Having just passed the PMP on my first attempt about a week ago I have a few observations I would like to share.  These observations may help others in their efforts to pass or they may simply be my ramblings.  Please note that these thoughts are my own and are not necessarily based on hard facts, research, or science but rather opinion.  Feel free to disagree if you like.

Observation 1:  While I understand why PMI requires a lot of hours of actual project management work/experience before authorizing one to sit for the exam, I believe that it is this experience that gets in the way of a lot of people passing the exam on their first try.  Why do I say this?  Simply because the real world and the PMBOK are often vastly different and frequently disagree.  We all know that real projects do not fit nicely into into the PMI framework and never follow all the processes and steps outlined in the PMBOK.  If you view the questions on the exam through the lens of your real world experience you will likely get many questions wrong.  In order to score well on the exam one must view all the questions through the lens of the perfect PMI world where the PM is in total control, has total authority, and has unlimited time, money, and resources. 

Observation 2:  It may not be what you know or your ability to apply that knowledge that is giving you difficulty.  It is a well known fact in the world of academia that some people are just better test takers than others.  If you have studied well and done the work but are still having difficulty, perhaps it is your test taking ability that needs work and not your understanding of the material.  There are numerous resouces out there (most of them directed at college students) to help you improve your test taking ability. 

Observation 3:  I do not think that most people take preparing for the PMP as seriously as they should.  I took an exam prep class.  It met twice a week for six weeks.  I was fortunate that while I was taking this class I was unemployed.  This allowed me the luxury of studying a lot between classes (about 4 -6 hours per day, I did take weekends off).  Most of the people in my class were working full time in addition to taking the class.  They were unable to put in as much time and effort as I did because they were working full time, as a result many of them did not pass on their first try.  If obtaining this certification is really important to you perhaps you should take some vacation time to really study for the test.  I also think that a lot of people think "this is just a certification, how hard could it be?" and they they are really surprised at how hard it actually is. 

Observation 4:  I think many people put too much emphasis on memorizing formulas, processes, inputs, output, tools, etc and not enough emphasis on the application of that knowledge.  While you need to memorize much of this information, I think that it is far more important, in terms of passing the test, to understand the theory and how to apply the knowledge than it is to memorize the information.  If you understand the theory behind the process or formula you can reconstruct the process and formula instead of memorizing it.  This understanding also helps you to synthesize the information so that you can apply it to a scenario instead of trying to recall something from memory.  

So, those are my observations and thoughts. I do hope that those of you getting ready to take the test find them useful.  If any of you have other thoughts or observations please feel free to reply to this post.