It dragged me for quite a while. But like my usual studying style. Like the preparation for my PMP. I took the exam after the course finished for more than a year. Picked up and revised knowledge again, gave time for reading different books, question practicing...etc.
This time, PMI-ACP. My initial purpose is to minimize cost and achieve the goal. So, I took an online course at Udemy, which took me USD 14. This course was not enough for exam preparation, as expected. At that time, I was also busying on my works. It made me exhausted once back at home. Considering these, I planned to take the exam a year later or earlier, depending on my preparation.
I started to research on exam preparation. Then I came across a site which shared a lot of useful information. That site was created by a Hong Kong guy, I guessed. You can find at https://edward-designer.com/web/pmi-acp/ . That site recommended some books. I found the one PMI-ACP Exam Prep by Mike Griffiths. Looks pretty good. Then I bought it from Amazon. But, my comment is, this book contains too much information. As a "exam prep" book, it really covers the whole scope. Just it is not easy to formulate a proper way to understand all the things which can help to deal with the exam.
My strategy is, read through the whole book at least 2 times. It took me 3 months as the book is quite thick. And still, when you are busy on your own work at day time, you will not have enough energy to deal with books at night. But actually, via this exercise, it reinforce the concept and idea on Agile practices. The first time I learnt the entire scope from the online course, that took me some time to understand though I knew some and practiced some previously.
While reading, jotted down notes for future review is always a good way. You do not need to take the whole thick book and flipping pages for review (even you had stuck some post-it notes) Reading is never enough for exam prep. You need questions with good quality or similar quality as that of real exam. Questions on that book are also good, but you may need more practices.
After reading books, arranged a date for exam. Only by doing this, you will be able to switch into 'battle mode'. You know, in 'battle mode', your brain can only be geared up to the fastest speed. Usually, exam date arrangement can only be set 2 months later at the earliest. This made me plan the items to accomplish within the set time-frame, like how you deal with a project.
In this time-frame, as said, need some more practices. So, refer to Edward's site, there suggested some online questions resources, including paid and free resources. I chose the one from PMTraining.com. This is a paid resource which restricts access in 90 days. So, plan wise for this kind of resources when subscribe.
Questions from this online site are quite good. And it let me know quite a lot of things that I did not know. What I did is to jot down as notes into my revision note book. You can also experience a full exam length. This is very important for you to prepare for the real exam. One thing I had to comment on is that those questions are not similar to those in the real exam. So, you can treat it as a revision tool.
All the above is my whole preparation and it works, I passed the exam. Cheers.
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