Hi Ray

Yes you should take lot of practice tests (5+) to get your confidence back. Also I suggest take paid tests from atleast 2 different sources, so you will get good variety of questions.

Regards

Admin

 How to go for the exam itself:-

 1.      Pick up the Head First PMP: A Brain-Friendly Guide to Passing the Project Management Professional Exam this book will help you clear your concepts and actually make it interesting. All other books after this are dry, so get your concepts clear while you read this. Don’t skip the exercises. Sit with a pencil when you study this book as there are plenty of exercises and numerical questions.

2.       Pick up PMP Exam Prep, Sixth Edition: Rita's Course in a Book for Passing the PMP Exam<http://www.amazon.com/PMP-Exam-Prep-Sixth-Passing/dp/1932735186/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1286804469&sr=1-1> or PMP Project Management Professional Exam Study Guide, Includes Audio CD<http://www.amazon.com/Project-Management-Professional-Study-Guide/dp/0470455586/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1286804552&sr=1-1> by Kim Heldman<http://www.amazon.com/Kim-Heldman/e/B001IODNSI/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1286804552&sr=1-1>. I did both of them to be on safe side. Rita’s questions are good whereas I really like that Kim Heldman’s book was nicely aligned and lot of material which helped me in the exam.

 3.       Andy Crowe book is really good too. I didn’t read this book but most blogs suggests that its actually very helpful in passing the exam.

 4.       Pick up PMBOK 4th edition and read it twice at least. I did it thrice as I had some buffer left. All the small details in the book will show up in the exam.

 5.       If you are day dreaming while reading the book just walk away as your target should not be finishing books but to understand them.

 6.       I didn’t memorize much but if you are good at it, you should go for it. Personally, I think memorization never really helped me. But I had all processes clear in my mind and what happens in each process (most important part in exam).

 7.       Take mock exams as much as you can. Preferably, 4 hour long exams as this will help you come up with your own way to manage your time during the exam. I did around 3000-4000 questions to get an idea. This was also suggested by most PMI blogs which I read. These helped me read wordy questions with speed and helped me look for distractions in the questions.

 8.       Make sure you get 80-90% at the end of your preparation. If you get 80-90% you are prepared for the real exam. I bought 4 mock exams from www.pmsudy.com<http://www.pmsudy.com> for 50 USD. These exams simulate the actual PMP exam and gives you an idea of the real exam. If you are scoring less you should study more until you get 80-90% in all mock exams.

 9.       The two most helpful blogs I found are http://pmzilla.com/failed-first-attempt-pmp-exam-pmp and http://pmzilla.com/passed-pmp-818-lessons-learned-and-study-plan  one of them passed and other failed.

About the exam itself:-

 1.       200 multiple choice questions. Only 175 of them are counted. You need to have 106 of them correct to pass.

 2.       Expect at least 100 questions to be wordy 3-5 lines (some of them actually more that that). Make a habit of reading questions fast and try to squeeze information out of it as fast as you can(but watch out for distractions).

 3.       I finished my test in 3 hours and spent 1 hour reviewing but with clock ticking and camera’s watching time flies by fast. Don’t get hung up with one question and move on if you are not sure of the answer.

 4.       Numerical questions will be the easiest for you as you’ll know when your answers tallies with one of the choices (these questions are 100% scoring so prepare well for costing, budgeting, critical path, risk-EMV questions)

 5.       It’s good if you take breaks. Take at least 2 breaks. Clear your head by looking at sky or something.