Submitted by artonlinehome
200 free PMP Questions from techfaq360.com]]>
Did you know that the digital version of the PMBOK Guide, 4th edition is available to all PMI Members for FREE?
To access the digital edition of the PMBOK® Guide:
--------------------------------------------------
Visit www.PMI.org
Logon to Your Members Area
Select the Resources tab
Go to Global Standards Library
Corrected from here onwards:
Click on "Access the updated PMBOK Guide"
Scroll down to the table and click the desired language version
Click on the link provide
It will default your user id, now enter your password and click "Download"
Right Click on Language and select "Save Target As.."
Regards,
Submitted by Administrator
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The Project Management PrepCast™Use your MP3 player to study for the PMP ® Exam with this 35-hour, full-featured PMP® Audio Workshop. Qualifies for 35 contact hours and is also suitable for CAPM® aspirants.
This is the least expensive PMP® Audio Workshop available to you.
Brought to you by "The Project Management PrepCast™"
This is the least expensive PMP® Audio Workshop available to you.
Don't spend thousands of dollars on expensive PMP Workshops. The Project Management PrepCast™ is a 35-hour PMP® and CAPM® Workshop that you download to your MP3 player. Listen when and wherever you like. You will also receive 35 contact hours.
Our full-featured PMP® Audio Course fits in the palm of your hand giving you the flexibility to prepare for the PMP® exam wherever you take your MP3 player. And it's a lot more cost-effective... The Project Management PrepCast™ covers concepts, tools and techniques you need to understand and be familiar with to take the PMP® Certification exam. We cover material in the PMBOK® Guide, and we include the necessary models, theories and formulas not covered in the Guide. Our episodes are interesting and engaging. We won't bore you! We help you understand these concepts instead of memorizing them.
Here is an overview of the topics covered in our PMP® Podcast:
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The podcast consists of 89 episodes. Each averages 25 minutes length and focuses on one concept or process. You can listen to them as often as you like to enhance your understanding. Download them all today.
Anyone currently studying to take the PMP® or CAPM® exam will find The Premium Project Management PrepCast™ valuable. While the Premium PrepCast™ focuses on the road to becoming a Certified PMP®, listeners studying for the CAPM® will find their topics covered as well.
How the PrepCast™ works
The Premium PrepCast ™ is delivered to you "pod-ready". After your purchase via PayPal, you will be able to add the PrepCast™ to your iTunes podcast subscriptions. (P.S.: Itunes is free tool. You can download from http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/ )Now you click the GET ALL button and all episodes start downloading.What you needTo download and start listening right now you will need:
- A computer with internet connection
- Free Apple iTunes (or similar podcatcher software like Juice)
- MP3 Player or computer speakers to listen to the episodes
GoodLuck for PMP Exam Preparations
The assignment
Your team is expected to produce a Gantt chart and to keep it up to date for use in planning your project. Use MS Project (available in IT Labs) to produce your chart. (Why MS Project? Because it's the most widely used project planning package in industry and you should be learning how to use "real world" tools.). Follow these guidelines in creating your chart:- Use weeks as the time unit
- Include the Mid-project review, Design Show, and Final report due as milestones. Have up to four additional milestones, no more.
- Show more detail on design tasks, less detail on reports/documentation/presentation tasks. Should have about 3/4 design tasks, 1/4 documentation/presentation related tasks.
- Getting parts can take 2 weeks or more, depending on the part. If your company is building parts for your prototype, getting your part scheduled can take a long time. Build these delays into your planning chart.
- Review and update Gantt chart every 14 days, more often if needed.
