I prepared off and on for the better part of 5 months. Although I have significant work experience as a functional manager of software developers, and a lot of what I did in that capacity doubled as project management, I didn't want to just rely on my "know how" when taking the PMP. I wanted to take the test just one time and do it right. So I purchased the PM Prepcast and watched many of the lessons to give me a broad sense of the PMI approach and what the test was going to cover.
For my subsequent studies, I used 3 resources: Andy Crowe's book (5th edition), Andy Crowe's accompanying "cheatsheet", and PMBOK edition 5 text book. My approach was to do a little bit of studying each day, no cramming, and to develop a few useful mnemonic devices to rehearse daily. I read through the Crowe book once (in detail) doing all of the tests and exercises. I also reviewed the cheatsheet daily. For the PMBOK, I only used it as a reference when I had a specific question. The mnemonics helped me remember the 10 KAs, 47 processes, 5 Process Groups as well as numerous formulas and quality tools. I would also highly recommend focusing on 2 areas: 1) understand the tracing of deliverables and how they evolve through the Integration Management area and 2) how Work Performance Data/Info/Reports morph through processes. These help you see how things fit together.
Finally, I made use of the PMP Exam Simulator as a way to get used to time pressure and get hit with questions from any of the knowledge areas randomly. I took 10 question quizzes almost every day, starting a month ahead of my test date. 2 days before my exam I sat for a complete 4-hour exam on the simulator. When I first began my journey I scored 52% on a 125-question practice exam. It was a shock to the system. Upon finishing my studies I took another long practice exam and was in the 85-90% range, so I knew I was ready.
On test day, I passed with high scores. But I was shocked that it took me almost the full 4 hours. I finished the exam with 60 seconds remaining and no time to check my work!
