Hi All! Thank you so much to the past contributors it definitely helps to know how others are preparing. There is some great advice and tips that were really helpful. As for my own preparation, I planned to first take the exam in dec 2011 but would have been 4 short weeks  so I postponed it to Feb instead, I started with Rita, 6 edition no need to buy the 7 th. It took me a good 3 weeks to read it. On a friends advice I switched to HeadFirst. a real good book , actually got me interested and made the basics very clear.