Honestly, I was shocked to see "congratulations" on the screen at the end of the exam! I was more surprised to see five "above target"s on my report. My project management experience has been as a trainer in the non-profit sector (conference organization, training content writing, etc) so much of the PM context of manufacturing/software was new to me. So, it took a lot. I worked on preparing for about 6 months, averaging 2 hours/day.
Here's what I'd do again and advise
1. Use the exam simulator! Over the course of about a month, after most of my content studying, I answered over 90% of the 1610 questions in the simulator and reviewed all my misses. I took the full timed simulated exam three times. This was important because it gave me a sense for the rapid pace that you have to keep and the mental discipline to get through it in four hours.
2. I memorized the EVM formulas and the whole processes chart.
3. I wrote the formulas on a brain dump.
What I wouldn't do again:
1. I used some of the test time (8 minutes) to recreate the process chart as part of my brain dump. While it was good to memorize, I didn't refer to the chart more than once or twice on the exam and I BARELY had time to finish the test. I took no breaks and didn't have time to review any questions. I finished question 200 with 5 seconds to spare. I could have used that 8 minutes to review or have a bit of buffer.
I'm grateful it's behind me and look forward to putting it to good use.
John
