u/BreathB4Plunge

Hello Everyone.. I passed the PMP exam yesterday (5/19) with score of AT/AT/T..

This reddit community is gold class and without this it wouldn't have been possible to pass.. I want to give it back and below is how I studied and my experience with exam overall.

I started off last year in October and thought of giving the exam early Jan but life happened and I kept postponing until Feb 2026.. Below are my study materials

1. For my 35 hours I with AR udemy course.. AR's teaching style is good with basic examples but he does more sales pitch about his course, his book and his certifications than the content..
2. I also completed DM's complete course on Udemy.. I found DM's course much more organized and his notes were top class.. I made notes going through his videos.
3. Took a print of Third3Rocks and referenced until the last day of the exam.
4. AR's mindset video
5. AR's 200 hard questions video( only did 150)..
6. DM's 150 Agile questions ( only did 100)..
7. Study Hall Plus.. Attempted all 5 full length exams, all mini exams.. 1- 3 full length exams 1 time and 4 & 5 did two times ( after resetting).. I dedicated April full month weekends and may first two weekends for full length exams.. Reviewed all full length exam's wrong answers and made notes.. I got frustrated with SH's reasoning behind some of the answers as I checked with ChatGPT/Claude/Microsoft copilot and these AI tools reason with my answers.. I did search wrong answers in Reddit to see how others have thought about the answers.. 😄 This is just to get my mindset ready and not to rely on AI answers.. And SH's Mini exams I reviewed all answers not just the wrong answers..

Day before the exam:

1. Listened to https://youtu.be/eUOJ_yEeyuc - DM's fast track.
2. Listened to https://youtu.be/k25eJDUU-J0 - DM's The PMP Cheat Sheet
3. AR's https://youtu.be/RET8LcOUJLA - Formula's -- Only first half .
4. Skimmed Third3Rock material completely

Exam Experience:

I took the exam at Testing center around 11 AM.. I knew room is going to be cold so went with jacket.. When I started the exam for the first few questions I thought I took less time in answering them but infact I spent a lot of time.. Re-read the questions multiple times ( though first few questions were easy and straight forward).. My mind got so used to the hard questions and bad wording of SH so much so that, I started second guessing real question exams and was trying to see if the question is tricky or straight forward.. Before I realized 30 mins passed by and I was stuck at 17 questions.. When I finished my 60 questions I left with 130 mins as I flagged a lot.. Panic mode kicked in.. I took a break and returned within 6 mins to resume.. I breezed through the second set with exact 65 mins left for the final set.. Second set I only flagged few.. For final set I decided not to flag any question and spent extra second to decide then and there instead of coming back again.. I finished the final set with 5 seconds left 👀 ..

Regarding the exam composition:

1. Lot of questions related to Agile and Transforming from Predictive to Agile
2. I rarely got questions on risk management techniques or tools
3. No direct questions on Processes/Predictive .. few questions were regarding handling the risk vs issues.. Wording were tricky.. It makes you think that it is risk as they use the word "risk" in the sentence but in actuality it would be an issue.
4. 1 drag and drop question
5. No questions related to formulas
6. Heavy questions on team conflict, collaboration, coaching and training.

I thought I screwed the second and third set as I just read question once and went with gut feeling.. I didn't see the result when they handed me the paper at center.. Got into the car and reflected few minutes about what to do next in both +ve and -ve scenarios and then turned the paper to see the result.. Paper had PASS 🎉 AT/AT/T..

Once again, thanks a ton to this community.. Please let me know if I can be of any help.. I'm more than willing to share if you need any information.