Hello Prepcast,
I just wanted to add my two cents on passing the PMP, which I did successfully a few hours ago. Here are the bullet points, as there are many postings like this...
My PM experience/background: 4 years as a military officer
PM preparation: one college-level class on Project Management, watched all the videos here on the Prepcast (some more than once, thanks Cornelius), read the PMBOK version 5 fully one time and partially a second time, many practice questions from various sources
Total prep time: about two months (plus the PM class a few years earlier)
Certainly the practice questions are the most useful, though without understanding the PMBOK they wouldn't serve for much. Some people say to focus on the formulas. Yes, you absolutely need to know them but I found those questions to be the easiest, just memorize them and apply them. The questions on the PMP that are tough are the many many situational questions that have at least two right answers but only one BEST answer. Cornelius says you don't necessarily need to the memorize the ITTOs per se, but there were several questions that did focus on exactly what those were for a given process. Lots of questions with a 'what would you do next' type scenario. I have to admit, it was actually harder than I thought it would be, and that may be simply because many sample questions are more right/wrong rather than correct/'most correct' based. Also, the timing is important too, it took me the full 4 hours and I needed to pick up the pace toward the end so watch your rhythm.
Study hard, and good luck!
Cheers, David
