Before I share my lessons learned, let me just say I am somewhat bitter with BT in Closing. Isn't that supposed to be the easiest?
My first attempt at taking the PMP exam was about 2 years ago and failing that taught me "what not to do". With almost 2 decades of being in this profession, there is a lot that you have to "unlearn" to see things from PMI perspective. The extent of my preparation was attending 2 different 5 day camps with some excellent instructors. Then one day, equipped with my over confidence and mission to slay the PMP exam, I sat through my first attempt. 4 hours later, I was BT in all areas.
What did I do differently you ask? I unlearned everything that I knew about project management!
It took me a year to regain my confidence and that's when I signed up for prep-cast. Living in a New York minute, I wasn't very diligent in the beginning and ended up rescheduling my exam a couple times until I had no options left. That's when i finally dowloaded all the podcasts to my phone and started listening to it any chance i got. Sometimes over and over again! Following that, I started taking little jabs at the mock tests, 10-20 questions at a time , but most IMPORTANTLY, I read the explanations of ALL the answers, even when i got them right. Starting with FAIL, i was scoring 70% + including in full exams. (took 2 in this system and 2 in another).
As for the exam itself (without jeopardizing my NDA) all I can tell you is that it was very similar to exam 6&7 in simulator. Luckily i took them just in the last few days and things were fresh in my mind. One thing that i found different was that the interface did not allow me scratch out any answers and that certainly had an impact on how i managed the clock.
Bottom Line: If you are a seasoned professional like me, you need to think forget what works in practice and think like PMBOK. And if you are new to the profession, use a lot of cross references to get a deeper understanding of why PMBOK wants you to do things a certain way.... and take a lot and lots of mock tests .
