Prepping for NPDP

I'd like to share my experience in preparing for the NPDP exam in this post. Some details below will make most sense to people who took the NPDP training from Ken Westray. The exam is one part of the certification process; the other is the documentation around the work experience and qualifications. Unlike the PMP exam, the NPDP documentation requirements are fairly straightforward, and can be filled in from the pdma.org site.
It took me around a month of preparation to clear the exam. One advantage I had was the alumni membership of the IIM bangalore library; I got the Cooper Winning at New Products book from there. Of all the books prescribed for the exam, I read only the cooper book from cover to cover. This gave me a good orientation to the way the exam is structured. Often, we answer questions based on our experience – bad idea! There is a specific concept that the questions in NPDP test, so it important to think the way the PDMA thinks. Cooper gives a good introduction to this thinking.
The certification manual that Ken Westray gave us is just fantastic from the exam point of view. However, since there are many bullet points and less explanation, I ordered the PDMA handbook from amazon.com.
This is an AMAZING book. It is also expensive, so it makes sense for 2-3 people to share the cost of the book. I felt that having this book compensated for my not reading the other reference material. In the PDMA handbook, I did not read it cover to cover continuously; I selected chapters relevant to the topic I was studying from the certification material from the training.
Finally, I read the PDFs that Jama Bradley sent out on email. We need to learn a lot of the percentages in these PDFs, as there are specific questions asking to choose between 76% and 67%.
Please direct any questions via the comments feature or to ravinash@gmail.com. My email ID will change soon; I am moving to Chennai to join a different company. Yes, the NPDP certification helped!