TOPIC: Passed PMP today, December 26! Second Attempt

Boxing day in Canada, and I used the quiet day off to try my second attempt at the PMP exam. Here are my lessons learned:
1) Read PMBOK. I know it is dry, but getting accustomed to the language and logic of how the information is organized and presented helped me.
2) Tried 1st attempt right after completing the WhizLabs course: FAIL. While the Whizlabs course did cover a lot of ground, their practice exams were nothing like the real PMP exam. So when I tried the exam the first time, I really struggled because the questions were situational, whereas the Whizlabs questions were more focused on memorizing the ITTOs.
3) Mock exams from PM PrepCast were invaluable to passing. I used the technique I read about here in the forums: flag any question I guessed at or was unsure of during the mock exams or quizzes. After the quiz/exam review ALL the flagged and incorrect responses. Read the explanation of the correct response and incorrect ones. Understanding what makes the response correct and why the response I chose was incorrect helped me grasp further details. In short, if I spent an hour doing some quizzes, I would spend an hour reviewing and understanding the whys.
4) Watched some very helpful videos on YouTube from Phill at Praizion Media. I really liked his style, and the videos explaining the differences between processes were really helpful (i.e. Risk Report vs Risk Register; Qualitative vs Quantitative Risk Analysis; Manage Quality vs Control Quality to name a few). They are free, and I found them very helpful.
In my opinion, to succeed at the PMP exam, you have to understand the overall concepts, reasoning and principles involved and how they relate to each other within PMBOK. This is not an exam you can simply memorize certain facts and expressions to pass (some EV formulas exempt, of course).
This was my experience, and I scored Above Target on all 5 domains today.
I Hope these observations are helpful and all the best to anyone taking the exam as we say goodbye to 2020!

Congratulations, Jonathan! We had Boxing Day here in the UK too, but reading the forum it looks like quite a lot of people chose to sit their exams that day

When you are ready to start earning PDU’s for PMP recertification, check out the PM PrepCast’s offerings, The PM Podcast and the The PDU Podcast which will help you keep up with PMI’s Continuing Certification Requirements (CCR’s) and maintain your new certification.

Thank you for sharing your experiences; we appreciate it!