I passed the PMP exam today! I started on March 22. In all, I spent 139.5 hours watching PM PrepCast videos, reading the PMBOK guide, reading Achieve PMP Exam Success, and studying. Here are some things that worked for me:
1. If there was advice in any of the PrepCast videos, I tried to follow it. I won't go into detail here, but I didn't get any bad advice and I believe this greatly helped in my overall success. Even when my application was selected for audit, the advice I had received helped me to receive a fast approval response from PMI.
2. Early on, I memorized table 3-1 in the PMBOK guide. There were two things that helped me do this. First, I memorized the chapter/section numbers along with the process names. This helped to keep things sequential and helped me not miss any processes. Second, I created a blank table and wrote the processes into the blanks in the appropriate columns. Writing processes by hand helped me memorize them. When I would recite the processes, I could actually visualize the table, which really helped me identify to which process group and knowledge area each process belongs.
3. I created a spreadsheet of processes and ITTOs. This wasn't for the purpose of memorizing, but I did use it to look for relationships between processes. For example, I paid attention to how changes and information flow through the processes, or what processes resulted in organizational process asset updates. I created pivot table to see where there were a large number of same ITTOs or where they were unique. I read through the ITTO list a few times. Overall this approach helped me score an 88% on sample exam 9.
4. I took 7 of the 9 available practice exams on the PM Exam Simulator. I never took an exam more than once, but I reviewed the wrong answers on each exam multiple times over the last few weeks. In the beginning, three of four results were 77%, but overall I trended upwards for % correct.
5. I tracked all my time and content using a time tracking website and spreadsheets. Doing so helped me review my progress and vary my approach over time.
I hope this information helps out others as they pursue their PMP certification. Thanks again to everyone at PM PrepCast.
