I passed the PMP exam on my first try August 1. I booked it about 10 weeks in advance, procrastinated for about a month, and then spent 3 weeks doing Rita's prep book. The last 3 weeks I read the PMBOK manual very thoroughly and did PMP Prepcast practice tests.
I failed the first 4 practice tests and then did the last 2 open book with the PMBOK manual to pay close attention to the sections where I had to pay more attention or review in detail. The last week and a half before the test I was getting up at 5:30am to fit everything in. The morning of the test I reviewed the EV formulas but that was it. It took me about 3 hours to finish the 200 test questions and then I reviewed my answers for the last hour.
Good luck to everyone working towards their certification, especially if you are mostly doing it on your own like I was. It's hard but definitely worth it!