Project Planning Basics
A "Project" is a set of activities which ends with specific accomplishment and which has (1) Non-routine tasks, (2) Distinct start/finish dates, and (3) Resource constraints (time/money/people/equipment). "Tasks" are activities which must be completed to acheive project goal. Break the project into tasks and subtasks. Tasks have start and end points, are short relative to the project and are significant (not "going to library", but rather, "search literature"). Use verb-noun form for naming tasks, e.g. "create drawings" or "build prototype". Use action verbs such as "create", "define" and "gather" rather than "will be made". Each task has a duration. Very difficult to estimate durations accurately. Doubling your best guess usually works well. "Milestones" are important checkpoints or interim goals for a project. Can be used to catch scheduling problems early. Name by noun-verb form, e.g. "report due", "parts ordered", "prototype complete". Your plan will evolve so be flexible and update on a regular basis. It also helps to identify risk areas for project, for example, things you don't know how to do but will have to learn. These are risky because you may not have a good sense for how long the task will take. Or, you may not know how long it will take to receive components you purchased for a project.Work Breakdown Statement
A work breakdown statement (WBS) is a categorized list of tasks with an estimate of resources required to complete the task. An example WBS appears below.| WBS # | Task Description | Est Person -Hrs | Who | Resources | M&S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | Profile motor power | ||||
| 5.1 | Design test stand | 20 | SE, JM | Pro/E | |
| 5.2 | Build test stand | 15 | SE, JM | Frame & brake parts | $35 |
| 5.3 | Test 3 motors | 3 | SE, JM | Stroboscope | $75 |
| 5.4 | Plot torque vs. speed | 2 | JM | Excel |
Gantt Chart Basics
Gantt charts are a project planning tool that can be used to represent the timing of tasks required to complete a project. Because Gantt charts are simple to understand and easy to construct, they are used by most project managers for all but the most complex projects. In a Gantt chart, each task takes up one row. Dates run along the top in increments of days, weeks or months, depending on the total length of the project. The expected time for each task is represented by a horizontal bar whose left end marks the expected beginning of the task and whose right end marks the expected completion date. Tasks may run sequentially, in parallel or overlapping. As the project progresses, the chart is updated by filling in the bars to a length proportional to the fraction of work that has been accomplished on the task. This way, one can get a quick reading of project progress by drawing a vertical line through the chart at the current date. Completed tasks lie to the left of the line and are completely filled in. Current tasks cross the line and are behind schedule if their filled-in section is to the left of the line and ahead of schedule if the filled-in section stops to the right of the line. Future tasks lie completely to the right of the line. In constructing a Gantt chart, keep the tasks to a manageable number (no more than 15 or 20) so that the chart fits on a single page. More complex projects may require subordinate charts which detail the timing of all the subtasks which make up one of the main tasks. For team projects, it often helps to have an additional column containing numbers or initials which identify who on the team is responsible for the task. Often the project has important events which you would like to appear on the project timeline, but which are not tasks. For example, you may wish to highlight when a prototype is complete or the date of a design review. You enter these on a Gantt chart as "milestone" events and mark them with a special symbol, often an upside-down triangle.Using Excel to Make Gantt Charts
A sample Gantt chart (.pdf format) made using Microsoft Excel appears in the figure which accompanies this document. If today's date were May 13, Task A would be behind schedule, Task B ahead and Task C right on schedule. The events marked by fat dots are milestones. Gantt charts made with Excel are easy to update and maintain. Here's how to do it. On a piece of scrap paper, make a list of tasks and assign each task tentative start and stop dates (or durations) and the people responsible for the task. Also list important milestones and their dates. If you have more than 15 or 20 tasks, split your project into main tasks and subtasks, then make an overall Gantt chart for the main tasks and separate Gantt charts for the subtasks which make up each main task. Decide what resolution to use in the timeline. For projects of three months or less, use days, for longer projects use weeks or months, and for very short project use hours. For these instructions, we will assume you have chosen a resolution of days. Fire up Excel. Under Page Setup, select landscape orientation, and then select the options to center the chart horizontally and vertically on the page. Also under Page Setup, activate the "fit to one page" button. (Note that if the text comes out too small, you may have to print your chart on two pages and paste together. Even better, adjust the resolution of your date scale or drop less important tasks to make your chart fit comfortably on one page.) Still under Page Setup, set header and footer to be blank. (It's better to write the title right on the spreadsheet rather than use the header for the title. Finally, under Page Setup, turn off the option to print gridlines. Set up the cells. You can use the sample (found elsewhere on this web page) as a guide. Use the border command to draw boxes around the appropriate cells. Enter your scheduling data. To make the gray bars which indicate length of task, select the appropriate cells, then the fill command (one of the buttons near the top). As the project progresses, fill in the gray bars with black to denote the fraction of a task that is complete.Project Management Packages
You can also create Gantt charts using a project managment computer package. A sample chart made using Microsoft Project appears below. Project is the most widely used scheduling tool for small projects. It is available on the PC's in MechE 308 for use by IT students.
