Hi all I passed my PMP recently and I wanted to share my lessons learned as I found your lessons learned really helpful in my preparation. To help create a study plan, I copied a lot of study plans from the forum into one document. I then compared them to see what most people thought were the best methods.

1. Read PMBOK twice

2. Did the PMEducate Exam prep course and did their exams.

3. Did Rita 6th plus all the questions in the book.

4. Brain dump prep: 42 processes, all formulas, Deming, Crosby etc. Every day I would jot these down before I started to study. This is a simple way to get some of the questions right, so definitely do it.

5. Rita PMIsm. These are important as there is definitely an idealogy behind PMI. It will help you get a lot of tricky questions right.

6. Rita FastTrack exams (72%, 79%, 74%)

This is the best exam simulation. I recommend it. BTW she suggests that you only do two exams otherwise you will get a lot of repeat questions.

7. Headfirst (82%)

8. Oliverlehmann 75 (63%)

9. PMZilla (84%)

Exam simulations are crucial so do as many as you can. Try to stay away from ones that are not recommended here. Some of them are just not that good, and may give you a false sense of security. Do a couple of four hour exams, just to give a feel for what a four exam is like (long :).

During the exam try to stay relaxed. If you are struggling with some questions, remember you have 200 to do, so just move on. Make sure you take the odd break, drink something and have a snack.

A good tip for answering difficult questions is to write down A B C D and then cross out the ones you know are not right. This will allow you to focus on the ones you think may be right.

Thanks to everyone participating in the forum. Good luck to everyone taking the exam!