How I aced the PMP Exam with only 4 weeks of study

The PMP (Project Management Professional) certification is recognized globally as the universal framework that is understood by all professionals who work in project management.

There is only one way to obtain it, and that is through the assessment and examination conducted by the Project Management Institute. (PMI).

In order to sit the PMP exam, one must have a combination of education, work experience, and project management experience that would enable the individual to apply be selected, and understand the study material to pass the exam.

This article will go through my experience and the process I used to study and ultimately do extremely in the PMP exam - despite some setbacks on the day.

My story / study process

I applied for the PMP exam online while I was working abroad in Fiji.?I had already decided that if my application was accepted that I would be sitting the exam online as opposed to a classroom setting.

The application fee is not cheap, keep that in mind before you decide to do this. It costs $555 USD as of 2023, it does go down to $405 USD with a PMI membership with costs $139 USD per year.

As part of your application you have to list and describe your project management experience and you have done so far throughout your career that deems you qualified to sit the exam.

Once your application is submitted to PMI, reviewed, and it is accepted, they grant you a 12 month window to study and sit the exam.

PMI will also allow you to download the latest version of the PMBOK guide. currently on its 7th edition.

The PMBOK stands for "Project Management Body Of Knowledge". It's a collection of frameworks and best practices across all industries.

It is a?750+ page book that is published by PMI and is regularly updated, and has all the material associated with the exam inside of it.

My initial instincts were to double down and develop a strategy to learn the PMBOK from cover to cover. All though it is possible, it is a time consuming and mentally laborious endeavor.

So after my application got approved, I downloaded the PMBOK, printed out all 750 pages, put them into a ring binder into colour coded sections and away I went. I chipped away at reading a bit each morning and night, taking notes as a went along. two months went by and I realized I didn't have much to show for my efforts.

Many people go down this route, and it takes them months to prepare for the exam. It's a lot to take in and memorize, especially if you're working full time too.

I needed to find a way to get more engaged with the material, and learn what was necessary for the exam.

The PMBOK guide is definitely worth keeping as a reference guide and for developing frameworks for the organizations you work for but thats about it. The it is very wordy and frankly quite a difficult read for someone that is not used to the jargon and terminology. A lot of it will be familiar if you have direct project management experience but the vast majority of it is not covered in the exam.

With the strategy I'm about to share you could study for and pass the PMP exam in as little as two weeks - no joke! It took me four weeks, because I was not studying for the PMP full-time.

So I started my process by looking for tutorials on YouTube, and found videos from a lot of people that were able to study and pass the PMP within a few weeks, hardly opening the PMBOK, this was confusing for me. How can they pass without even opening the PMBOK?

Then I stumbled upon the videos of an engineer that passed the PMP after a few weeks of study thanks to?a PMP tutor named Andrew Ramdayal. His suggestion was to buy Andrew's course offered on Udemy. I already use Udemy quite regularly so that for me was a no brainer. $10 USD well spent. I found he also has a set of mock exams on the Udemy platform so i bought those too.

Once I was about halfway through Andrew's Udemy course I booked my exam with one month to prepare, I tend to respond well to a good amount of pressure and felt 1 month was sufficient time for me to prepare especially with how much I thought I had progressed.

Andrew Ramdayal actually has a lot of involvement with PMI and the development of the PMBOK guide.

Below is his Linkedin profile.

Andrew also has a YouTube channel he regularly updates and live streams to answer peoples questions.

He also has an excellent PMP exam simulator on his website, which only costs around $45 USD - money very well spent.

I found that the questions in the simulator were suspiciously close to the questions in the real exam. Doing the simulator gave me a good feel and pattern for the questions and make studying that much easier.

If you complete all of his Udemy courses, it will prepare you well for his exam simulator course on his website.

If you can get at least 80% average in his exam simulator course it will prepare you well for the real exam.

The key thing to learn throughout the courses and materials is the mindsets of the two different methodologies, the traditional mindset, and the agile mindset.

Traditional project management tends to be more structured, plan-driven, and risk-averse, with a focus on following a predefined process.

Agile project management, on the other hand, tends to be more flexible, adaptive, and customer-focused, with a focus on delivering value quickly and responding to changing requirements.

There will be questions related either style of project management. There could be scenarios, situations, or outright statements that will require you to determine what style of project is being stated and then use the specific mindset to determine what the best decision or course of action should be.

Learning the mindsets helped me the most.

Towards the end of my study, about a day or two before I was due to sit the exam I had completed all of Andrew's stuff, had that down pat, and started looking for more quality learning materials and I stumbled upon David McLachlan's YouTube channel and found his materials extremely helpful also. I watched both of the videos below for practice. I did not buy any of his materials as I felt Andrew had me covered by the time I went through all his stuff but David also has an excellent teaching style I connected with.

David's profile on LinkedIn

If you follow all of these steps, I am almost certain you will pass the exam as well as I did.

You don't need to pay $1000+ for some 5-day training course to help you pass the exam. It passed it, on my first try and I spent less than $70 USD on training materials.

