It took me 12 weeks to get through the PMP certification process.  I attended a project management training class to complete my 35 contact hours, which took around a month.  I was probably ready to sit for the exam 10 days before my actual test date based on my practice exam scores.  The last 10 days was about filling in the gaps, and gaining confidence in the material.

The first thing I did to prepare for the exam was to close out my contact hour requirements. For those who are preparing for the exam in Egypt, I would recommend AMIDEAST, and CMCS in UAE. The course didn't cover 100% of the material in a PMBOK, but it covered most of it.  All in all it was a good experience and a great value, but it was not sufficient, in my opinion, to prepare for the exam.

The second thing I did to prepare for the exam was to study a number of PMP exam books.   I have done my preparation through RITA 6^th edition, and PMBOK only.  I believe both together are enough. Basically PMBOK has the theory, while RITA explains the application. But I must stress on the importance of both books together, one of them by itself is not enough.

In my opinion, the best approach is to read every chapter firstly from RITA then PMBOK. I highly recommend 3 rounds of reading for RITA, and 2 rounds for PMBOK, before taking the exam. Trust me every time you will read, you will discover new areas of knowledge that you have missed in your previous readings

A key component of preparing is to answer as many questions as possible, because the more questions you answer the more chances you have to discover the gaps in your knowledge.

I have used the following sources for questions & exams:

RITA FASTTRACK 6^th Edition -  a great source for ideas and high level sophisticated questions on each management knowledge area, as well as each process group.

EXAMCENTRAL – A good source for questions on the logic of the processes, and how they do interact with each other.

PMSTUDY FREE TEST – this is very close to the real exam in its structure and difficulty level.

HEADFIRST FREE TEST (ONLINE) – this is also a decent test, which I would recommend to take.

 I believe that I answered around 1500-2000 questions in my preparation efforts.  My scores were somewhere between 80-85%, and as a rule of thumb this is when you start to feel that you are ready for the real exam.

I found that the actual exam to be easier than what I thought it would be. The questions on the real exam were more straight forward than those In the practice exams. I was able to finish the 200 questions in 3 hours, and had marked 30 questions for review which took me another half an hour before I got out. So, the time shouldn't be a concern to you if you are well trained. Many questions cover the knowledge areas of risk, quality, and human resources (conflict management techniques).

Preparing for the exam required a major commitment of time.  The last 4 weeks I had to study 4-6 hours every day, and before that I was doing an average of 2 hours daily excluding weekends.

Finally, I want to thank everyone in PMZilla for all the information made available to PMP aspirants.