Good morning,

Just wanted to log in and share my experience.  Yesterday I sat the PMP exam and passed with 4P and 1MP.

Materials used:  PMBOK 4th, Rita and Headfirst, about 8-10 iPhone apps.  

I was approved to write on 18 September, and I occasionally read through the PMBOK until Christmas.  As soon as the new year hit, I decided to get serious about it, especially since I had learned that the exam would change to the new PMBOK on 31 July. So that was my new deadline.  I cracked down and decided that I would dedicate at least 2 hours per night to study from Jan 1 until I passed.

That's exactly what I did.  I read through the PMBOK, making my notes and highlighting relevant passages.  I figured I was ready to go!  I downloaded several apps from the App store onto my iPhone, and realized that I didn't have the whole story, since it was asking me things that weren't covered by the PMBOK.  I asked a friend who was also beginning the process with more support from his employer, and he explained that you can't pass from the contents of the PMBOK alone.  I asked another two friends who are designated and they all recommended Rita.  

So onto Amazon.com, purchased Rita and HeadFirst.

I really liked Head First - they really take care to explain things in simple terms without making you feel like an idiot, like Rita can do sometimes.  Rita's opening chapter opens up with "Ask yourself the following questions:"  and if you answer yes to two of them they leave you off with "You have no business taking the PMP exam" or something like that...  The whole book is like that as far as I'm concerned.  I didn't like feeling like I was out of my element by an attitude of a book!  (Weird, I know, but LL is all about honesty!).    Summary on the books:  PMBOK tells you what to know scientifically, Headfirst tells you what you need to know simply and gives you appropriate excercises and practice exams, and Rita explains things on a more technical level.  Also has practice exams after each chapter.  All said - I recommend them all.

So - read all three books, took several dozen practice exams, sat for countless hours with iPhone exam prep apps (the best one was PMP Exam for Dummies).  About iPhone apps:  Don't be afraid to buy them.  it will give you hundreds more questions, and that helps because if you don't and you're just answering the same 50 or so questions over again, you're not really helping yourself as you just memorize what the answers are.

For the May long weekend, as I was within two weeks of my exam date, I sent the wife and kid out of town to see her family while i sat at home and studied with my dog.  Suuuucked...  

I took this past week off work and spent approxmately 50 additional hours studying and writing practice exams from various sources, which I "passed" with anything from 60% to 93% depending on the exam source.  Most of these exams were online and found right here from our friends right here at PMZilla!

Final exam prep:  I read the final notes in Rita about what do do in the last day before the exam, read Rita's PMI'isms...  which, of course point out common flaws and gaps - most of which I was guilty of.  The biggest one being recognize what PMI wants to hear you do, not what you would do in your regular role.  With four days to go, I memorized te 42 processes and groups and the order they're covered.  Although I understood the ITTOs, I didn't memorize what went with what process, I just learned to recognize how to eliminate what doesn't belong in a list of four.

Day of exam:  Just practiced writing out the formulae and the 42 processes, read Rita's final exam prep notes again, read the PMI'isms.  Played Battlefield 2: Bad Company for two hours to take my mind off the whole thing for a while:

Exam:  Arrived about 40 minutes early, read the rule sheets, was warned that I might want to wait until a noisy exam was finished (something that involved lots of typing...)  Got all signed in and proved I wasn't bringing in anything I'm not supposed to have, got loaned a calulator, two pencils, plenty of scrap paper, supplied my own earplugs, and went and  sat the test.  The room was very warm - too warm...  The chair was uncomfortable and the desk leaned towards me!  (The things you notice...).  Bringing good ear plugs was key!  

Did the tutorial which was very simple...  Sat and wrote out the 42 processes, and all the formulae that I memorized.  Started the exam with about 2 minutes left of the 15 minutes tutorial period.

I finished the 200 questions with 1h and 8minutes to go.  I reviewed my 20 or so marked questions - a lot of which I had no idea of... as they weren't covered anywhere...  wondered if I had recognized 20 of the 25 unmarked questions...  Dispensed with them realizing that if I had no clue just to leave my first impression as the answer...  went over the rest of my questions from #1 until abotu 160 before submitting the exam for marking with about 45 seconds to go.  Screen went white for about 10 seconds... I DID THE SURVEY!! White again for about another 10 seconds (which seems like 10 minutes) and them a large PMI logo, big paragraph of text, took a few seconds for me to realize what the message was, and then I saw it, "CONGRATULATIONS..."  I saw my proficiencies and packed up!  I was the first one in the room for the afternoon session and the last one out.  

Thanks to all of the good folks and users here on PMZilla - I honestly couldn't have pulled this off without reading the LLs here and the resources you make available on this site.  Thanks for helping me get my life back! (My wife thanks you too! She was often trying to sleep while I was thrashing around the bed reading and highlighting resource books, cheatsheets, taking notes, etc.. with a headlamp on my head!).

Best of luck to all of you.