solid PM knowledge foundation towards my PMP journey. I would recommend the whole program to the people who'd love to learn more in PM world, or would love to acquire PMP, but not in rush. Because of the solid foundation I got from the program, I didn't spend much efforts to prepare the exam right before the exam but still passed it. Actually I learned PMI and PMP from those classes, and decided to acquire PMP as an important milestone in my career growup. It's definetely not the end of my journey. It just means that I can enter into a resting area for short break.
It is just a wonderful day to end a wonderful week:-) Now I'll take a break and focus more on my baby-to-be.
I hope this lengthy and wordy experience haven't drove you away. If you read here, good luck on your journey and wish you all the best!