We strongly recommend that you use MS Project to create your Gantt charts, if nothing else because it will give you experience using this important package. To embedd a Project Gantt chart into a Word document, get the chart showing on the screen, then Edit > Copy Picture... > to GIF file. From there you can import the gif file into Word. You may have to rotate it 90 degrees in MS Paint to get it to fit and be readable.Submitted by Administrator [/html]]]>
(Prior to submitting your application, please make sure that you have checked all of the following:)
Category I
o I have written my name as it appears on the identification that I will present when I take the PMIC examination
o I have included a current resume
o I have included proof of my degree
o I have included payment information
o My Experience Verification Form(s) dates back at least 3 years from the date of application
o My Experience Verification Form(s) does not date back farther than 6 years from the date of application
o My Experience Verification Form(s) reflects a total of at least 4500 hours
o When I count the months listed on my Experience Verification Form(s), the total is at least 36 (not counting gaps or overlap)
Category II
o I have written my name as it appears on the identification that I will present when I take the PMIC examinationo I have included a current resume
o I have included payment information
o My Experience Verification Form(s) dates back at least 5 years from the date of application
o My Experience Verification Form(s) does not date back farther than 8 years from the date of application
o My Experience Verification Form(s) reflects a total of at least 7500 hours
o When I count the months listed on my Experience Verification Form(s), the total is at least 60 (not counting
gaps or overlap)
]]>
Setting Up a PM Study Group
Some resources (Mulchahy, others) recommend studying in groups. At one point I was involved in a study group, but I couldn't really focus on it because the company was going down the tubes and people in our group kept getting fired, which was a major distraction. So I am not officially endorsing a study group, but it might be helpful for some people.
If you work in a large company, setting up an official "study group" and aggregating all of your study materials, PMI dues, training classes, etc... might be enough to get some budget authority if your company supports project management initiatives.
If you do decide to set up a study group, here is an outline that you could follow - note that this was set up before the 35 hour PMI education requirement, so if you wanted to take "credit" for these hours spent studying in a formal session you would need to ensure that the materials are documented and records retained in case PMI selected your records for auditing.
PMP Study Group Summary:
Attached is a summary of a successful PMP Study Program for a regional branch of a former consulting firm:
The study program uses ESI's PMP Practice Test and Study Guide (note that I would probably recommend using Mulcahy's materials instead, this was several years ago)
The study group meets once a week for an hour (i.e. Tuesdays 5-6pm)
The study program consists of 12 sessions, a kick-off session, a session for each chapter in the guide, a session to fill-out the application, and a review session
The sessions are kicked-off by PMPs and then student led
thereon
During the first session:
PMPs share their experiences studying, taking, and passing the exam Sell the students on the value of the PMP certification
State the qualifications for participating in the study program (i.e. must qualify to take the exam, lead one session, be committed, etc.)
