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Tuesday, May 23, 2017

PMP Success Story: Learn from the Best, Trust on Your Exam Preparation, and Believe in Yourself

By Manas Das, PMP



I had joined Satya’s classes during July 2016 for PMP® mandatory 35 contact-hour learning.

Satya is instrumental in sharing PMP tips and tricks in very simplified way. I was very attentive to what Satya speaks in the class, because every line of him is very important to gain insight for preparing PMP. Also, there are many topics explained in a very simplified way on his blog (this blog).

Hence, I must recommend that it’s very important to be attentive during the class and revise the courses same day evening and revisiting his blog for PMP articles.

Due to extreme project commitment, I was not able to plan my exam until January 2017. I applied for the exam in February 2017 and scheduled my exam during first week of May 2017.

I was not able to spent much time preparing for study for couple of hours everyday, but I made sure to spent at least 2 hours during weekdays and 6 hours during weekends. 

I had prepared a roadmap for PMP preparation to stick to the timeline. I’m sharing the roadmap here. And, recommending everyone to prepare the same to help you with your preparation and not getting lost in day to day office work and current project deliverables.

  • 1.5 months preparation for Understanding the Concepts (Not Memorizing) –I’ve gone through PMBOK guide once and Satya’s tips and tricks during training notes.
  • 15 days Mock Test preparation (I have used mostly mock tests)
    My average scores for KH Mock tests are around 71~72%.
  • 15 days for revision of PMP materials – revising the existing materials.
  • 15 days for Mock preparation (had couple of books to refer).
I strongly recommend everyone to go through the PMBOK® guide at least once. I already had two books with me and re-read them after going through Satya’s classes.

It was about 3 days I did not really study anything as part of my preparation and kept my mind free and preparing for time management during the exam.

During PMP Exam
During the exam, I’ve taken one break of 4 minutes after 3 hours 5 minutes of the exam and I’ve completed going through all the 200 questions and few were marked for review. In the rest 50 minutes I’ve done 2 reviews of all the 200 questions and finally submitted just 40 seconds left for the exam to end.

Finally saw the much-awaited Congratulations page.



PMP Exam Tips
  • Initially it takes 10 to 15 minutes of your time to come up to speed for answering questions; so not to panic.
  • If you are good with time management, during Mock exams then it will help to complete the first pass of the 200 questions in 2.5 hours to 3 hours.
  • The first answer that comes to your mind is mostly right (70-80% times). Hence, if you are confident, then select the option and proceed.
  • For wordy questions, please read the last sentence of the question to find out what has been asked in the question.
  • Select the answer always keeping the big picture in mind that proper project management is used and not your own project management experience.
  • There are questions where more than 2 correct answers to the questions so need to analyze and select the BEST answer.

Conclusion
Finally, would like to share the information to all the test takers that PMP exam tests the knowledge, application and analysis which makes the PMP examination much more than a test of memory.

So, it’s important that you know how to apply the knowledge from PMI Project Manager’s prospective and be able to analyze situation.

Trust on your exam preparation and believe yourself to eliminate the fear of appearing the exam.
Best of Luck for your exam!!

Brief Profile:
Manas Das is a Project Manager with Infosys Technologies Ltd. He can be contacted at manasdas82@gmail.com. His linkedin profile is at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/manas-das-0670a02b/

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