u/Majestic-Extreme-658

Just took the exam so I'm getting rid of this book. If anyone is interested I'm happy to mail it out for the cost of shipping! But also unsure if it's worth having now that the exam is changing?

Thank you SO much to this community :)

Passed AT/AT/AT yesterday. No part of me expected that outcome going in and I definitely could not have done it without the resources shared in this sub, so giving back what worked best for me.

My biggest tips:

• Book the exam before you're ready. You'll never feel 100% ready. (I worked full-time while prepping and am currently moving, so my prep was chaotic. I only took it now because my application expires soon, I lose PMI membership in September, and I didn't want to learn the post-July content. I'm glad I did it, though. If I had waited, I don't know if it ever would have happened.)
• Pick which resources work for you and stick to them! I initially felt I wasn't using enough/the right resources, but there are many resources available to prepare for this exam. Find what works for YOU and don't latch on too hard to what others did if it isn't helping you.
• Throughout the full studying process, I wrote down everything that felt sticky or new in my own words, which was huge in helping me retain information.
• Trust your gut!!! There were so many times in practicing where I got it wrong jsut because I second-guessed. On exam day, everything felt wrong, but I forced myself to go with my instincts.

Resources

Course: TIA course with Michael Monteverdi

Practice: Study Hall

Review:

• AR's Complete PMP Mindset 50 Principles and Questions: watched twice
• Third3Rock Notes for definitions
• 49 Processes Chart: I never memorized this, but it was super helpful to keep in front of me all the time. I'm a visual learner!
• This outline of predictive project documents: I knew I was weak on Process, so I turned this into a mental map against the Processes chart the night before my exam
• PMI ECO: I would say review this when you start studying, along with mindset, to build a framework of what you need. I wish I had reviewed it earlier.

AI tools:

• This Claude prompt for wrong answers
• PMI Infinity for definitions

I also used a bunch of other resources (youtube/AR's book/etc.) on top of these, but they ended up being toooo much information, so keep it limited.

Process

I took my course a year ago. I found the TIA synchronous learning really helpful to motivate me to lock in a few times a week. My company also paid for the course (but not the exam lol). If I had a better plan back then, I would've spent 2 weeks right after the course studying on Study Hall and then taken the exam right away. But I ended up not being able to take the exam until a year later.

When I picked back up about 1 month ago, I started with the 50 Principles video, Study Hall, and added Third3Rock's note to re-teach myself all the content.

For SH, I did both my mock exams (3 weeks before and then the weekend right before) with 66% on both. I did probably 325 practice exams, mostly reviewing answers immediately after I took the question.

I supplemented all my pracrtice that with the AI review tools mentioned above to review answers and re-teach myself anything I was misunderstanding. This was really helpful to re-teach things in a concise way, rather than trying to re-learn full sections using Third3Rock or course content. Occasionally, I looked up videos on YouTube for topics that I really didn't understand. All of this helped me build a mental map in my head.

The night before my exam, I used the project documents outline above to write out a mental map of tools/documents because I knew I was weak on Process. I also reviewed the ECO.

Exam

I took it my exam at an exam center & am so glad I did to help me focus. Honestly, my exam was harder than I expected. I was planning a re-take in the back of my head the whole time lol

My takeaways:

• It felt exactly like SH, maybe a bit harder. I'd recommend doing at least 2 mock exams before you sit the exam to understand the length and how to read questions correctly. Also, do all the practice questions you can so that you're trained on how to read questions quickly.
• The mindset video was SO important in helping me narrow down questions during the exam, but they also felt sticky every time.
• I didn't review flagged questions much. I think I flagged 1/3 of the questions in the first section lol but I didn't really have time to review. Even if I did, I think I would've second-guessed too much. Just trust your instincts and keep trekking!
• Part of me wished I didn't take breaks because it took me a bit to re-focus after each break, but glad I did. I didn't have the stamina at the end of each section to keep going.
• Read the question and try to figure out what they're asking before the context. A big takeaway from practice questions was that I wasn't answering what was actually being asked, and flipping it to read the question (and sometimes the answer options) first was super helpful.
• 3 mult-select, a couple calculations to do and a couple calculations to interpret, 1 chart (lead/lag)
• Used the highlighter a lot! Super helpful to help me focus on key words and what they were actually asking

Was hoping to keep this concise because these posts always tend to be long, but I get why they are now haha

Happy to answer any questions for those taking the exam soon and thank you again to everyone who answered a million questions for me. If you're taking it before July 9, you got this!!!

I imagine the study hall practice questions would only relate to the current exam, correct? I was a little surprised to see a question about AI because I haven't seen those anywhere in my practice materials but curious if anyone knows anything abotu this!

Isn't servant leadership consistent across both methods?

The correct answer is D.

Can someone explain why? I actually thought of D, but couldn't rationalize it. C made sense to me because the mindset argues for bringing issues to the project team before acting, but I may be over-simplifying that.

Appreciate any feedback!