Students sign up to lead one of the subsequent study sessions and prepare study notes for that section (requires a little bit of research)
During the subsequent study sessions:
A student brings handouts and leads the session and reviews his or her study notes for that section
Students are expected to take the test for that section before the next meeting
The group reviews any test questions from the previous week that people got wrong or don't understand (there are plenty)
One session is used to fill out the exam application and create the PMI resume (this is an arduous process best completed with the help of someone who has done it)
Students mail off their applications, so that they end up taking the test around the same time (within 60 days of acceptance of the application)
Students complete the rest of the study sessions
A review session is held (by then the students have a collection of study notes covering the entire exam)
Students begin taking the exam and passing!
Costs per student:
PMI Membership (if not already a member)
Study Guide
PMBOK (for reference in creating some of the study notes)
PMP Exam
Less than $900 per student (note - this was before the 35 hour education requirement. If you follow the recommended steps from PMI at their web site for creating training content you could use these meetings as an opportunity to meet the 35 hour requirement)
Some critical success factors:
------------------------------
Students must have the experience required to take the exam (3.5 to 5.5 years depending on education level)
A strong commitment on the part of the student (tough when billing)
Oversight of the program by a PMP (for the kick-off, etc.)
Schedule and Topics for a PM Study Group
========================================There are many different ways to prepare for the exam. The purpose of this page is to provide a template for individuals wishing to set up their own PMP Study group. Feel free to alter this schedule and list to suit your particular circumstances.
Note that when our group went through preparation, we had many members with schedule conflicts who missed a significant number of sessions. If you think that this will happen to you, you might want to 1) schedule your meetings on a weekend 2) focus the group down to a "hard core" of dedicated individuals who really want to pass the exam 3) meet in a location that is convenient for the group (i.e. a central office) and 4) pick a time either before work in the morning or after work at night (preferable). To increase attendance if you can get your company to pay for dinner (sandwiches or pizza) this also helps to boost attendance. I am assuming that meeting during the work day or at lunch is not an option; if it can be arranged, this would also be a great attendance increase (i.e. the PMBOK is boring, but probably less boring than your current job 
) ).
I am assuming that the meetings are 1 1/2 to 2 hours at night - I would add in an extra 1/2 hour (to two hours) if a meal is served because this is usually "dead time". Our group met from 6 to 7:30 every Wednesday, at our central office.
Week One 1) Introduction to PMI 2) Introduction to PMP 3) speech from individuals who passed the PMP (if available) 4) preliminary assessment test (use the PMBOK practice exam questions) 5) Introduction of Team Members
Week Two 1) Preliminary walk-through of preparation materials (i.e. does everyone have everything they need) 2) Hand out PMP Exam application and completed application for each member to complete offline 3) Answer questions about logistics, costs, reimbursements 4) Confirmation that team members are available to attend 5) High level walk through of PMBOK 2000 6) High level walk through of professional responsibility 7)
Week Three Project Integration Management - materials and practice exam
Week Four Project Scope Management - materials and practice exam
Week Five Project Time Management - materials and practice exam
Week Six Project Cost Management - materials and practice exam
Week Seven Project Quality Management - materials and practice exam
Week Eight Project Human Resources Management - materials and practice exam
Week Nine Project Communications Management - materials and practice exam
Week Ten Project Risk Management - materials and practice exam
Week Eleven Project Procurement Management - materials and practice exam
Week Twelve Practice Exam - 200 questions (use a resource that "mixes up" the questions from all areas of the
exam, above)]]>
· Project Integration Management, the processes required to ensure that the various elements of the project are properly coordinated. It consists of project plan development, project plan execution, and overall change control.
· Project Scope Management, the processes required to ensure that the project includes all the work required, and only the work required, to complete the project successfully. It consists of initiation, scope planning, scope definition, scope verification, and scope change control.
· Project Time Management, the processes required to ensure timely completion of the project. It consists of activity definition, activity sequencing, activity duration estimating, schedule development, and schedule control.
· Project Cost Management, the processes required to ensure that the project is completed within the approved budget. It consists of resource planning, cost estimating, cost budgeting, and cost control.
