Written by: Mamoon Damrah

My PMP Journey
The four-hours timer started to count down while I was sitting in this tiny room with four or five
people, I was so nervous to the extent that I couldn’t read the first question fully until maybe the
3rd time, what made things worse is the guy who sat next to me started coughing constantly which
distracted me a lot even while wearing the ear plugs.
I’m not that kind of guy who used to get nervous at exams or afraid of the interviews because at
the end of the day what is the worst thing is going to happen?! You will fail, if that is the case you
have endless opportunities to retake the exam again and again.
So what went wrong this time, the simple answer is I solved only one 200 questions mock exam
a day before the exam date and unfortunately, I chose the wrong one to start with and I failed it (I
scored 66/100).
I’ll take you back a bit starting from the day I registered in PMP course, it was a Saturday class
09:00 to 05:00 spanning across six weeks, it was an OK start but I knew from day one that this is
not a practical way to digest this much of information and knowledge, i.e. long hours and plenty
info, so after researching online I decided to study both PMBOK and Rita Mulcahy books with one
important addition.
The beginning was watching an extremely important video by Ricardo Vargas, its name is “NEW!
Elaboration of the Processes Flow of the PMBOK® Guide 6th Edition” where Ricardo present the
49 processes and how they interact and integrate with each other, it is recommended to print out
the flow chart A0 size and post it in your studying place to see it constantly.
Then I started my first round in studying both books (PMBOK and Rita Mulcahy) and solved only
the questions in Rita’s, this round consumed most of the time as I made sure to understand the
concepts, anything I was not sure of I used to google it or look for youtube videos, add to that my
full time job and family commitments, so I postponed the decision of taking the exam several times
until finally I scheduled it in November 26.
The second round I was studying one chapter in PMBOK and then complete same chapter in Rita
book then solving questions by each knowledge area (FASTrack) and I was happy that I became
familiar with all the concepts, understood (not memorized) ITTOs and the questions and
clarifications identified the gaps until I reached a good level of confidence that I will pass easily.
A few days before the exam I saw a post praising Udemy’s mock exam by Tridib Roy and how
much it is similar to the real exam so I looked for it and found good reviews and decided to solve
it.
Unfortunately, I took more time reviewing (still in second round) and only one day left for the mock
exam so I tried the mentioned 4 hours exam and was shocked with the amount of concepts that
I am not sure of such as agile concepts with a lot of confusing questions about communications
with stakeholder’s management, project documents, some uncommon outputs, I agree that all
inside PMBOK but most of the questions rely on your memory rather than your understanding
until I scored 66% and failed as mentioned above.

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Written by: Mamoon Damrah

I will not talk much about the feelings I had and only will state that I felt depressed and everything
I built over the months collapsed at once, these feelings carried on until I entered the exam room
where the transformation happened.
I focused on the exam and tried not to think of any distraction, started to solve one question after
another and was relieved to figure out that the questions are concise and well crafted, coherent,
they were not too long and some are few words, and the purpose was clear (in most of the
questions) also the answers/ options are easy to follow and to eliminate if you understand the
concepts well, some observations listed below:

 A lot of questions about change concept and how to deal with changes
 Almost 3 questions about earned value and were easy (SV,CV,SPI,CPI)
 No questions to draw network diagram
 Critical path and float concept mentioned in several questions
 Issue log usage in risk mentioned more than once
 Fishbone diagram mentioned in 2 or 3 questions (in multiple names)
 Control lines concept and easy question about out of control process

I gave enough time to each questions, was reading it twice and not in hurry to answer and time
was more than enough, after completing 150 questions I took a 5 minute break and then
completed the balance questions and signed out before 10 minutes of exam time to find the nice
surprise, a congratulations message from PMI.
I went out to the front desk to receive my report which carried an even nicer surprise when I found
out that I scored “Above target” in all 5 process groups.

Lessons learned and recommendations:

 Understanding flow of processes (and how they integrate) is key to pass the exam.
 Don’t memorize ITTOs, try to understand why every input, tool /technique and output are
needed/ required for each process.
 Prepare a realistic study schedule and do not rush the exam (unless you have to).
 Choose a reliable source for mock exams and solve as many questions as you can.
 Don’t panic if you didn’t score high in mock exams, real exam may be easier than you
think.
 Don’t waste a lot of time on equations and network diagram, instead understand the
concepts thoroughly.
 Change management is one of the most important topics on the exams.
 Focus on reading the question well and do not skip to the answers/ options, you have
enough time.

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