Yamina, a working mom based in German, passed her PMP® exam while raising her young kids. This article outlines her strategies. You can learn how to pass PMP® on your first try too!
Yamina wanted to obtain her PMP® certified to advance her career and learn PMI’s methodology for managing projects. Additionally, she felt getting the PMP® credentials will give her a boost when dealing with clients.
Before coming to ExamsPM, Yamina spent a lot of time (30% of her total study time) trying to figure out what to do. She read some blogs and articles on PMI. She was mostly concerned in getting the big picture of how to establish a study plan get ready for PMP® examination and get all the elements of the PMBOK® fit together. If she were to redo the exam, she would not spend 30% of her study time on understanding exam requirements and come to ExamsPM directly.
After looking at several different training options, she felt that ExamsPM was the best fit for her needs and requirements. Once she enrolled in ExamsPM’s PMP® Training Course, she watched all the lectures and did all the practice questions over several months. She also attended all the live training sessions when available.
Here is her top 3 pieces of advice for anyone interested in taking their PMP® exam:
1) Understand the PMBOK®
Make sure you read the PMBOK® at least once so that you are familiar with the key concepts.
The PMBOK® forms the basis of the PMP® exam. It explains how PMI wants project managers to manage successful projects. Anyone looking to take the PMP® should have a clear understanding of how the ITTOs form a process, and how the processes form the Process Groups, and how the Process Groups is a timeline for the project.
2) Understand the math required
The part that Yamina reviewed / practiced more extensively during her study is the math portion of the exam because it was all new for her. She spent a lot of time memorizing the formulas (especially EVM, contract types Formulas).
Not only do you have to know all of your formulas (side note: ExamsPM has a formula guide), but you also need to know how to interpret the values given. For example, what does it mean for the project if Earned Value is greater than Planned Value?
3) Understand PMI-ism
Yamina’s found that her exam was filled mostly with situational questions. If she didn’t do all the practice questions, she would have no idea what the PMI way of doing things are. Before walking into your exam, make sure you do as many questions as possible to understand PMI-ism, which is PMI’s way of doing things.
Therefore, take the time to Study the Rita PMP® practice book and do all questions and don’t skip any questions.
Practice – practice – practice! That’s the #1 way to get ready for the exam.
Pro Tip: When you walk into Prometrics exam centre, the testing software will randomly pull 200 questions from the PMP® question pool. The computer system does not know which question is a math question and which is not. It is completely possible to get no math questions on your exam or up to 30% of their exam questions to be formula-based. In most cases, however, you can expect 5-10% of your exam to be math-related questions.
She says, “Thank you [ExamsPM] so much for your dedicated Support and your invaluable learning Platform.”
If you to connect with Yamina on LinkedIn, click here.