My Adventure - PMP

Hello Everyone,

Happy to share that, I cleared my PMP exam in the month of Nov 2020. With the wonderful guidance of my peers and Office PM community, I was able to clear this in the first attempt. I would like to share my little adventure on the same.

Preparation/Study plan:

Like any project, each of us is unique. So you have to figure out which method will work better for you. Some insights from my journey,

• I am an active listener than a reader, thus the book -> ‘PMP Exam Prep’ by Rita Mulcahy is not for me.
• Enrolled in ‘Simplilearn’ PMP online class and I had attended two complete sessions led by the trainers Mr. Tim Jerome and Mr. Sachin Goswami. Got a chance to learn lot of real-world examples from both instructors to understand the concepts better.
• Covered PMBOK guide in parallel with the online classes.

Mock test:

• Used mobile app ‘PMP Pocket Prep’ for some quick short tests.
• Used ‘Prepcast - PMP Exam simulator’ for 4Hrs mock test. IMHO, Prepcast mock tests were very close to real exam.
• Free mock test provided by PMI.

This is where I learnt a lot, by committing and analyzing my mistakes. After 4 Hrs of each of the seven mock exams, spent 4 to 6 Hrs in analyzing both wrong and right answers.

Preparation for D-Day:

Due to ongoing pandemic, I didn’t want to risk myself by going to exam center for which I have to travel at least 200 Kms. So decided to take the exam from home, which came with certain risks, but the risk factor was manageable.

Pre-requisites to take up the online proctored exam at home -

• Stable internet connection (Broadband), Wi-Fi Dongle for back up
• Quite room to take the exam
• Laptop with mouse and decent battery backup
• UPS connection to Wi-Fi router and laptop power socket
• Good sleep and enough rest before the exam day
• Snickers, Banana and water bottle to keep myself energized (allowed only during 10 min break)

D-Day:

Logged in 30 minutes before the exam and completed the check-in process within 15 min. Exam started as scheduled, most of my questions were with short answers. Lucky me:). Didn’t mark much questions for review and very few were analytical questions. Had my break after 89th questions. Completed all 200 questions when I had almost 40 minutes remaining in the clock.

Ran through the questions once again till I got bored and submitted. Six months of hard work paid off. Got the much awaited “Congratulations” message from PMI.

Note: I was warned by the proctor twice for murmuring the questions and covering my face with hands (yeah, I was yawing after 2.5 Hrs :), I couldn’t help myself).

Vijayanand Sathyanarayanan - Special thanks to you for being my study mate and for all the motivation.