PMP. Exam. What is worth considering and why it is needed

Recently, I became the owner of the coveted certificate confirming the degree of PMP.

And in the wake of this happiness, I want to share tips with the community: what should be taken into account when preparing for the exam.


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How to get permission to surrender

Much has been written about this, including in the PMI Handbook itself. I would not like to repeat. My profile was not checked. It is said that they check every 10th.

When I received permission, there was only one difficulty - for some reason I thought that Contact hours (what is needed to access the delivery) and the PDU are the same. This is not true!

Here is an article that pretty well explains the difference:
www.project-management-prepcast.com/free/pmp-exam/articles/182-what-is-the-difference-between-pmp-contact-hours-and-pdus

How long did the preparation take

My training took 8 months. Six of them, I was preparing not very intense. And the two went in a very intense mode. In the end, the eyes began to hurt not only from the company, but also from the books.
The last months I did about 4 hours a day.

You can, of course, not stretch like me! If you practice evenly, then you need 4-5 months to prepare, taking into account that you work and there is enough work :)

How to prepare

Books

Everything is standard here. The key is Rita Mulcahy's PMP Exam Prep. There are books that cost 20 others! For studying English grammar, this is Murphy, for understanding the basics of PMI project management - Rita Mulcahy's PMP Exam Prep, not PMBoK, if not strange (but this is my opinion).

She is in English, Rita recommends reading it three times, I read it twice and it’s enough. Read interesting!
The book is expensive and delivery cost about 9 000 p.

The second book is PMBoK itself. It is provided free of charge if there is a PMI membership, and a year’s membership costs about $ 130. Membership gives you access to download a whole heap of useful books. Just have time to read!

When I was at the project management training, I asked Turner: “Is it possible to pass the exam without reading PMBoK?”, He answered unequivocally - “It’s unrealistic!”. My opinion - Rita and experience may well be enough.

I read the entire PMBoK once (not counting some chapters I read before). The book is boring, but there is certainly useful information in it. PMBoK must be read precisely after Rita (perceived better).
No entrances and exits (ITTO) did not memorize and do not advise you!

Rita will have to read in English, PmBOK is better in Russian to compare translations of terms. This is important for the exam! Unless of course you will pass with the translation into Russian.
Last, I recommend doing it anyway, even if your knowledge of English is perfect.

Why it is better to order a translation into Russian when taking the PMP exam

Very little time is allotted for the exam and, if your speed reading in Russian is higher, then this gives additional time.
There were questions to answer which were easier due to the fact that the Russian translation clarified the situation. Sometimes, in the English version, the words were written differently, and in the Russian version the same, and this simplified the question.
In general, the questions were translated correctly, although before the preparation I repeatedly met the opinion that the translation complicated the question. I have difficulty in 4-10 questions due to translation. Then I read in English and the situation cleared up.

I am pretty sure that I would not pass without a translation. Although written English is quite good.

Sites

From the sites I can advise only:
www.projectmanagementdocs.com

The site provides project document templates. Parsing templates helps a lot in understanding PMBoK and even Rita.

Tests

Tests are very important!
I solved the tests in the book of Rita. Then he tested Oliver Lehmann's tests in open access and some more.
I put myself free apps on my phone and, while the car was warming up, I solved the tests. But! In applications, questions are very different from what is on the exam.

Now I want to announce my main discovery. The questions in the tests described above, and even in Rita, are quite different, both in complexity and in content, with what was in the exam.
It is clear that other questions !? But they are fundamentally different in complexity (more difficult!) And in format.

I had a good percentage of answers on Rita
But on the exam, after the first 20 questions, I experienced a slight feeling of confusion.

Almost every question on the exam is designed so that it is quite simple to exclude the two answers, and you have to make a really painful choice between the two remaining ones.

Timing

Timing is a very important moment. Moreover, I have not met in the preparation of such an obvious advice.
Solving tests, you need to develop a sense of time! You should feel that you have to make a decision and respond (without looking at your watch). Without this, it will be very difficult to pass the exam.

To catch this feeling, you need to solve the tests for a while and fit. I took blocks of questions of 20 pieces and solved them with a timer in 24 minutes. As a result, I precisely understood the sensations, I was ahead of the schedule or late.

Also, I advise you to remember the reference points:
30 min - must answer at least 25 questions.
1 hour - at 50.
and so on.

Presentations and training of others.

This is a very time consuming, but very effective way. I conducted one training on risks and exam for questions related to risks, it was the easiest to answer.

Strategy

Almost everywhere the strategy is described “Answer simple questions - Mark and skip complex ones - Answer marked ones”. I also prepared according to this principle, but at the exam I had to adjust the strategy and respond thoughtfully to each question (this decision came by the very own and was correct).
When answered the last question, there are only 30-40 seconds left. I looked at the marked questions and became sad - about 70-80% of the questions were marked. A thought flashed: “I won't pass! Long preparation was in vain! ”. There were still 15 seconds left, I clicked “End Test” or something like that. Saw the inscription: “Congratulation! “. About two minutes was really happy, then I was asked to leave the testing room!

Report

At the exit, they gave me a test report and, to my surprise, almost everywhere I answered “Above the goal”, i.e. Passed with a large enough margin.

Still! At the time of delivery, it happened that the questions literally “pounded” into one topic and had to answer almost equally to 10-15 questions. This caused excitement, I could not believe that the answer could be the same for 10-15 questions. But it looks like it was close to that.

What was unusual in the testing center

I live in Vladivostok, so I went to Korea to pass (so as not to change the time zones in particular).

• I came to the test center earlier for 2-3 hours. Walking around Seoul before the exam was not in the mood, and more earlier, time did not begin to be reserved (it was reinsured in case of road disturbances).
• They say to me: “You have time at 13:00”, I: “Can I get early?”, They: “No problem”, and they began to draw up.
• There was no safe in the hostel, so I took all the money and credit cards to the testing center. I had to leave everything in a box similar to the one in the supermarkets. The key to the box, in my opinion, had to be given at the entrance to the test room.
• Then he twisted his pockets, rolled up his pants. Scanned by a semiconductor detector, I guess.
• As warned, they gave two pencils and an A4 sheet, you can take your passport with you. Everything else in the box you leave.
• Upon entering the room I was surprised! It seemed to me that I would be there alone. But no! Rows of computers, the Koreans are sitting and rent something.
• I sit down at the computer, the assistant explains something to me in English, I do not really understand her. It turned out that the passport does not need to be placed in front of the monitor, there may be a hidden camera in it, as I understood.
• The mouse did not seem very “alive”, and the chair was not very comfortable.

What does the preparation

When you pay for the exam a decent amount of money, and everything in a circle with the flight and accommodation cost about $ 1800, then you are preparing very conscientiously.

The PMP degree is not very much appreciated in Russia, but the knowledge you get is very good. PMBoK is in many ways a code that refers to other areas of knowledge and forces you to read a lot.
I wouldn’t say that I didn’t know before the exam what it was: 6σ, Kaizen, Lean, JIT and so on, but the training forced me to learn a lot of new and interesting things.

I hope my article has helped those who plan to take PMP!
I'm already thinking about ITIL certification. They say it is easier :)