Background: Management consultant in NYC for 10+ years who *finally* got off the couch to take the PMP Exam ;-)

Goal: Pass without completely alienating my family, which includes two adorable but demanding dogs

Total Prep Time: Roughly 72 hours in three consecutive weeks - the last 4 days of which were the most intense with 8 hours of studying per day. 

Result: 1P, 4MP with 30 seconds (seriously) to spare

Resources:

• PM Prepcast - for 35 contact hours (a year ago)
• Headfirst 1x
• Rita 1x
• PMBOK 1x
• Raga's points (thank you, Raga) 2x
• Headfirst Exam (83%)
• PMstudy 3 (did this after Headfirst and got a whopping 63%)
• PMstudy 1 (80%)
• PMZilla Tough Questions - Sections 1, 2, 5 (80%) taken as my final on the night before exam

Biggest Advice (random order):

• Read PMBOK.  Seriously, read it.  For me, that was the fine line between passing and failing.  And truthfully, it wasn't the dry reading I had been dreading based on many reviews.
• Have a study plan that fits *your* learning style, existing knowledge, personality, and life circumstances.  More importantly, please please please course correct if your plan isn't working.
• Get the paid exams.  I found both PMstudy and the PMZilla Tough 200 worthwhile investments.  The free exams are far too easy and might give you a false sense of confidence.  While of course it's tempting to save money by taking only the free exams, that strategy in the end costs more in terms of time (which some may say is more valuable) and might not adequately give you the balanced set of questions needed to accurately measure progress.
• Don't leave test-taking until the very last phase of your study plan.  Use practice exams as your own "M&C" to evaluate knowledge gaps and, if necessary, revise your approach. You wouldn' t analyze project performance until the very end of any project / phase, so why do it in your PMP studies?
• Dump sheet rocks! I don't usually advocate memorization... But memorize the formulas.
• Get a good night's sleep the night prior.  Your battery needs to be fully charged in order to handle a grueling exam.

The Exam:

• Similar difficulty as PMstudy
• Hard questions felt slightly less difficult than PMZilla Tough 200
• Lots of questions on Risk, Procurement and ITTO
• Some questions using EV formulas and network diagrams

The Long Stuff:

(Preface: Don't do what I did.)

Sooo, even though I qualified to register for the test a year ago, life happened - work, Hurricane Sandy, family stuff, vacations (translation: litany of excuses) - that resulted in my scheduling the exam on the very last day of my eligibility period.  Yes, you read that right: the very last day (translation: I'm an idiot).  To make a long story short, though it's clearly not the best prep strategy, I was essentially time boxed into three weeks of studying.

I started with Headfirst which, while easily digestible, felt like it only skimmed the surface of what I needed to know for the exam.  I took the Headfirst exam online upon finishing the book and scored 83%. 

From there, I proceeded to Rita's book, which covered the knowledge areas deeper than Headfirst.  (Side note: I found the condescending language on what seemed like every other page quite irritating after a while.  Thankfully the quality content was enough motivation to not toss the book out the window.  So yea, Rita and I can never be BFFs but she does know her stuff.)  Halfway through Rita, I decided to measure my progress so I tackled PMstudy Exam #3, on which I scored an ego-crushing 63%.  In hindsight, this is the best thing that could've happened as (after all the panic and cursing was over) I realized I still had a long way to go and couldn't really skip PMBOK, which I had intended to do based on the advice of a colleague who took the test a few years ago. On the otherhand, this was also particularly stressful as it was T minus 4 days until the exam.

Thankfully, I was able to take Thu and Fri off and aimed to do make the remaining four days into 12-hour study days.  I skipped the rest of Rita temporarily and went straight to PMBOK, which I found surprisingly palatable and flowed in a way that clicked for me.  The diagrams introducing each knowledge area and correspoding processes were particularly helpful, especially for a visual person like me (as I am the sort of person who needs a whiteboard constantly).  After PMBOK, I went back to Rita and finished it, skipping the remaining chapter-end tests due to lack of time.  The 12-hrs / per day studying goal also ended up not being feasible for me as I was starting to hit diminishing returns after 8 hours.  From then, I decided to cap my study days to 8 hours and focused the spare time to mental recovery and exercise, which proved more important to "reset" my overloaded brain, manage stress, and position me better the following day to absorb massive amounts of information.

On my last study day, I finished Rita and took PMstudy Exam 1, on which I scored roughly 80%.  With only four hours left in the day, I chose to read Raga's Points and tackle PMZilla 200 Tough (instead of re-reading any of the three books I had already read once each).  I would've wanted to finish all sections of Tough 200 but it was time for bed, so I wrapped it up after 3 sections and scored 80%. 

THE Day

On exam day, I felt exhausted as I did not get the restful sleep I hoped for (thank you, doggies).  I made the conscious decision not to study the morning of the exam ans intead did some yoga and meditated to clear my head and focus my thoughts. I was glad I gave myself extra time to get to the exam site as there were a couple of hiccups with the subway and there was a long line of people at the security desk waiting to get checked in.

I had mixed feelings walking into the exam because of my lack of preparation and the uncertainty regarding the true difficulty of the exam (so much mixed feedback on this).  Also, the fact that it was my only shot at passing the exam (without having to re-apply) was a self-inflicted stressor that weighed heavily on me.  Finally, I hit Start and spent the first 15 minutes creating my dump sheet of formulas and 42 processes (the latter I somehow commited to memory without trying).  Half an hour into the exam, I knew I was going to pass it - assuming that the level of difficulty would remain consistent for the rest.  However, I knew that I was going to need all the time on the clock and couldn't afford a break due to the fact that I consumed all the time alloted each practice test.  This meant, unfortunately, that I couldn't afford to leave the exam room for any reason (thankfully I ate a fistful of almonds when I arrived) nor did I have any time left to review any of my marked questions.  

With 30 seconds to spare, I hit Submit and waited... I sat there for a while staring at the Congratulations page to make sure I wasn't hallucinating.  Giant sigh of relief followed by a BIG piece of chocolate cake when I got home #ideservedit#

Post Mortem (Translation: Here's what I'd do differently if I wasn't *such* an idiot)

• For starters, I wouldn't schedule the exam on the very last day of eligibility.  Really, life is hard enough without that additional pressure.
• I would read PMBOK first and reference each Knowledge Area diagram while going through the rest of the books.  The big picture visuals really helped me understand the overall flow of the ITTOs.  This part was too visually cluttered and fragmented in Headfirst for my taste.
• While I would've liked to have more time to study, I would probably only increase my total study time by 25 hours at most (from 72) over a longer duration in order to finish PMstudy Exams 2 & 4 and the rest of the Tough 200. 

Final Words (Translation: I'm done soon, I promise)

There are a lot of questions on this forum and elsewhere from aspirants asking for validation about their study plan / approach.  I get it.  However, please know that the only plan that is right is the plan that makes sense for YOU given your knowledge base, personality, learning style, workload, life demands, etc.  For some people, the right plan could be 300+ hours of studying but for others it could be two weeks.  You have to know yourself enough to know what rings true for you and trust that.  I recommend taking a hard practice exam after reading your first book to use as your baseline and plan forward.

Finally, BIG big thanks to the folks on this forum who have helped me and countless others.  This is such a great community of project geeks!

All the best to everyone.  I'm now giving myself a tech break and going for a long walk outside with dogs who where oh-so-sad every time they brought me a ball these past three weeks and I didn't throw it...