I accumulated 35 contact hours through other programs over the years. PrepCast and Exam Simulator were purchased just for the PMP exam preparation. I would say the money was very well spent!
I started the preparation 5 weeks prior to the scheduled exam. I first spent one week read through PMBOK 5th Edition page by page. When I was researching online for an ITTO learning tool, I came across this forum. I liked what I read, so I purchased the PrepCast and Exam Simulator on January 1. I had listened to all PrepCast episodes, except for interviews, Agile and Code of Conduct. This took me two weeks. I listened to them when I was commuting and at home. I was mostly listening at 1.5 times speed to save time. The recording and voice quality is so good that I could catch every word even at 2 times speed. I found that the faster speed helped me to focus. After I completed all episodes, I took the 1st Simulator Exam, which I got 78.5%.
I then took the Practice Exams after each Chapter in Rita's Prep Book. I did not read it though. I only referred back to the book for reading if I got an answer wrong. Somehow I felt the questions in the Prep Book were trickier. I consistently got around 67%.
After spending 1 week on the Practice Exams in the Prep Book, I studied all formulas provided by Cornelius, and took 3 more Cornelius' Simulator exams, received 81%, 84% and 84% (ITTO exam), all in one sitting. I made sure to study all wrong answers as well as the marked answers. Cornelius recommended to take at least 3 simulator exams. I agree. I guess 3-4 simulator exams might be able cover most situations.
Brain dumping on the "47 Processes/Knowledge areas" and the formulas is what I learned from this Forum. It is very beneficial. But no writing is allowed during the 15 min Tutorial. I was told I could only start to write when the exam starts. To save time I did not bother to do any dumping during the exam. However I had been doing it once a day 7 days in the row before the exam. It really helped to remember the order of the processes, which is very important for the exam.
The exam result shows how well the exam taker does on each task ( tasks listed in PMP Exam Content Outline). I don't think you need to remember these tasks. I did not read the Exam Content Outline before the exam.
