My tryst with PMP Certification

Hi all,

I know its a little late to bring up this!!! and the fact that this blog is all bout SAP BI..but just in case any of you are contemplating to be PMP certified...this one is for you.

I passed my PMP exam on August 2010.  I have been on and off the pmzilla forum learning a lot from others questions and lessons learned.
I started preparing in the month of May and have been consistent in preparing for 2hrs per day. The materials I used were the PMBOK 4th edition, Head First PMP, PMP: Project Management Professional Exam Study Guide by Kim Heldman, and Rita Mulcahy's PMP Exam Preparation 6th edition.
I started off with the PMBOK, 4th edition.I read through it the first time just to get an idea of what to expect, that itself took a week to finish! Then I joined the above site and began reading how others prepared for the exam. This brought me to the Rita Mulcahy’s PMP book. This was really helpful in getting the basics right. Then I followed a pattern of reading a chapter from PMBOK, then the same chapter from Rita’s PMP, Head first PMP, and then Kim Heldman’s PMP guide. This helped me getting the foundation strong, I analyzed situations and found the gaps I had in my PM knowledge. I took notes of important points from these books. I found Kim Heldman’s PMP guide organized differently, which made it hard to sort according to the KA, so used to just skim through it and answer the chapter end questions. On the whole, I found Head First PMP book had simple explanation and that Rita’s PMP followed a more comprehensive approach. I used Rita Mulcahy’s Fastrack SW too. After this I started taking online tests from different sites like
www.preparepm.com
www.pm-abc.com
www.passionatepm.com
www.simplilearn.com
www.headfirstlabs.com/PMP/pmp_exam/v1/quiz.html
http://www.voightps.de/Free_PMP_Exam.asp
www.oliverlehmann.com/
I used to take notes on all the incorrect answers I got and used to analyze why I got it wrong. I used to put in extra hours during weekends. So by July I finished all this and began reading PMBOK once more, this time I prepared an ITTO dump, using mnemonics. I tried this site and found it to be quite good. Thanks Harwinder!www.monkibo.com/pmp-exam-itto-trainer/index.html.
Along with this I used to go through all the notes I prepared and follow this forum and www.deepfriedbrainpmp.com
A week to my scheduled exam I did the pmp exam from www.pmstudy.com and also went through the Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct by PMI. I found the pmstudy’s exam closer to the actual exam.
My scores were between 75% and 82%.The whole preparation got me an idea that the exam was going to be tough.
The day before the exam, I just went through the ITTO dump and slept early and tight. I didn’t prepare the PMBOK page 43 and formulas dump as after all this preparation they were crystal clear to me.
Exam Day
I got the afternoon slot, so just went through my study notes and reached the center 30 min ahead. There was a security check (not even in airports have I seen something of this extent!), asked to remove my watch, and keep my belongings in a locker. The locker key and primary ID were allowed inside.I was given 2 sheets of paper and 2 pencils.I was given a brief of the exam and that it was video and audio recorded. When the 15 min tutorial started I wrote the dump within 10 min and went through the tutorial and started the exam. I was relieved to see that the exam was not tough as it was projected to be, not much of paragraph questions, only simple problems to solve. More questions were from quality, risk, change requests, and ITTO’s. After 50 questions I was sure to make it. I finished the exam within 3 hrs, with 4 questions marked for review. The rest of the time I spent reviewing all questions, changed a couple of answers and hit the end button. I was asked to finish a survey and then voila!!! The words I was dreaming all the way..Congratulations !!!.. There were some more sentences too, which I don't remember now..Well at that point, nothing else mattered! I thanked God.The freaky Friday is nothing but a mythJ
When I came out I was given a score report.I scored proficient in 3 and moderately proficient in others.
A few people I would like to thank….Harwinder and chandraR for their wonderful explanations. Great work guys!!My family, friends, and most importantly God!!!
Thank you all from the bottom of my heart…..!