Hello!! Thank God, I passed the PMP exam on June 29 (The last day with full 3^rd edition questions).  Let me share with you what I read and how I accomplished it:

PREPARATION:

Books I read

   1. By PMI, “PMBok”, third edition

   2. By Rita Mulcahy, “PMP, Exam Prep”, fifth edition

   3. By Brent Knapp, “A PM’s guide to passing the P. Management Exam”, sixth edition (Not recommended, it has some errors and it is only organized by process groups, that confused me) 

Support tools:

   1. By Robledo, “PMP Map Mind” is really, really helpful, this was my summary and review guide.   I met Robledo here, in PMZilla, and he shared it with me.  Thanks Robledo and PMZilla!

   2. By Rita Mulcahy, The process chart game

   3. By me, a results and error log, here I was computing my scores in time, right answers and what kind of errors I did when I answered a question wrong.  I think that's important because you need to know where are you losing points and be able to fix it.  I explain it below.

   4. By me, a list of key points ordered by knowledge area 

Books of exercises, in order of preference:

   1. By Rita Mulcahy, the questions from the book I quote above

             (The most similar questions from the exam)

   2. By Leroy Ward, “PMP Exam - Practice test and study guide”

   3. By Brent Knapp, “PMP Practice Guide, 1^st edition” (Not recommended, it has too many errors)

How much time I studied.  Is it really important?

Unfortunately I didn't keep track of the time I studied, although it was definitely more than 40 hours. However, I don't think this particular information is relevant as comparative or study goal, since each case is different.

I suggest making a study plan, hold to it, and consider taking the exam when you are averaging up to 75% on the exercise questions.

IN THE EXAM:

Answer strategy:

I suggest that you answer all the easy questions first, if you have some doubts in any question, pick your best choice, and mark it (with the test mark option) for later review. The longer or complex calculation questions leave it for later review, and avoid waste time reading it.  Anyway, choose a random answer and mark the question number in PAPER for later review.  When you finish, start a second review by answering the longer or complex questions that you have numbered in the paper, and finally in a third review, if you have time left, read again the questions that you have some doubts in (yes, the test marked ones).

About the time:
Pay really, close attention to time, check it every 50^th question, if you have wasted maximum and hour on it.  In my case time was really an issue.  I went back on time in the 100-150 group of questions.  Finally, I had time to finish all the questions and do the three reviews I explained before.  

Something else:
Check with anticipation where the rest rooms are located.  In my case this was outside the prometric facilitation, on the floor above, so I decided not to drink too much water before or during the exam =o).

Well, my best wishes for you!  Contact me if I could help you in something else. 

Ruben Lopez (Rubenlpz@gmail.com)

Guatemala City

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About the Results and Error Log:

I used this to summarize my exercises scores by knowledge area.  Don’t forget to score your time performance, too.  Additionally, I typified my wrong answers in an error log.  It was a worksheet matrix with the PMBok knowledge areas in the horizontal axis and the error types in the vertical axis.  The list of my error types were the following:

   1. Question read wrong or misunderstood

   2. Answer read wrong or misunderstood

   3. Unknown theme (Lack of study)

   4. Ignoring the last answer

   5. Translation (Spanish is my native language)

   6. Assume things not written in the question

   7. Choose the less difficult question 

Initially, I had a lot of wrong answers by the 3^rd cause, so I needed to continue studying.  Later, I had answered questions wrong due to misunderstanding the questions or the answers so I decided to read them more carefully, and paid closer attention to the verbs and time of the question (past, present or future).  The translations errors were very few, but anyway I asked for Spanish aid in the exam, and it helped me in three questions approximately.