· Project Quality Management, the processes required to ensure that the project will satisfy the needs for which it was undertaken. It consists of quality planning, quality assurance, and quality control.
· Project Human Resource Management, the processes required to make the most effective use of the people involved with the project. It consists of organizational planning, staff acquisition, and team development.
· Project Communications Management, the processes required to ensure timely and appropriate generation, collection, dissemination, storage, and ultimate disposition of project information. It consists of communications planning, information distribution, performance reporting, and administrative closure.
· Project Risk Management, the processes concerned with identifying, analyzing, and responding to project risk. It consists of risk identification, risk quantification, risk response development, and risk response control.
· Project Procurement Management, the processes required to acquire goods and services from outside the performing organization. It consists of procurement planning, solicitation planning, solicitation, source selection, contract administration, and contract close-out.
· Professional Responsibility, the tasks, knowledge, and skills required to ensure integrity, contribute to knowledge base, apply professional knowledge, balance stakeholder interest, and respect differences.]]>
I'll still remember the great man named Dr. Napoleon Hill, a man that I greatly admired most. During the 1930's, he started conducting a study on the lives of some certain successful great men of America. He investigated why these groups of individuals were so successful in their life struggles and reaches the top of the ladders. Through personal interviewed with them, he found out that their main secrets why they gradually win to beat the odds and got the crown of life are because of their being positive thinkers, positive attitudes, self-determination to win and the philosophy of NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP!
People, when you experience a great trials and challenges in life, you should encourage yourself to "Never give up or the burden may sink you; Providence kindly has mingled the cup and in all trials and troubles, that challenges you. The watchword of life must be, NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP! DARE MIGHTY THINGS! HOLD ON TO YOUR DREAMS! YOU CAN IF YOU THINK YOU CAN!
Billi Lim exclaims, "Do not measure a person by how many times he falls, measure him by how many times he climbs up again. A person who can climb up again after he falls will never be drawned." He added and commented, "But it is sad to note that many people are just like those who, after a temporary defeat, prefer to stay there and finally die a real failure, fallen and never to rise again."
What really is the quality of an individual that would help him to rise once again after he falls? A great president of America, President Calvin Coolidge gave a very enthusiastic and very inspiring answer in this query.
President Coolidge answered, "Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence, Talent will not; nothing is more common than successful men with talent. Geniuses will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts, persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."
I am certainly agreed with that great maxim of the late great President Calvin Coolidge. I'll prove it already to myself. I’ll still remember when I was a young boy. I have a lot of great dreams for my future. But how could it be? It’s the same questioned that always lingering in my mind. I’m a product of a broken home family, grew up in the street, and stayed with different and even with the cruel person in this world! It’s good that was over! The bitter memory of my childhood!
I have learned through my life experiences and studies from the profiles and writings of the great wise men that the only way to beat the odds in life is to face and to take it as a challenge and continue on remaking ourselves into a better person! Also by making God as a partner in every aspiration in life because in Him everything is possible!
Because of the positive attitude that I had and by encouraging myself to believe in the beauty of my dreams, I gradually finished my Bachelor’s degree in History and Minor in Political Science with my own self-determination, passed the Philippine Teachers Board Exam and now I am working as School Guidance Counselor, College Instructor, and Working Students Supervisor.
To you my dear readers, I would like you to think and ponder this:
If you think you are beaten, you are. If you think you dare not, you don't. If you've like to win but you think you can't, it's certainly you won't. Life battles are not always go to the stronger or the faster man. But sooner or later, the man who wins is the man who thinks he can!
Here is the last and the best final keys to make you become a winner and succeed in every struggle in life. Encourage yourself to make God be as your partner and everything will come together (Romans 8:28).
People, if your feeling defeated and hopeless think of this: If you have tried and met with failure; if you have planned and watched your plans as they were crushed before your eyes; just remember that the greatest men in all history were the products of courage. And courage, you know, is born in the cradle of adversity.
