I've never posted in this forum (or any forum for that matter), but I really wanted to say thanks to this site for helping me prepare for the PMP exam.  I gained a lot of valuable information from everyone's posts and I really appreciate the time you took to post them.  So I thought I would take the time to post some of my study techniques, in hopes that it may help someone.

I passed the PMP yesterday, my first attempt!  I am elated to say the least!  I read someone's post where they thought the exam was easier than they anticipated.  From my experience, I disagree.  I thought the exam was just as difficult as I expected.  I was actually HOPING that when I got into the exam I would find that the real exam questions were not as complex as all of the practice questions out there, but they were.  Which is ok - I'm glad that the practice questions properly prepared me for the real exam.  I took the entire 4 hours to take the exam.  I answered the last question with 35 minutes to spare, then went back and reviewed the answers I had marked.

I spent about a month studying, every single day.  Some days I spent 8-10 hours studying.  It was definitely grueling.  I did not purchase any of the PMP study books, I only used the PMBOK guide.  I did take many practice tests that I obtained at my 35 hours contact hours / training.  I bought a pad of large easel style post-it note paper and put them up all over my dining room and living room walls.  Using 5x7 post-it notes, I put up one for each of the 42 processes, on to the white paper.  For each post-it note, I wrote the Inputs to the left of the process and the Outputs to the right of the post-it notes, on the white paper, with arrows.  Beneath the post-it notes, on the white paper I wrote down all of the tools and techniques.  This was a good self-quiz technique because I would recite the tools/techniques then lift up the post-it notes to display the tools and techniques written underneath.

With all of the processes posted on the wall, I would "walk-through" various scenarios to train mysef on how the inter-twining of the processes work.  I did not memorize the Inputs and Outputs.  I merely gained a solid understanding of the Inputs and Outputs.

I also made about 200 "flash-cards" to help me understand all of the formulas, definitions, eefs, opas, theories, techniques etc...  These flash cards actually helped me a great deal.  I divided them into groups of 10-15 and didn't move on to the next group of cards until I could answer all of the cards in the group.  By the end of the month, I could flip through all 200 cards and answer all of them. 

One other thing I did is color-code all of the above mentioned post-it notes and the flash cards, by process groups.  This may seem silly, or even overkill, but it helped me to always know which process group I was dealing with.

Good Luck to everyone taking the PMP exam.  It's alot of work preparing but it's definitely do-able and worth it!  You can do it!

Laurie