u/Sauvya

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I’ve been taking guidance from this subreddit throughout my CAPM preparation, so I wanted to give back and share exactly what worked for me.

A little background

I’m currently changing my career into Project Management. I had no formal education or professional background in PM, so I was basically starting from scratch.

My journey looked like this:

1️⃣ Started with IIT Delhi’s Project Management course

I enrolled in a Project Management certificate program from IIT Delhi.

It took around 6 months to complete.

Honestly, this was the most important step for me because it gave me a proper foundation.

Before this course, I had a very vague idea of what project management actually involved.

By the end of it, I understood the concepts, terminology, processes, and different approaches much better.

Once I had the foundation, I decided to aim for the CAPM.

2️⃣ Started my CAPM preparation

My approach was:

Read the concepts properly rather than just memorizing them.

Revise everything multiple times.

Organize my preparation according to the CAPM exam domains.

Focus on understanding why something is the correct answer.

Then came Reddit. 😅

I spent quite a bit of time reading what other people who had passed CAPM were using, and two resources kept coming up again and again:

📚 Peter Landini

📱 Pocket Prep

So I decided to purchase both.

3️⃣ Peter Landini

I completed all 8 practice papers from Landini.

My average initially was around 75%.

And honestly, I wasn't very confident at that point.

I knew the concepts, but I wasn't sure whether I was actually exam-ready.

So instead of just repeatedly reading theory, I decided to attack the questions.

4️⃣ Pocket Prep — 2,000 questions

I started working through the 2,000-question set on Pocket Prep.

For the last few weeks, I was extremely consistent with this.

⏱️ Around 3 hours every day

🎯 At least 200 questions in those 3 hours

My average score was around 80%.

The goal wasn't just to get questions right. I wanted to expose myself to as many different ways of asking the same concept as possible.

I finished the entire question set within my last 15 days of preparation.

5️⃣ Back to Landini

After finishing Pocket Prep, I went back to Landini and did the practice sets again, including the mock.

This time, I was scoring close to 87%.

At this point I finally felt like, Okay, maybe I'm actually ready. 😅

6️⃣ The actual exam 😵‍💫

And then came the reality check.

The exam felt very different from the practice questions.

The questions were not straightforward or direct.

Some were easy, but a lot of them were worded in a way that made me think:

"What exactly are they asking me here?" 😂

I genuinely felt underprepared during the exam.

At one point I was convinced I was either failing or, at best, barely passing.

But one thing that helped tremendously was understanding the concepts.

Even when I wasn't immediately sure about the answer, I could usually eliminate 2 options and then work my way toward the most appropriate answer.

So my biggest takeaway is:

Don't prepare by memorizing answers. Understand the concepts.

7️⃣ And then… "Congratulations" 🎉

When I submitted the exam and the screen said CONGRATULATIONS, I literally couldn't believe it.

Then, two days later, I received the official result:

AT — Above Target in ALL domains.

That was honestly a huge surprise because, based on how the exam felt, I was expecting a much less impressive result.

📌 What I would recommend to anyone preparing

If I had to summarize my preparation:

📖 Build the foundation first

Don't jump straight into question banks if you're completely new to project management.

A structured course helped me understand the fundamentals.

📚 Understand the concepts

Read your study material properly.

Revise.

Focus on understanding why an answer is correct.

📝 Do LOTS of practice questions

This was probably the biggest factor in my preparation.

🔥 Use Landini for difficulty

Do all the practice sets.

Don't get discouraged by your initial scores.

My first average was around 75%; later I was around 87%.

🔄 Use Pocket Prep for variety

The 2,000 questions exposed me to many different ways concepts could be tested.

I found this particularly useful for getting comfortable with unfamiliar question patterns.

⏱️ Practice like it's the real exam

Use a timer.

Try doing large sets in one sitting.

Don't always do 10 questions here and 10 questions there.

Train yourself to sit for hours and continuously analyze questions.

And finally:

Don't panic if the actual exam feels harder than your mocks.

I genuinely thought I was failing while taking the exam.

If you've understood the concepts well enough to eliminate options and identify the best answer, you're probably in a much better position than you think.

Thank you to everyone on this subreddit who shared their preparation strategies, resources, scores and experiences. A lot of what I did came from reading posts here, so hopefully this helps someone else who is currently preparing.

Good luck to everyone preparing for CAPM! You've got this. 🚀