Dear beloved readers remember this, when you are at your weakest, God is in His greatest! So don't worry, be happy! What shall you need to do is call Him and God promised, "Call me and I will answer you, and show you the great and mighty things which you do not know" (Jeremiah 33:3).
Before I will conclude, I would like to encourage and remind you, NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP! DARE MIGHTY THINGS! HOLD ON TO YOUR DREAMS! AND always remember THAT THE FUTURE BELONGS TO THOSE WHO BELIEVE IN THE BEAUTY OF THEIR DREAMS!
Wish you many blessings to come and God Bless!
Moises P. Reconalla 04/07/2007 (ArticlesBase.com)]]>
In this document I will explain the following:
- My plan for preparing for the PMP exam.
- The materials I used while studying.
- The difference between my expectations and what I found on the exam.
- What I would do different if I did this again.
- My thoughts on the PMI-OC class.
- Read Heldman to get an outline of the scope required.
- Find a diagram that shows the framework for how all the processes fit together.
- Read the PMBOK searching for details.
- Memorize the framework.
- Use the PMP class to add content to the framework.
- Read peripheral material to verify the breadth of my studies.
- I read Heldman, twice (electronic version once and hardcopy once).
- I read the PMBOK (electronic version) twice.
- I created wall charts to illustrate the Core and Facilitating processes.
- I memorized the framework, meaning that I could visualize the interconnections between the processes in my mind and re-create it on paper.
- I learned a great deal from the PMP class.
- I read the following peripheral materials:
- PMI Compendium of Project Management Practices,
- PMP Role Delineation Study
- OuterCore study guide (twice)
- Practice Standard for Work Breakdown Structures
- And I read the first several chapters of Kerzner’s Project Management, A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling and Controlling.
- I also purchased the Rita Mulcahy Hot Topics: Audio Flashcards for Passing the PMP and CAPM Exams. I listened to these CDs at least a dozen times because I wanted to have a precise understanding of the core vocabulary.
- I took notes and then organized those notes into a study guide. I would glance through those notes when time permitted. I even went all the way through them one last time at a Starbucks just before taking the test.
- I used the on-line practice exams in the Heldman book to help me understand the format of the test material and the structure of the test questions. I found that once I took one of the Heldman exams, I did not benefit from re-taking it because I remembered the questions. Even the random tests were useless to me on my third try. Nonetheless, these tests helped because they taught me about the format and style of the exam.
- My final preparation was to run through a 200-question random test concocted by using questions from Heldman and Exam Cram 2. From this I learned that I could finish in about 2 hours. I also learned that I was likely to have the wrong answer on about 50% of the questions that I marked for review.
- All of the questions seemed to be in order from Initiation to Planning to Execution to Controlling to Closure and finally Professional Responsibilities. I had expected more randomness.
- I had at least six CPM questions on my exam. I had only expected one or two.
- There were several questions where I wanted to write-in “none of the above” as the best answer. Specifically, a couple of the professional responsibility questions seemed likely to elicit a lawsuit no matter which of the four answers I picked.
- The look and feel of the exam was very similar to the Heldman practice exams.
- The questions were generally of better quality than the practice questions I had seen in Exam Cram, OuterCore and Heldman. Heldman was the closest to the actual questions, but few of the Heldman questions were as complex as some of the real questions. OuterCore had a better selection of complex questions; the type of questions that took 5 or more minutes each. Exam Cram had little resemblance to the real test.
- I took 2:20 to go through the exam. So my practice run of 200-questions was good preparation. Confidence that I would finish and still have time to review allowed me to pace myself and not stress when I hit time-consuming CPM questions.
- I then spent about 45 minutes going back through the 39 questions that I had marked for review. It worried me that I had marked 39 questions and it bothered me that even reading a second time shed little light on some of them. Generally, I just did not like any of the possible answers on about 10 of the ones I marked. Another 10 seemed to be designed to challenge me to find the least objectionable answer. Others I realized were probably straight out of an auxiliary PMI book that I had not read.
