Develop a Plan for your PMP Exam and Continually Monitor & Control It

I took the PMP® earlier last month and passed with 4 Proficient and 1 Moderately Proficient.

PMP® Exam Process

Over the course of 6 weeks (am in between jobs so focused on PMP® full time):

1. Create study plan (used suggestions and lesson learned from others) to create rough schedule
2. Used Andy Crowe’s “How to Pass PMP® on Your first try” – taking notes
3. Watched (majority of) PM PrepCast™ Lessons – to reinforce what I read
4. Used PM Exam Simulator until I felt comfortable (consistently scoring 78% – 85%). Also used other (free & credible) simulations you can find online.
5. Scheduled exam for that week.

Lessons Learned

• Develop a plan, and continually monitor and control it. Stay disciplined in keeping it, but flexible making changes as necessary (i.e. add/remove study days, take more/less test, focus on specific topics)
• Take plenty of practice test prior to gauge progress
  • identify weak spots
  • familiarize self with test, questions, appropriate answers, and important subject matter
  • select test date based on results
• Interact with material – think how various processes and ITTO’s relate to each other and can be used in actual projects (DO NOT memorize ITTO’s)
• Have a good test taking strategy:
  1. First 50 minutes – aim to get to 75 questions. Skip long, calculations, or difficult questions. Mark ones unsure about. Take a 5 minute break – near the restroom I did some jumping jacks to get the blood flowing.
  2. Second 50 minutes – do same as above. Take 5 – 10 minute break. use restroom, eat a snack, stretch/calisthenics
  3. Third 50 minutes – do same as above. If you’re on track you get to last question in this interval. Start going through skipped questions. Take a 10 minute break – stretching/calisthenics a MUST since your brain is fried at this point.
  4. Final 50 minutes go through skipped questions – aim to stay under 2 min for each. If you can’t skip it second time. Also go look at marked questions
  5. Last 5 minutes – guess on questions that are still unmarked. Ensure you answered everything.

~ PMP® Lessons Learned by Timothy Cheng

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