I passed my PMP exam in July 2010 in USA.
Here is my study methodology.
Preparation Time - 6 weeks
Books/ Materials studied -
1) Rita Mulcahy - 5th Edition - Revised 3 times, Answered all Practice Exams at end of each chapter, Practiced Mock Exams from her CD, Gave Super PMP (Scored 70% - Very Difficult)
2) PMBOK - 4th Edition - Studied once
3) Andy Crowe, Head First PMP - Only for Mock Exams at the end of the books. (Scored 80% and 90% respectively) - Very Easy
4) PMStudy Online Exams - 2 (Scored 80%)- Easy
5) Oliver Lehmann 175 Qs (Scored 60%) and 75 Qs (Scored 50%) - Very Difficult
6) ITTOs - Learning and understanding the Inputs, Tools & Techniques and Outputs was also useful in answering the actual PMP exam.
7) PM PrepCast Mock Exam and referred for better understanding of Time, Cost, Integration, Configuration Mgmt chapters.
First 4 weeks, I concentrated on absorbing the study material from books - Rita Mulcahy, PMBOK and and PM PrepCast.
Last 2 weeks, I focussed on Mock Exams and ITTOs. I practiced 7 mock exams in all. My scores were lower in the beginning (60%) but I constantly learned from my wrong answers and the thought process behind each such wrong answer.
I improvised my understanding constantly and my scores showed remarkable improvement. The last 2 days before the exam, I only revised all the chapters
and ITTOs
Actual PMP Exam - The first 50 questions were difficult and I started feeling nervous about the outcome. This took me about 45 mins. I took a small break of 5 mins and returned. And from then on, all the questions appeared very easy, I was breezing through all of them i.e 150 Qs and finished in 2 hours. I finished the exam in 2 hours 45 mins out of the total 4 hours of exam time. I used an extra 15 mins to review the marked questions. I pressed the Submit button in a very relaxed manner and don't know why but was almost sure of passing. I waited to complete the online survey and seeing the message 'Congratulations, you have passed your PMP certification' was a relief.
The exam consisted of questions from all chapters with particular focus on Risk, Quality and Professional Ethics.
The difficulty level of the questions in the actual PMP exam is higher than most Mock Exams but much lower than Rita's Super PMP and Oliver Lehmann's 75 and 175 Qs.
All the best for your exam !!