- My estimate that I would miss about 50% of the ones I marked for review suggested that I was likely to get about a 180 on the test. So, after this one review I submitted my exam for grading, and waited for the answer. I passed with a score of 180. My time and accuracy estimates were good.
- Altogether, I spent 3:05 on the test.
- Take the test as quickly as you can after you finish your class because you never know what might happen.
- I am not sure that reviewing the questions that I marked helped at all. I only changed the answers on about 4 out of the 39 I had marked, and I am not sure whether my changes helped or hurt.
- Ignore some of the peripheral materials that I read. I do not believe that either the PMP Role Delineation Study or the Practice Standard for Work Breakdown Structures helped my preparation.
- Focus your time wisely. I pulled the CD from the Exam Cram book to get the test questions, but I did not spend time reading that book. I also borrowed a copy of Mulcahy’s book, looked at it for about five-minutes, and returned it. It may be the best book on the market, but it’s style was not to my taste.
- Get more breadth in your studies. Although this point seems to contradict the prior two points, all three are actually recommendations to use your time wisely. I missed three out of the seven questions on “corrective actions”. I believe that I would have gotten most of those correct if I had been able to read one or two of the books by Verma. They are short, and can probably be skimmed through in one or two evenings. I wish I had done that instead of reading the role delineation or WBS books.
- Memorize even more. I know all of the process names and I can draw them on paper from memory. I memorized about 50% of the inputs and about 75% of the outputs. Even so I had to guess at the answer on two or three of the questions on tools and techniques. There were a couple questions where two answers both sounded reasonable. If I had memorized the tools and techniques I would have known those answers.
- I have an engineering background so CPM was easy for me. I was lucky because there were a lot of CPM questions on my test. Each of those questions takes a lot of time.
- That essential 35-hours of classroom time.
- A group of people all trying to do the same thing, with the same misconceptions and struggles.
- A rigid schedule that meant I could not put off until next week what had to be finished before Saturday.
- We used the OuterCore study material. I frequently argued with the quiz questions in OuterCore and questioned the value of those practice exams. I was surprised on the real exam to find that the CPM questions were much more like those in OuterCore than in any of the other materials that I used. I was also surprised to find a large number of questions on the exam where I did not feel like any of the answers were the “right” answer. OuterCore helped me through that because I had come to accept that the right answer is not always among the choices, so all you can do is to pick the least objectionable answer. Interestingly, the exam tutorial even gave a question with a similar theme. That question asked about the color of some object, and none of the answers were right. The tutorial then explained that sometimes you just have to pick the best one out of a sorry lot. So now I am grateful for the OuterCore quizzes.
- Most importantly, I heard the stories of quite a few people that have gone through the same experience, and passed. Those stories helped me refine my study plan and gave me good advice on how to make the best use of my study time.
- I would like to have all 9-hours filled every Saturday. Alright, so I was one of the first people out the door when we finished early, but I really wish that we had filled in a few more of those sessions with one more example. My suggestion, for what it is worth, is to have one or two filler topics on standby in case the main topic ends early. For example, since the topic of Human Resources is fairly short, drop in another CPM example on that day. Or, plan in advance for the lunch session to be two-hours instead of one-hour.
- I would also like the instructors to branch out a bit. All of the instructors have read a wide variety of material on their lecture topics. So, get through the packaged material, and then spend a few minutes talking about some of the recommended readings.
- Know your own study method and follow it.
- Discipline yourself to a schedule and stick with it.
- Take the test as soon as you can after your class ends.
- Look at the PMI study kit. The people at PMI put a lot of thought into the books they selected. Perhaps you prefer Heldman over Mulcahy, or Verma over Kerzner, but stay close to those recommendations.
- Find a good class. I personally recommend the PMI-OC PMP workshops. Maybe your local chapter has a program of similar quality.