Study Advice for 2018 (6th Edition)?

gary63087

Study Advice for 2018 (6th Edition)?

First, has anyone passed the latest version (based on PMBOK 6th Ed.)? If so, what did you use to study? Are the variances between the 5th and 6th edition enough for me to fail if I do not study any 6th edition material?

Here we go. The write-ups in this forum are not as good as some of the other technical certs, so help me get this going for 2018 and the latest test.

From what I’ve gathered so far the two best books are:

Rita Mulcahy’s and Andy Crowe’s, respectively:

• [h=1]PMP Exam Prep, Eighth Edition - Updated: Rita's Course in a Book for Passing the PMP Exam[/h]
• [h=1]The PMP Exam: How to Pass on Your First Try, Sixth Edition[/h]

If I’m wrong, lend your two cents.

Like many of you, I’m trying not to break the bank with boot camps, simulators, or expensive test banks. Plus, I know there are a ton of free resources that others have used to help them pass.

Other things I’m doing to study. Again, please post your criticisms ALONG WITH your suggested material/tools/tips/etc.

Audio: PM PrepCast (ol’ Cornelius) - The car rides have never been so much fun… I feel like the lessons aren’t sinking in, so I give this a C+. It might help listening to them outside the car, but I probably won’t.

Various test bank phone apps: PMPro, PMP Quiz App, PMP Exam Prep, EduHubSpot, PMP, PMP Exam Prep, PMP Mock Exam, PMstudy

Safari Books Videos (DoD and Military can get this for free, you may know someone who can hook you up) - This video series: http://techbus.safaribooksonline.com/9780134756677#similar_topics

PMP Exam Prep: Earn Your PMP Certification

• By: MCT Joseph Phillips MCSE
  
• Publisher: Pearson IT Certification
  
• Pub. Date: March 1, 2017

PMBOK - 50% of the people say to read it; the other 50% say to use it as a reference. As it is super dry, I choose to do the latter. Tell me if I’m wrong.

YouTube - Mostly all the Indian and Middle Eastern guys (most comprehensive videos). There are also some test bank questions (in video format of course) which are actually very convenient.

More test banks (websites):
http://pmpexamforfree.com/
https://www.exam-labs.com/exam/PMP
http://www.oliverlehmann.com/pmp-self-test/75-free-questions.htm
http://www.oliverlehmann.com/contents/free-downloads/175_PMP_Sample_Questions.pdf
http://free.pm-exam-simulator.com/
http://www.free-pm-exam-questions.com/
https://www.preparepm.com/mock1.html

Am I on the right track? Am I missing anything? Would any flash card packs be beneficial?

If anything, I hope this helps anyone who is just starting to make a game plan for taking the PMP. I’ve done a lot of homework for you already. Just keep in mind that at the time of this writing version six is brand new so we are in a weird transition period and lacking a lot of up-to-date material.

Godspeed if you are in my shoes.

Other good articles:
https://www.deepfriedbrainproject.com/2009/03/pmp-certification-courses-pdu-exam-questions-books-apps.html
https://www.deepfriedbrainproject.com/2009/03/pmp-certification-exam-lessons-learned.html

gary63087

I would like to make an addition, Rita Mulcahy's newest book (Ninth Edition) is available and is designed to address the latest version of the PMP (post March 26, 201.

gary63087

Decided to go with Kim Heldman's newest book (9th Ed.) because it is free to me on Safari Books. If you know someone in the military they can sponsor you for an account and you can get to Safari books. If you are military you should already know about this, if not feel free to respond to this post and I can point you in the right direction.

At this point in time Rita's book is $76, Andy's is a ridiculous $92, and Kim's is less than $40. Kim's book usually comes in third place, probably because it is Sybex.

I'm also going to chance it and drive on without the newest version of the PMBOK, hopefully Kim's book is enough. I'll let you know either way.

fitzlopez

Remember you get a free pdf of the PMBOK with your PMI subscription.

gary63087

I did not know that. Thank you. Unfortunately, I did not pay to become a member of the club. I just paid the test fee.

NerdJock

If I had to do this exam all over again, this is what I would/n't do again:

Material Used

1. PMBOK - I didn't actually use this book too much for focused studying.
Note: I'm working on my masters in PMGT and we used the PMBOK essentially as a template to write practice project charters, components within the project management plan (example: Collect Requirements, WBS, Quality Management Plan, Plan Risk Response). I didn't study/memorize ITTOs, I essentially was putting them into practice.

2. Rita - Primary source for studying. I condensed her 650-something page book into approximately 200 large flashcards, because I felt like there was a lot of fluff that was important to tell a story, but after the first read needed to be condensed to just the facts. I then took those 200 flashcards and created 15 visual note drawings to outline each process group / knowledge area. These visual notes served as my brain-**** practice during the last 2 weeks leading up to the exam. I drew them over and over again...1000s of times.

