Just passed my PMP exam today with AT/T/AT (Above Target / Target / Above Target), and I wanted to share my experience since this sub helped me a lot along the way — even if some of it also made me more anxious than I needed to be.
My prep resources
I used Andrew Ramdayal's (AR) 35-hour Udemy course as my main prep, plus his mock exam and the separate set of 4 mocks titled "720 Questions" on Udemy. I also used Claude as a study assistant to help me break down and understand how to read tricky charts, and to organize new terminology into clear categories (like diagrams, analysis procedures, sampling techniques, and quality tools).
I finished the main course in 20 days from the beginning of August using exactly the timeline that Andrew suggested. I took the last 11 days of the month doing the 5 mocks (the one at the end of the course and the 4 in his 720 questions). Specifically, I did one mock, then a day off, then a mock and a day off, then took a mock in two full days, then a day off, and a final full mock before scheduling my exam. So ya, all it takes is one month.
That's it — I did not use Study Hall at all. I didn't have the mental capacity or the budget for it, and honestly, I think it's possible to pass without it if you commit to what you do use.
Thoughts on the AR course
The main 35-hour course itself is solid. It's the 4 "720 Questions" mocks you need to watch out for — there are some mistakes in those, so pay attention and don't take every answer at 100% face value.
A lot of the material will also sound ridiculous at first. He'll frame a straightforward project management scenario in a weird way — like instead of just saying "you're the project manager," he'll say you're a chef in a kitchen trying to figure out a new recipe. Some of it genuinely doesn't make logical sense on the surface. But once you actually study and absorb his mindset, you start to understand why he writes questions that way — it's testing whether you can extract the actual PM concept regardless of how it's dressed up. It clicked for me, and honestly his mindset approach is what got me through most of the actual exam questions, even the ambiguous ones.
On Reddit anxiety (a warning)
I'll be real — reading a ton of posts on this sub about needing to prep "the right way" made me incredibly anxious. I was crying almost every day leading up to the exam because I felt like I wasn't doing enough or doing it correctly. Eventually I got fed up with the spiral and just scheduled the exam. That decision alone helped more than any extra studying would have at that point.
Mock scores (and why I stayed skeptical)
My 5 mock scores were: 79%, 83%, 59%, 70%, 75%. That inconsistency made me pretty skeptical of myself going into the real thing — I had no idea what to actually expect from my performance. But at the end of the day, I had been studying for a full month straight without enough sleep or rest, and I was done. I had to take the exam and just push for it.
Mocks vs. the real exam
AR's mocks were harder than the actual exam, in my opinion. His mocks go deep into technical specifics — asking you to recall process orders, or name a specific analysis technique (like sensitivity analysis, or reading a specific diagram). Rarely showed up in my exam, maybe in one question.
That said, I don't think the mocks were wasted effort — they force you to actually understand how each process/tool is used in context, so when the real exam references one indirectly, you already know what's going on and what the right move is. It's prep for the underlying understanding, not necessarily 1:1 question style.
Exam day
The real exam was, for me: not hard, not easy — right in the middle, and definitely easier than AR's mocks.
I was honestly terrible with time management the whole time I was studying — but on exam day itself, I finished 50 minutes early. I used both scheduled breaks. In the 3rd section, I had flagged 11 questions to revisit, and I took about 20 calm minutes at the end to go back through them, and I still finished the whole exam roughly 30 minutes ahead of time.
A few things that helped, and that I'd genuinely recommend:
- Schedule your exam for a time of day when you're mentally most active — don't just pick a slot because it's available.
Sleep well the night before. Don't sacrifice sleep to cram.
- Did not study nor do anything for the two days before the exam, I just rested because I had enough studying the whole month.
- Eat something healthy and a little sugary before you go in — you need the energy.
Use your breaks. Take both of them — don't push through just to save time.
- Expect a slow, nervous start. At the very beginning you might feel shaky and move slower than usual — that's normal. By around question 20, you'll settle back into your needed pace.
- Pace yourself deliberately: go in at full mental capacity for roughly the first 100–120 questions, and consciously save some extra time for the last 40–60, plus a calm review pass for anything you flagged. Your focus and mental energy naturally start dropping by that point, so you'll want the extra buffer there rather than needing it early on.
Final result
I passed with AT/T/AT, and honestly I'm still not 100% sure how. I worked a lot off instinct/gut sense during the exam, but looking back, I think I was applying the AR mindset almost automatically in nearly every question — including the ambiguous ones — without fully realizing it in the moment.
Happy to answer any questions if it helps anyone else going through this right now. It's a hard process, but it's doable without Study Hall and without perfect calm the whole way through.