On May 6, 2022, I passed my PMP exam, and here is my exam score:
As you well know, PMI does not publish the actual score, but only shows where you stand among the four categories, and the farther you are to the right of the scale, the higher and near-perfect your score is. Finally, I am now PMP certified!
This was a crazy win for me as I had a busy personal schedule, and I never thought I could make it. But I did, and I thought of sharing a few steps on how to get PMP certified and to let you know that it's not the monster that some people think it is. With dedication, determination, and consistency in your studying habits, anyone can pass the PMP exam.
Very Important: Have a start date and an end date (which is your actual exam date)
The first and the most important asset needed to get PMP certified is a study plan that begins with a bang and stays that way till an end date, which should be your actual exam date. Believe me, the exam syllabus is so vast, that you will end up losing fire and will start forgetting concepts if you do not commit yourselves to an exam date.
I had made study plans that had a start date of November 1, 2021, however, due to lack of commitment and intermittent schedule interruptions, I went on delaying the schedule, due to which I started forgetting the material I had studied and thus had to craft my plans all over again and again. However, by March 2022 I realized that things won’t work this way and I decided to go ahead and sign up for the exam. The only date that was available was for May 6, and that became my goal, or, my end date. I became serious about my studies by 15th March and I laid down a disciplined study plan that would run for the next 7 weeks.
Let me tell you how I designed my PMP study plan.
A 3-part study plan
My PMP study plan had 3 core elements - the study period - or which is the official PMP training period, the mock test period, and the final revision period. The study period introduced me to the actual PMP Mindset (more of it for another blog post), the mock tests reinforced them, and the final revision period covered my bases.
My serious study period began on 18 March, which gave me around 7 weeks to plan my studies. I divided these in the ratio of 4:2:1, i.e.
PMP Training & Study: 4 weeks
Mock Tests: 2 weeks
Revision: 1 week
What did I do in my 4-week study period?
Completed my 35 PDUs, or what is known as the 35-hour PMP certification training
Finished studying and revising concepts from the various study materials.
Applied for the exam and got the date booked (evaluation of your PMP application may take 5 days, and the exam date availability will be a concern, hence apply at the earliest, get approved, and book your exam date.)
How did I use my 2-week mock test period?
I gave around 8 mock tests during the 2- week period, however, it was quite exhausting, so I recommend giving 5 good-quality mock tests. During that 2 week period, my usual process would be to give a mock test, review all the answers thoroughly, make notes of the important points, and move to the next test.
I strongly recommend using Andrew Randayal’s PMP Exam Simulator, which has 6 mock exams with 350 questions. The best thing about this simulator is the detailed explanation for each question. I strongly recommended that you watch each video explanation and note down the PMP mindset that he recommends for each scenario.
The 3 most important things that made my mock test exercise successful are:
Reviewing all the right and wrong answers and understanding the basic concept behind it
Noting down important points given in the answers and using them for review during the final revision week.
Ensuring that the scores of the last three mock tests are above 65%, or more than 117 out of 180.
My final 1-week before the PMP exam
I spent the last week of my study period revising all the 36 tasks mentioned in the ECO. I revised the entire glossary section of PMBOK and APG (Agile Practice Guide), and studied all the side-notes that I had made while reviewing the answers of my mock test. Along with it, I also revised all my EVM formulas and other formulas from the exam content outline.
Some important points that I took care of about this final revision period, and which you should keep in mind too are:
Never, ever try to give a mock test during this final week of your exam. Some mock tests are unpredictably tough, so if your score is bad, you will get demotivated at the last sprint.
Don’t start studying any new material you find on the web, but concentrate on the material you have been studying for the past few weeks.
Now, this brings to the most important question of all -
What study material did I use for my PMP exam?
As you well know, you need to complete a 35-hour training course to get your 35 PDU certificate, which is the basic qualifier for applying for the exam. I strongly recommend Andrew Ramdayal’s Udemy course to get that 35 PDU certificate.
Apart from this course, I used the PMBOK guide 6th edition and the Agile Practice Guide as my reference. If you have the time and patience to read the entire PMBOK cover-to-cover, you can try it, however, Andrew’s course is good enough and you can use the PMBOK if you need more detailed information on the concepts.
Just a side note: If you feel that the PMBOK is quite heavy to understand, you can replace it with Rita Mulcahy’s 10th Edition PMP Prep book as your reference. But as I said, sticking to Andrew Randayal’s Udemy course is good enough. He has made the slides available for download so you can use them as your study material.
If you don't have a background in Agile methodologies, then I strongly recommend that you read and study the Agile Practice Guide thoroughly to get a grip on the agile concepts.
As I said in the earlier post, I found the glossary section of the PMBOK and Agile Practice Guide quite useful for revising my concepts.
During your 4-week study period, use Andrew’s udemy course to build up your concepts, and keep reading the Exam Content Outline regularly (thrice a week) to get a grip on your exam syllabus.
A word of caution: You will find a lot of institutes and course videos on youtube that are designed for helping people get PMP certified. However, please choose one instructor and stick to his videos/courses only. Each instructor has his own proven methodology and if you start using videos of multiple instructors in your PMP preparation, you will not only find it confusing to apply them but will also end up spending more than the usual time preparing for the exam. Hence, stick to just 1 good instructor.
In conclusion, the above two-step methodology helped me pass my exam with a near-perfect score. With this, I wish all my aspiring PMP readers the very best in their exam preparation.