3. Joseph Phillips Udemy Course - This is a great resource in conjunction with Rita. At 12USD for the course, this was hands down the best bang for the buck. It might come off as confusing, but I thought the instructor did a really good job of explaining how you need to think about the material. For instance, the first time you pick up the PMBOK, you'd assume the 47 (5th edition) / 49 (6th edition) process chart should be studied from left to right, because that is how the book is organized. The reality is that you need to study for the exam using a vertical approach. Studying the sections under 'Initiating' exclusively, before moving to Section 4.2 because then you're moving into the 'Planning' phase.

Speaking of 'Planning' phase. Another key point Phillips points out is how to rank your study priorities. For example, you'd think that 'Planning' would the most important process group to study because has 24 processes. Well, consider that Planning makes up 24% of the exam and at 200 questions, the Planning phase breaks down to 2 questions per process. Conversely, 'Executing' had 8 processes and made up 31% of the exam or 62 questions, breaking down to almost 8 questions per process.

If you had a week to study for the exam, which of the two sections would you probably spend more time focusing on? Executing, right?

4. Rita Process Map Game - I found this on the RMC website and purposely waited until the week of the exam to really work with it, because I wanted to use it as my light review. In retrospect, I would have hammered this earlier. Using the Pareto Law, I felt like this is where 80% of my questions came from on the actual exam.

5. PM Exam Simulator ($125) - I used this the last month of my preparation. I have one positive and two negative thoughts about this software. The positive, I thought the questions within the software were incredibly close to the look, style, and feel of what I faced on the actual exam. Minor negative, the simulator doesn't have a feature to highlight or cross-out portions of the question like the real exam. Fortunately, this was really easy to pick up on the exam.

Huge negative, even though the questions were close to what I faced, the answer section was not. A lot of times, I thought the questions were too easy, because there was one answer that was so obvious that I questioned if I needed to actually read any of the material. You're not going to face too many questions on the exam with one obvious answer, a large majority of them will have at least 2 and several with 3 possible answers. This is where I felt the Simulator fell short in my preparation.

Exam Experience

I started at 7:30AM and ran through the first 25 questions and marked several, knowing that I wasn't in a testing frame of mind yet. After the 25 questions, I ran back through them again and left about 3 marked. This put me behind the pace by about 15 minutes. I decided I would save all the math questions for the end and snap-marked them moving forward. I took 3 emergency breaks and finished all 200 questions with about 20 minutes left. I had probably 20 questions marked, reviewed about 12-14 of those before I ran out of gas mentally. My original plan was to let the clock wind down to zero, but I got to the 4 minute mark and knew I wasn't going to put in maximum effort.

This is the best part of my story, so I hope you all stuck around for this

So I click the 'End Exam' button and the screen starts to cycle. Its spinning and spinning. This was the only time throughout the day where I said to myself, ****...I failed. Its still spinning. I can't even look at the screen. I'm doing one of those looks where, your neighbor's little kid is naked and you're desperately trying NOT to look. You know the look I'm talking about. My screen refreshes, but it takes like 10 seconds for the screen to pop-up and...

TAKE THIS SURVEY!

HA HA, D!ckhe@ds! I just spent 3 months preparing for and 4 hours taking this exam, there isn't a chance I'm taking your survey right now...I want to know my score!

So I click the 'Next' button and same range of emotions repeat. After 20-30 seconds, my results finally show up with a blue screen and black letters congratulating me. I passed with an overall 'Above Target' rating, with 4/5 of my scores being 'Above Target', and Execution being on 'Target'.

gary63087

Awesome write-up! Thank you! It's good to hear from someone who has taken the latest test. Also, the other write-ups in this forum (no offense to anyone who wrote one), were not very detailed or of much substance. I will heed all of your advice. Congratulations! On a random note I just noticed, I might know you, I live in Charleston too. SPAWARrior?

NerdJock

I'm with CACI, supporting DHA. Full disclosure, I didn't take the 6th edition. I passed my exam March 23rd...just before the change.

gary63087

Very cool NerdJock. Small world. I've worked with Kevin M. on your team. Thanks again. @KathyCastle, thanks for the new resource. Have not heard of that one. I hope this post continues to help others.

gary63087

Free Sixth Edition stuff is still hard to come by. I found these two gems recently. Process diagrams that are much better than the book's.
https://ricardo-vargas.com/downloads/pmbok6-processes-flow/

Watch his explanation video as well.

gary63087

A very detailed explanation on the difference between PMBOK v5 vs. v6.

https://www.eduhubspot.com/What-is-New-in-PMBOK-Guide-6th-Ed.pdf

With all due respect to the contributors on the title page of the document.

gary63087

Passed v6 today; four above, one not. Lots to share. First, get the newest PMBOK. Second, Kim Heldman's book sucks; stick with Andy Crowe or Rita's. Know your formulas, more importantly, know how to apply them and what they mean. Know the process groups, all of them. I was able to memorize the groups and phases but not all the processes in the center of the chart. I would have done better if I had. Do tons of test bank questions, two weeks leading up to your test. Listen to a podcast in the car (PM Prepcast or similar). Watch videos online (Udemy course mentioned above or PM Prepcast stuff). When a concept doesn't make sense or there is not enough elaboration from a book, look it up online, find a picture, or watch a video. I had to do this to understand how to calculate forward/backward pass, leads, lags, etc. Practice doing your brain **** two weeks leading up to the test; this beat the formulas into my head.

mzx380

congrats on the pass, I hope to join you soon

MisterKool

Great Thread to all the contributors! The below really stood out to me, been doing Project Management for the past 6 years and this cert has been the biggest headache since they changed the book. I'll employ the below strategy with what i'm doing with a decent priced class that I decided to take as a supplement and report back my feedback.