Summary of my study process:

1. Buy Andrew Ramdayal's Udemy course when it goes on sale for $10 USD
2. Buy Andrew Ramdayal's Udemy mock exams at the same time - $10 USD
3. Buy Andrew Ramdayal's Exam Simulator on his website - $45 USD
4. Set an exam date - I gave myself 4 weeks (remember: If you fail, you can do it again 2 more times before re-applying)
5. Ensure you learn the mindset of the traditional PM
6. Ensure you learn the mindset of Agile PM
7. Watch David McLachlan's YouTube Videos

Exam day

Details :

• 180 multi-choice questions
• Duration: 3hrs 50 mins.
• Breaks: 2 x 10 mins

The exam will cover both the traditional style of project management as well as Agile style.

If you've chosen to do the exam online like I did, then the tips i'm about to share with you might be useful.

When you sign in to the exam platform you will wait for a person to physically log on and check that location you have chosen to sit the exam is suitable. This is done using your webcam. Make sure its working properly.

They will ask you to move your laptop around and show the room from all angles.

They will also ask you to leave your webcam and microphone on throughout the exam. Do not take this lightly.

Once they are satisfied with their checks they will ask you to sit down and wait patiently before the exam begins.

There will be a countdown timer on your screen.

The mistake I made here was I drank too much water before the exam, and after they asked me to sit patiently before the start I quickly got up and went to the toilet, while the countdown timer did its thing.

They mean what they say when they say stay seated.

I got back to my seat, all is good, my bladder is relieved, the exam starts.

After I finished answering question two, a little chatbox popped up on my screen and someone at the other end stated that I had got out of my seat and had violated the rules.

I typed back and explained that the exam had not yet started and that i had to run to relieve myself. Not good enough. I was kicked out the exam and given a ticket number to follow up with a case handling center.

I tried getting through to them, no answer.

20 minutes of trying go by.

I thought screw it I will just try logging back into the exam, and it worked!

I was back in right back onto question 3 where I had left off - but with 20 minutes less to complete the exam.

Play on.

These people are dead serious on the rules. For a couple of times I found myself talking out loud as I read through the various multi-choice answers, and each time, someone at the other end heard me and the chatbox came up telling me to shut up or I would be kicked out of the exam for breaking the rules. So being as quiet as possible during the exam is also important.

They will hear other people coming into the room, and be anxiously suspicious of you cheating, and kick you out, so make sure you have a quiet place that is all to yourself or these people will have you for breakfast.

Even nervous tapping or rocking in your seat pisses these people off enough to kick you out.

And for the love of life you must stay seated until you get your 10 min break so water intake needs careful planning, and you will get thirsty.

If I recall correctly, my bladder was on the verge of nuclear meltdown for about 70% of the exam's duration, you can raise a request to go to the toilet by initiating a chat but they dont seem to care I tried it a couple of times but to no avail, these guys get a sadistic kick out of letting you choose between passing the exam and pissing your pants.

To make matters worse.

Towards the end of the exam my eyes started to give out on me, for the first time in my life my eyes couldn't handle looking at a screen and started to go really blurry. This was towards the last 45 mins of the exam.

I really struggled to keep it together as I worked to try and focus on the screen and worked at keeping the dam shut as my bladder threatened to burst from all the water I drank, I kid you not, it was the mental struggle of making sure my pelvic floor muscles could hold the strain while moving my head from side to side to make out the words on the screen and recalling the right information to provide the exam with answers - it was tough.

Without those 20 mins I lost from the start of the exam It became a mad rush to answer the last dozen questions. In my mind I was already mentally preparing myself to have to resit the exam because I was having such a hard time, I thought I was just an out of shape as a student and needed more time on the grind.

In actual fact, despite the virtual proctoring torturers, and the setbacks, to my surprise I smoked the exam.

So in summary:

1. Find a clear and quiet space where you wont be disturbed - they will check this thoroughly
2. Don't drink too much water before the exam or you will pay for this in suffering
3. Don't rely on any of your requests to go relieve yourself getting acknowledged or accepted during the exam.
4. Don't mumble to yourself or fidget during the exam. They will threaten to kick you out if you repeat the violation.
5. Stay seated until the 10 minute breaks
6. It doesn't take much for the exam proctors to kick you out, a whiff of rule violation is enough
7. If you need to wear prescription glasses, wear them. Don't forget them.
8. If you have a solution for blurry eyes from staring at screens for extended periods of time - use that solution, you will need it.
9. The exam is 4 hours long. You have time to answer all 180 questions, I lost 20 mins and had a couple of minutes spare at the end - it was hard work, and I had to rush.
10. Give yourself an aggressive deadline to study for the exam. Floundering around believing you have 12 months to study and sit the exam is a mistake, I know people who have had companies pay for them to sit the exam and procrastinated until time ran out.

Conclusion

I hope what I have shared here is helpful and will help you get closer to getting PMP certified.

I went into it thinking the 12 month window is how long it was going to take me to learn the material to pass the exam.

That is not the case.

It is also not the case or necessary to spend $1000's to have an expert come to you or your workplace and talk you through the PMBOK guide when there are some real experts online offering the learning materials and courses for dirt cheap in comparison.

I paid around $70 USD for my training courses.

I did not go through the PMBOK guide cover to cover

I gave myself 4 weeks of committed study to have a crack at the exam.

Despite quite a few setbacks on exam day I passed it really well.

Follow what I did and im sure you will too!