I would like to share my experience with all.

I took my contact hours training exactly one month back and thats when my study started.

The training gave structure on how to go about my study.

I used Rita Book, Fast Trac and occasionally I used audio flash cards. 

First reading of Rita could be quite difficult. Some times during the reading you might feel the book discouraging you, may be because you didnt understand what it mentioned or because you didnt do a certain process in your company or even since you picked a wrong answer. Dont worry, it just means you have a knowledge gap and you need to concentrate on the topic and fill it up. Have the goal of being PMP in sight.

During the first read, mark all the important points and points that were difficult to understand.

Diligently answer all the questions at the end of each chapter as soon as you complete the chapter. Do not guess the answer, if you dont know it leave it blank.

All the questions that you answered wrong, mark it in the book and DO NOT read the reason given for the correct answer.

Maintain an excel sheet for marks obtained in each topic.

Rita first round reading can take the most time, so dont worry if its taking too long. On an average each topic reading should take around 3 ~ 4 hours of dedicated effort. Some of the topics like Communications, HR and Professional behavoior should NOT be skipped or given lesser importance.  

One problem with Rita book (In my honest opinion, might not be the same for others), is that the book is not organised. In the sense we cant understand when the heading of the topic is infact the next process she is talking about, or sub part of the earlier topic, or just additional information regarding the topic she is already discussing. It would have been lot more helpful if she has some kind of hierarchical numbering scheme for topics. That would have given readers a better perspective. Atleast the first time I read I understood the individual topics, but couldn't knit them together.   

Other problem that I faced was, during my contact hours training I realised that ITTOs were the foundation for understanding 

But Rita doesn't concentrate on ITTOs, atleast not all of them. That confused me a bit.

I was warned by others that PMBOK reading is a sleeping pill. Hence I was very wary to touch it. But because of the above constraints in Rita, I decided to read PMBOK.

But in my experience, as a formal book, PMBOK does a good job in explaining all topics. More over it has precise definitions to each word used in Project Management, that helps us clarify the real meaning rather than the informal/loose usage that we do during our work.

Concentrate on ITTOs and meaning of each word that you cant understand.

Again, in my opinion, ITTOs have to be memorised  and are not very "logical" to understand and replicate. Refer to my ITTO section.

But then again I am very bad at memorizing and that showed up in the exam as well :(. 

I joined, tracked a few forums where typical questions were discussed. Some of the forums can be found in my resources section. I tried my best to answer then off and on forum. It did a lot of value add to me. It exposed me to other points of view, exposed me to other interpretations of same wordings etc. 

I took back the knowledge and updated my own knowledge gaps.

Attempted a few question banks (found in resources section) including  Rita. Time yourself on answering and try to develop some techniques to answer lengthy questions, because according to my calculation they ate up most of my time reserves.

Also sitting for 4 hours and being attentive and alert was the second most challenging thing. I normally used to end up getting the answers at the end wrong. So I decided on taking breaks in between and do some relaxing activity for around 3~5 mins and get back. That helped me, it may help you too, try it.

Some of the questions in the question banks may look straight forward but you may get them wrong because in reality they needed deep thinking. That sometimes discourages, but again take it as a learning and knowledge gap, fix it and move forward.

And sometimes the questions might have words (not answers) that you never heard about. Thats the ONLY time let your logic and PM experience kick in.

• Questions that you got wrong in all previous reads - This is a real big knowledge gap. to concentrate on
• Questions that you sometimes get right and sometimes wrong - There is some confusion in your understanding
• Questions that you get right majority times but not this time - Is this question one of the last questions? Did you get this wrong due to wavering concentration? Audit your relaxation process, is it working as expected, does it need an update? 

If you did all the above, last day would be an easy day (yes even if you were an Engineering student). Divide your time between

• Reading knowledge gaps
• Important definitions (end of PMBOK)
• Questions you got wrong
• Points you noted in Rita
• Important formulas
• Professional behaviour chapter
• Understanding of types of org (Functional, Matrix, Projectised) 
• Roles of each type of stakeholder
• Most importantly, relax and (try to) have a good nights sleep