Passing the PMI PMP Exam

I guess I have to start this blog somewhere and passing my PMP exam is the best way. I had published this on pmhub.net as a lesson learned so other aspiring Project Managers could learn from it.

November 2006 I realized that I will definitely be getting the pmp certification so might as well become a PMI member

cost of exam + cost of membership = cost of non-membership exam

I started reading the PMBOK then and realized that I needed help in understanding all the information in that reference manual. I had sufficient knowledge in projects but I was not able to relate words to my experience. So I enrolled with 4pmti to get my PMI'sms right and simultaneously started preparing my PMP application you should start this process at least 2 months before your exam because the reference letters and making the calculations for submitting the application for th exam takes an extremely long time.

It all finally boiled down to the exam day on April 5th as scheduled at Prometric, Mumbai. In the test center I was asked to dump all my personal belongings in a locker. I could only carry my 2 ids and the locker keys and I even had to wear my sweater in and not carry it in. I was informed that I could not take it off and if I wanted to I had to keep it outside. I think the environment was not too chilly but then that was me.

The exam started with the tutorial and no I did not need to do a brain dump on all formulas Because I was confident of recalling it on demand. I finished the tutorial in 5 minutes and started with the exam skipped first 5 questions to get myself rolling 6th question was familiar and so reached an average speed of 75 questions in the first hour I preferred not to take a break because I didn't feel like it I was used to longer hours in front of the computer so even after 2 hours I was still at it.

Within 2 hours and 15 minutes I had tackled all questions. Thats when I took a break I still had at least 20 questions to go, well they were "eeny miney mo" anyways I went out had a couple of chocolate chip cookies and some water after 5 minutes I was back inside. Started on those last 20 questions I had skipped during the first pass, my strategy was to skip all maths, long and confusing questions so i could answer them without worrying abt the time.

As a backup I had guessed and marked the answers anyway. The idea is to finish quickly with the questions you are confident about and leave the rest for last. After I selected all the answers I selected the review button that gave me a list of all the questions additional buttons allow me to go through marked questions as well as incomplete ones.

Last but not the least the end exam button which i pressed when 40 minutes were remaining in the test and that brought up a popup that asked for confirmation just in case you had made a monkey out of yourself by pressing it early :)

Thats it after a heart thumping 20 seconds I got

"Congratulations you are now a certified PMP"

this has been a long tiring day so signing off

Ashish Vazirani, PMP

PS: It really feels great to get those 3 letters behind your name, and oh yeah ITTO matters if you dont know what comes next you better study.

story behind the name mozzybytes

This name was registered in India in 2000, it was really much earlier when it was uttered by my neice.

The story goes that she was visiting Bombay, India after many years of staying in Melbourne, Australia. During her stay she decided one day to sleep in the large living cum dinning room her dad's house had.

When I saw her the next morning her face was all red and I asked her what happened? She said two words 'mozzy bites'. At that time of course I laughed it off.

But later in 2000 when I was searching to find a name to register this word came to me and since I was in computers it made sence to convert the 'bites' to 'bytes'. So the name was born and since it was the internet boom was registered as a dotcom "mozzybytes.com"