Wednesday, January 6, 2010

PMP exam Lesson Learned (from Val, 1/4/2010)

Another former student passed the PMP exam and provided her LL:

{You're welcome to post, paraphrase, and otherwise use whatever you'd like if it will help.

Your teachings stuck with me.
Thanks for all your help in this process.
Wishing you the best,
Val}
--
Lessons Learned


I took an additional prep class on the fourth edition then took the exam quickly afterward. I knew that I needed more memorization before I went into the test but didn't want to delay any longer. I concentrated my memorization efforts on the tools and processes of each knowledge area. I felt by understanding the tools used in the knowledge area, I would better remember the inputs and outputs.

I also took practice exams as often as possible.

It was still easy to be frustrated by the questions on the real exam and feel that there were more than one correct answer to each. Keep taking the practice exams. Get ahold of as many as possible and get used to picking the best answer. In answering the questions, I thought it was crucial to read the question carefully and look for clues such as is the question looking for a tool, process, knowledge area, or definition and be sure to find the answer that match accordingly.
The exam doesn't let you know which process group or knowledge area its testing and its not in order. There were a few times, I just couldn't understand the vocabulary. It might be good to brush up on your word of the day calendar. There was at least one each critical path, earned value, and channels of communication exercise. They were fairly easy and could be done with the calculator and scratch paper provided.

It was recommended to me to do a memory dump when you first arrive at the test scene. Get out the scratch paper and write down your formulas, the process groups, the knowledge areas, and your trouble spots. I personally kept having trouble remembering the Project Initiation inputs and outputs

There's no better resource than the PMBOK book but don't forget the ethics portion. The ethics were heavily tested.

Anyway.. I am moderately proficient in all areas .. which sounded so commonly adequate it was hard to celebrate but heck I passed right!

Valori
IT Business Analyst
Enterprise Engineering IT Services

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