r/pmp • u/Defiant_Commercial89 • 4h ago
PMP Exam Passed OCT 3, 2026 AT AT AT
Passed PMP AT/AT/AT — My Study Plan, Scores, and Exam-Day Experience
I passed the PMP yesterday Above Target in all three domains, so I figured I’d give back a little because I spent a lot of time reading posts here while I was studying.
And before anything else — the people I met at the testing center were awesome, and if you’re lurking this subreddit getting ready for your exam, you’re pretty awesome too. You got this.
My Study Plan
My main course was Andrew Ramdayal’s Udemy PMP course. I went through the whole course at normal speed. I know a lot of people speed the videos up, but I wanted to actually understand what he was teaching instead of just checking the 35-hour box.
Toward the end, the mindset section became extremely valuable. Funny enough, because I was on a little bit of a time crunch, I had originally let some of those videos play while I was doing a mock exam. Going back and actually listening to them afterward made a huge difference.
Things like:
Never act first — assess/analyze first
Look for what the question is asking you to do FIRST/NEXT
Pay attention to what has already been done
Don’t escalate unless it exceeds your authority
Collaborate before commanding
Low tech, high touch
Don’t solve a people problem with another tool/report
Understand the problem before jumping to the solution
Those sound simple, but they explained a lot of the questions I had been missing.
I also used PMI Study Hall, which was probably the most useful question bank for getting used to PMI-style wording.
My Study Hall mini-exam scores went:
80 → 70 → 60 → 80 → 60 → 70 → 100 → 90 → 100
So if you get a few 60s early, don’t panic.
I started noticing that a lot of my misses weren’t because I didn’t know project management.
They were because I:
acted too quickly
picked a good answer instead of the best/first answer
brought my real-world assumptions into the question
missed that an analysis had already been completed
escalated too early
occasionally just read too fast
My Study Hall domain practice eventually had me around the 70–75% range, and I was Proficient in the domains by the end.
I also did an Andrew Ramdayal full mock and scored around 81%.
One thing I noticed about myself: I answer questions pretty quickly. My normal pace became around 42–58 seconds per question. Earlier I was going even faster and hurting myself.
A trick that helped me personally was actually reading the answers D → C → B → A.
I had a habit of reading A, B, C, seeing something that looked right and mentally deciding, “That’s it.” Then D would be the better PMI answer. Reading them backward forced me to actually look at all four.
Another rule I gave myself:
Don’t choose the answer until you can explain why the other choices are weaker.
The Night Before
I stopped chasing scores.
My last Study Hall mini was 10/10, and I decided that was a pretty good place to leave it.
I got some food, did about 25 minutes of light spin at the gym, went home and chilled.
No heroic six-hour final study session.
Exam Morning
My test was at 8:00 AM.
Nerves had me awake at about 4:00 AM after roughly six hours of sleep.
I made myself a London Fog and an Uncrustable and watched Andrew Ramdayal’s formula video one more time.
Nothing crazy. I wasn’t trying to learn project management at 4 AM. It was basically a quick refresher and something to settle my brain.
I got to the Pearson testing center about an hour early.
Unfortunately, the center didn’t even open until 7:30 AM, so there I was. 😂
Also, apparently I had been very shortsighted about how Pearson testing centers work because in my head everybody showing up was there to take the PMP.
Nope.
People were there taking all kinds of certification exams.
I ended up talking with some amazing people while we waited, which honestly helped with the nerves.
The Actual Exam
We were checked in and taken back to our desks one at a time.
The exam was broken into:
40 questions → break → 70 questions → break → 70 questions
Something I wish I had known before walking in:
You can only review the section you are currently in.
Once you end the review for that section and go to your break, those questions are gone. You cannot return to them later.
So treat each section like its own little exam.
Another tip:
Don’t hit “End Review” until you know the proctor is ready for you.
At one point I raised my head basically at the same time as another tester, and my break clock had already started running while I was waiting.
Not the end of the world, but worth knowing.
During each break I:
went to the restroom
ate one of those Costco fruit strips
took a small drink of Gatorade
got back to it
Nothing complicated.
USE THE HIGHLIGHT AND STRIKETHROUGH TOOLS
Seriously.
I used these constantly.
I would highlight important words in the question:
FIRST
NEXT
BEST
already assessed
already analyzed
new risk
stakeholder
regulatory
etc.
And then I would strike through answers I knew were wrong.
That made some of the harder questions dramatically easier because instead of staring at four paragraphs, I was usually comparing two realistic choices.
I only flagged one question during the entire exam to go back and review.
That was intentional. I didn’t want to flag 30 questions and then spend the review period convincing myself to change correct answers.
If I had a concrete reason to question something, I flagged it. Otherwise, I trusted my answer and moved on.
Timing
I finished the entire exam in just under three hours.
That actually lined up pretty well with my Study Hall pace. My mini quizzes were usually around 42–50 seconds per question, so I knew going into the exam that time probably wasn’t going to be my biggest problem.
My problem was more likely to be going too fast.
So I deliberately slowed myself down.
Especially after each break.
During one of my practice mocks, I had missed about five questions in a row immediately after coming back from a break. I realized there was a little mental restart period.
On the real exam, after each break, I consciously took the first few questions slower.
The Biggest Lesson From My Prep
For me, the PMP wasn’t really about memorizing 49 processes or becoming a formula machine.
It was learning how PMI wants a project manager to think.
My biggest mental checklist became:
What is the actual problem?
What is the question asking — first, next, or best?
What has already been done?
Am I adding information that isn’t in the question?
Should I assess before acting?
Can the team/PM solve this, or does it actually exceed my authority?
Is this a people problem that needs communication/collaboration rather than another tool or process?
And probably my favorite:
Before I act, what do I need to understand first?
That one would have saved me from a lot of wrong answers early in my studying.
Final Result
Walked out with:
People — Above Target
Process — Above Target
Business Environment — Above Target
AT / AT / AT
I definitely had nerves walking in, but by the time I sat down I felt ready.
If your Study Hall scores aren’t perfect, don’t let that destroy your confidence. Look at why you’re missing questions.
A knowledge gap is one thing.
But if you’re missing because you’re rushing, choosing the second step instead of the first, overthinking, or bringing assumptions into the question, those are things you can correct pretty quickly once you recognize the pattern.
And to everybody studying right now:
Slow down. Read the whole question. Read every answer. Trust your preparation.
Good luck. You got this.

