Hey there fellow PMPs and aspirants!  I am SO glad that is over! 

Took the PMP and passed (first attempt).

My background -- on and off again IT manager for perhaps 12 years. I say on and off because some of that time I went back to software development and also spend a few years managing a production support group.  I've been working for over five years in a company that has ZERO process or appetite for good management of IT projects, but I used that to an advantage -- when studying, I thought of all the things that I knew we SHOULD be doing but weren't.

My prep work: 

- Had plenty of documentable PM hours but needed the contact hours, so I took a "Foundations of Project Mgmt" and "Credentialing Review" course from Villanova University. The first was excellent and the second was just a recap of the first.

- Started with Rita's book and hated it. Too preachy and the tone was way too condescending for me. You must be a true masochist to persevere with Rita. Went on to Andy Crowe's book. Found it fairly good, but a little dry. Then went to Head First, which was like PMP for Dummies.  It was a little silly at times, but entertaining. It was the only book that I read start to finish.

- After completing Head First, I started doing practice exams. Would score about 95-100 on Head First exams, about 90% on Andy Crowe's and 75% on Ritas.

- Based on my scores in the practice tests, I brushed up on my weak areas by reading sections from PMBOK, Andy Crowe and (as much as I disliked it) RIta's.  I never read PMBOK cover to cover.  It's a great reference, but as dry as burned toast. I've done only a few Procurements in my life, so I knew that KA was a weakness. Either there were a lot of Procurement questions or they just registered with me because I thought to study that KA a little more. 

- In my own prep, I got used to drawing page 43 from memory just about every day. Then I layered in a indicators to highlight which (15) processes produce change requests. Where the Approved Change Request go. Where variance analysis is done. Where work performance info flows. Where deliverables flow and what processes had unique ITTO's. I did NOT do the ITTO memorization game and I don't think that I was at all disadvantaged.

- I also got a set of flashcards (from PMI) and learned to identify the process areas from their inputs or tools (not so much the outputs because those are rather obvious).

- For the brain dump, I drew my page 43 with some of the flow indicators that I had memorized and jotted down the EV formulas as well as the SD constants, PTA and other tricky things. Did I need page 43? Probably not, but it was like a safety blanket for me. I'm a visual learner and seeing page 43 makes everything make sense to me. I might have only looked at it once or twice.

- The exam was much more straightforward than I expected. More like the Andy Crowe questions and not as intentionally tricky as Rita's. (I think I read a Rita question that asked for the least not false answer). Sheesh.

- The exam gives you a "on-screen" calculator that was not tied to the numeric keypad (and yes, I tried the Num-Lock key), so you had to click on each number or symbol with the mouse (and wait) for it appear. Typing a number with many zeroes was tedious because there are no commas and you couldn't just type 5 with a zero six times for 5 million, you had to click the zero, wait for it to appear, and repeat making sure you got 5000000 and not 500000 or 50000000. Honestly I don't think the calculator is even necessary. I wound up doing the math in my head or on paper.

- Oh, the paper...PMI provided the testing center with a booklet of 6 sheets of dark pink paper in a booklet style and 2 very hard pencils. It was VERY difficult to read my own writing with the glare of the overhead lights and the faint pencil marks on the dark paper.  Quite annoying.

- My general impressions of the questions (without, of course, giving anything away)...

-- not nearly as much math as I expected (or would have liked).

-- most calculations were simple, do-in-your-head types

-- many things that are overstressed in just about every prep-book (formula-wise) did not appear at all.

-- no weird calculations like I saw on Deep Fried Brain that gave me a heart attack the day before the exam.

-- a surprising number of misspellings in the exam question. I'm not sure, for example, what a FUCtional manager is

-- Some really befuddling questions (maybe they didn't count). Like what process are you in when... and none of the answers are processes.  Seriously -- if it's one thing I know, it's the exact name of every single process (including which are "Define", "Develop", "Determine", "Create", which symantically are all the same). Maybe the questions are leftovers from PMBOK, first edition.

-- The Ethics questions are always entertaining and provide a needed break from time to time. Have to LOL at some of them, but watch out -- you might get 2 answers that are almost identical. Really, it's maddening. Like NO difference other than a slight change in the wording and yet, one is right and one is wrong.

I completed the test in about 3 hours 20 minutes, taking my time to read and re-read. I marked a lot of questions for review in the beginning because I was nervous. As I got into the test, I marked far fewer. When I went back, I changed perhaps one or two of 25.

With 10 minutes left, I thought, what the heck...time to roll the dice. Hit submit and waited. The screen came back and asked me to take a survey of the test facility. Really?  Now?  Really?  OK (there was not way to opt out).  Finished the survey and waited again...FINALLY...the page appears with lots of text but buried about 2/3's down the page I see the words "CONGRATULATIONS". Whew...

Score was Passed and Proficient in everything but Integration and Ethics of all things. Got moderately proficient in those. 

Before I left for the exam today, I put my prep materials (Rita's, Andy's, Head-First, my notes, etc.) in a pile on the dining room table. I knew I would either have to confront them again or toss them in the recycling bin. It was a sweet ceremony to toss them all. Not the PMBOK, of course -- t'would be heresy. But nobody needs marked up prep books.

I'm so glad I can get my weekends back! Good luck to everyone out there plugging away!