Congratulations on Passing the PMP Exam Kevin!
Posted on behalf of Kevin in Michigan, who passed his PMP exam recently (based on the 4th edition of the PMBOK Guide)
Happy - by B Rosen via Flickr (this isn't Kevin in the photo! 
Josh: Congratulations on passing your PMP exam Kevin! Any tips for others who are preparing for it?
General
- I memorized 40+ formulas for my brain dump sheet. One key to success for me was to “logically” understand all of the ITTO.
- Having a solid understanding of the knowledge areas is beneficial.
- I had to know the best answer from the available list of answers. So for listed principles found in the PMBOK, I had to know each principle in the list and then which ones were better than each other.
Study Tips
Three essential preparation techniques for me (in addition to the helpful emails from Josh Nankivel) included attending a TrainingCamp class for PMP that was well-instructed by Douglas Boebinger, listening to the PM Prepcast by Cornelius Fichtner, and taking several practice exams with scenario based questions. When it comes to practice exams, scenario based questions required me to understand what the question was asking and then apply PMP principles. I had a lot of scenario based questions on my exam. Prepare using scenario based questions will help aspirants to learn how to determine what the exam question is really asking, then learn how to extract the important details while ignoring non-essential information, and then learn to apply their PMP knowledge. Also, a word of caution when it comes to sample exams: stay away from practice exams that are not PMBOK 4th edition complaint. I ran into some earlier version exam questions that would just confused me because some of the processes are completely different or in different order. To weed those out later, I specifically Googled for “PMP 4th edition exam questions”.
Below are two really good links for practice exams designed for the 4th edition of the PMBOK (they provide good explanations for understanding each question):
http://www.headfirstlabs.com/PMP/free_exam/
Also, I encourage aspirants who are familiar with computer testing to use the tutorial time for creating the brain dump sheet; that will save at least 15 minutes of exam time.
Hope that helps!
Kevin
Nov 3rd, 2009 at 7:05 am
One broken record responding to another … why is anyone so excited about passing a test that only requires you to get 61% correct? About obtaining a credential that proves nothing? While I’m happy for Kevin, and he should be proud of his accomplishment, pumping it up like this is borderline unethical on your part, Josh.
Reply
Josh Nankivel Reply:
November 3rd, 2009 at 8:25 am
Here’s the other broken record responding…
First, the 61% is no longer true since August this year. (And you know I agree fully that if an exam is testing your knowledge of a standard, it should be more like 80-90%) I don’t know what the % is now, PMI has gone incognito on that topic.
Second, the credential proves you know about the PMI standard, and certifies that you have some basic level of experience and knowledge about PM.
Third, congratulating someone for working their @ss off and succeeding at their goal is not even close to “borderline unethical” Bill.
You know I have a lot of respect for you Bill, even though you’ve libeled me so many times I lost count. I must be a glutton for punishment! I welcome your comments and challenges as always.
Cheers!
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Bill Duncan Reply:
November 3rd, 2009 at 4:56 pm
First and foremost … if I’ve libeled you either in this post or any other, I would really like to know about it. Libel is a pretty serious charge. I don’t think I’ve ever made any demonstrably false statements about you, and I can assure you that there has never been any malice in any of my posts. We do disagree on a number of things, most visibly the meaning and value of the PMP. But I don’t think saying that I think your position is inaccurate or incorrect counts as libel.
As to my suggestion that this post was “borderline unethical” … here are the relevant sections of the PMI Code of Conduct:
“We proactively and fully disclose any real or potential conflicts of interest to the appropriate stakeholders.” Since you actively promote PMI certification and other offerings, and since sales of your book are at least somewhat dependent on continued interest in PMI’s programs, a headline like this that makes it sound like passing a multiple choice exam is cause for breaking out the bubbly approaches being a potential conflict of interest.
I will admit that I shamelessly promote the asapm certification program that competes with the PMP, but I don’t get paid a cent for that work.
“We do not engage in or condone behavior that is designed to deceive others, including but not limited to, making misleading or false statements, stating half-truths, providing information out of context or withholding information that, if known, would render our statements as misleading or incomplete.” Again, I don’t think you violated this section, but I do think you are pushing the limits. A headline that said, “Kevin’s Tips for Passing the PMP” would have been far more appropriate.
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Josh Nankivel Reply:
November 3rd, 2009 at 5:29 pm
I’ll retract the libel comment; I didn’t mean it in the legal sense. I’ll stop “joshing” now.
Thank you for the feedback, but I’ll reserve the right to congratulate someone who emails me happy that they’ve earned any degree or certification; because I’m proud of them. And it will be up to me whether I do so in an email, blog title, heading, subheading, body, sidebar, or paint it on the side of my house.
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Casey Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Hi Josh, I did not know that PMI has changed the pass percentage on the exam.
I’m going to assume that it’s higher than the 61% now (a little kidding here), but curious as to by how much… this makes the fact that I passed the exam on 10/24 even more glorious.
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Nov 3rd, 2009 at 10:53 am
I agree with Josh. You can not just walk in off the street and take the PMP exam. Kevin spent time and energy preparing for the exam and absolutely deserves his moment in the spotlight, unconditionally. Shame on anyone who tries to steal that moment. Though you may not agree with PMI, let him have his moment. I think Bill “Kanye West” Duncan is out of line and needs to find his own spotlight.
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Bill Duncan Reply:
November 3rd, 2009 at 4:59 pm
First of all, I gave Kevin his props. Please re-read my post: “I’m happy for Kevin, and he should be proud of his accomplishment.” My criticism was of Josh for a headline that makes it sound like Kevin has scaled the heights.
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Nov 3rd, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Congratulations and thank you for the tips,
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Nov 4th, 2009 at 10:15 am
We need to be careful about dismissing an exam that is passed at any particular percentage. You can’t compare the passing grade of one exam to the passing grade of another exam, because of the difference in level of difficulty between the two.
The same is true of passing grades for comparible math classes — the exams most likely are not of the same level of difficulty. And there is no way for you to measure the difference, without having access to both. The difference may be a difference is question difficulty, or it may be a difference in content coverage.
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