Passed my PMP on the first attempt in 21 days!

Some milestones creep up on you. Others you chase down with everything you have. This one was the latter, and today I am proud to share that I have successfully passed the PMP exam on my first attempt after just 21 days of preparation!

For context, I am a fashion-tech and supply chain professional based in Paris with 3 years of experience leading ERP and MES platform deployments across 50+ manufacturing sites in India, Vietnam, and Bangladesh. I also hold an MSc in Luxury and Fashion Management from Paris School of Business. The PMP was the next step to formalize my project management expertise and open doors to consulting and delivery roles across Europe.

My preparation approach:

I gave myself a strict 21-day window and built everything around Andrew Ramdayal's Udemy course as my primary resource. Here is what worked for me:

Completed Andrew's full course first to build the PMI mindset from scratch
Took multiple full-length mock exams including Andrew's 720-question set and external simulators
After every mock, I reviewed every single wrong answer independently, not just reading the explanation but challenging it and understanding the PMI logic behind it
Built a personal weak area tracker and updated it after every test
Created a formula reference sheet and a cheat sheet of PMI situational logic rules for the final 48 hours
The night before the exam I did zero new studying, only reviewed my weak area notes and slept early

What I learned about the exam mindset:

The PMP is not a knowledge test. It is a judgment test. Almost every question has two defensible answers and the difference comes down to PMI's specific situational logic. Assess before acting, consult the plan before communicating, collaborate before compromising, use the issue log for confirmed problems and the risk register for uncertain future events. Once that clicked, the questions became much more manageable.

To anyone still preparing:

Trust Andrew's course and process. Do the mocks seriously. Review your wrong answers with brutal honesty. Do not memorize, understand why PMI thinks the way it does. And if the first section of the exam feels brutally hard, do not panic. Mine did too and it got easier.

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions about preparation. Happy to help!

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