Cheers

NerdJock wrote: »

If I had to do this exam all over again, this is what I would/n't do again:

Material Used

1. PMBOK - I didn't actually use this book too much for focused studying.
Note: I'm working on my masters in PMGT and we used the PMBOK essentially as a template to write practice project charters, components within the project management plan (example: Collect Requirements, WBS, Quality Management Plan, Plan Risk Response). I didn't study/memorize ITTOs, I essentially was putting them into practice.

2. Rita - Primary source for studying. I condensed her 650-something page book into approximately 200 large flashcards, because I felt like there was a lot of fluff that was important to tell a story, but after the first read needed to be condensed to just the facts. I then took those 200 flashcards and created 15 visual note drawings to outline each process group / knowledge area. These visual notes served as my brain-**** practice during the last 2 weeks leading up to the exam. I drew them over and over again...1000s of times.

3. Joseph Phillips Udemy Course - This is a great resource in conjunction with Rita. At 12USD for the course, this was hands down the best bang for the buck. It might come off as confusing, but I thought the instructor did a really good job of explaining how you need to think about the material. For instance, the first time you pick up the PMBOK, you'd assume the 47 (5th edition) / 49 (6th edition) process chart should be studied from left to right, because that is how the book is organized. The reality is that you need to study for the exam using a vertical approach. Studying the sections under 'Initiating' exclusively, before moving to Section 4.2 because then you're moving into the 'Planning' phase.

Speaking of 'Planning' phase. Another key point Phillips points out is how to rank your study priorities. For example, you'd think that 'Planning' would the most important process group to study because has 24 processes. Well, consider that Planning makes up 24% of the exam and at 200 questions, the Planning phase breaks down to 2 questions per process. Conversely, 'Executing' had 8 processes and made up 31% of the exam or 62 questions, breaking down to almost 8 questions per process.

If you had a week to study for the exam, which of the two sections would you probably spend more time focusing on? Executing, right?

4. Rita Process Map Game - I found this on the RMC website and purposely waited until the week of the exam to really work with it, because I wanted to use it as my light review. In retrospect, I would have hammered this earlier. Using the Pareto Law, I felt like this is where 80% of my questions came from on the actual exam.

5. PM Exam Simulator ($125) - I used this the last month of my preparation. I have one positive and two negative thoughts about this software. The positive, I thought the questions within the software were incredibly close to the look, style, and feel of what I faced on the actual exam. Minor negative, the simulator doesn't have a feature to highlight or cross-out portions of the question like the real exam. Fortunately, this was really easy to pick up on the exam.

Huge negative, even though the questions were close to what I faced, the answer section was not. A lot of times, I thought the questions were too easy, because there was one answer that was so obvious that I questioned if I needed to actually read any of the material. You're not going to face too many questions on the exam with one obvious answer, a large majority of them will have at least 2 and several with 3 possible answers. This is where I felt the Simulator fell short in my preparation.

Exam Experience

I started at 7:30AM and ran through the first 25 questions and marked several, knowing that I wasn't in a testing frame of mind yet. After the 25 questions, I ran back through them again and left about 3 marked. This put me behind the pace by about 15 minutes. I decided I would save all the math questions for the end and snap-marked them moving forward. I took 3 emergency breaks and finished all 200 questions with about 20 minutes left. I had probably 20 questions marked, reviewed about 12-14 of those before I ran out of gas mentally. My original plan was to let the clock wind down to zero, but I got to the 4 minute mark and knew I wasn't going to put in maximum effort.

This is the best part of my story, so I hope you all stuck around for this

So I click the 'End Exam' button and the screen starts to cycle. Its spinning and spinning. This was the only time throughout the day where I said to myself, ****...I failed. Its still spinning. I can't even look at the screen. I'm doing one of those looks where, your neighbor's little kid is naked and you're desperately trying NOT to look. You know the look I'm talking about. My screen refreshes, but it takes like 10 seconds for the screen to pop-up and...

TAKE THIS SURVEY!

HA HA, D!ckhe@ds! I just spent 3 months preparing for and 4 hours taking this exam, there isn't a chance I'm taking your survey right now...I want to know my score!

So I click the 'Next' button and same range of emotions repeat. After 20-30 seconds, my results finally show up with a blue screen and black letters congratulating me. I passed with an overall 'Above Target' rating, with 4/5 of my scores being 'Above Target', and Execution being on 'Target'.

PeterKhitin

That's an awesome list of useful materials, very appreciated