How long does it take for you to prepare and write the exam ?

Obviously that will depend on the person.    Some aspects might take one person longer or shorter than another.    When I finally decided to “get serious”, I paid the fee and scheduled an exam date 6 weeks in the future, so I was motivated.

There are several categories of knowledge that you need to bring to the exam.

1. “Real” knowledge of Project Management.

2. “PMI-centric” knowledge of PMI Project Management.

3. Test–taking and language skills.

4. Knowledge or Memorization of several hundred Tools, Techniques, Inputs, and Outputs that are attached to the PMI Processes.

I had some “real world” knowledge gathered over many years, so I can’t really say how long it took.    But the paradox of the PMI tests is that “real world” knowledge can actually work against you.    The PMI has its own vocabulary and methodology.    Someone who is still in school who has never had a job in their life might do better than someone who has been managing real projects for 10 years.    So let’s ignore the impact of experience, and concentrate on how long it takes to aquire the “PMI-Centric” knowledge.

The PMBOK Guide is the Bible for PMI-Centric knowledge.    But this is a terribly dry read.    I confess that I was not able to read all the way through the PMBOK, but I passed the test anyway, with the help of some more readable books (and the PMICertTool).    My advice:  Force yourself to read the first few chapters which summarize what comes later.    Then, sometime before you take the test, read through the glossary at the end to make sure you know what the terms mean.

The very best book I found for learning the PMI-Centric material is “Head First PMP”.    HF-PMP is about 700 pages.    It is a very light and easy read.    It is 180 degrees opposite from the PMBOK in style.    I recommend that you read through it once rapidly, then take the end of chapter tests, and re-read the chapters where you scored less than 90%.

How fast you can read through “Head First PMP” and the other books will determine how long it takes to prepare for the exam.    Only having a couple of hours in the evening free, it took me almost 2 weeks to read this twice and take the chapter exams.    Depending on how tired I was, I could sometimes plow through more than 100 pages in a couple of hours.

I read the book on the Safari books-online site.    While I was reading, I kept the PMCertTool on the screen.    The front window of the CertTool lets you click on a process, an input, an output, a Tool or Technique, and traces where those things come from and where those things are going.    This helped me to keep the picture of the process relationships in my head without having to do too much flipping back and forth in the book.

At that point, I was scoring about 85% on the exams in the Head First book, and about 65% on the practice Quizes in the PMICertTool.    I think I could have passed the real test then.    But I had had 3 more weeks until the scheduled date.    I did not study at all for a week, then noticing the exam date coming up, I started to worry.

The 3rd category of knowledge that you need to bring to the exam includes Test–taking and language skills.    How much you need to work on this depends on your situation.    But if English is not your primary language, this could be a problem.    The PMP is famous for “trick questions”.    You do have to be careful to note small words that could change the meaning, such as a well hidden “can” or “will”, “should” or “could”.

The book “PMP Exam Prep, Fifth Edition: Rita's Course in a Book for P the PMP Exam” does address test taking and language skills.    I have mixed feelings about it.    It is twice as expensive as the excellent Head First Book, and I do not think it helped me very much.    But it does make you think about trick questions and the “gotcha” ethic of the PMI tests in the past.    I say “past” because I honestly did not recognize many trick questions on the exam.    Maybe they were there, and they were the ones I missed.    (They don’t tell you which ones you get wrong.)

I spent a week of evenings reading Rita Mulcahy’s book.    It really blew my confidence, and made me feel like I would fail the test.    As it turned out, her test questions were much trickier than the real exam questions.    This was probably the wrong book for me, but it might be the right book for you, if you need to work on test taking and language issues.

After reading the Mulcahy book, I felt so demoralized that I almost bumped the date of the exam, which was coming up the next week.    But then I took the 200 question exam from Head First, which is on their website.    I scored a 90 on it, which made me feel better about myself.    My score on the PMICertTool quizes (which mainly deal with the process relationships) had come down during the weeks that I had not used it.    But I took 1 or 2 short tests per night for a few evenings, and my score came up to the low 80% range.    I wrote the real test as scheduled and did all right.

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