I bombed my first OCM attempt in February and honestly considered giving up. Scored a 68% when you need a 75% to pass, and I'd been studying for six weeks. The problem was I was relying too heavily on just reading the CCMP guide without doing any practice questions. My company is sponsoring the certification so I felt the pressure big time.
Second time around I completely changed my approach. I found a solid OCM practice test site and drilled questions daily for about 30 minutes before work. That repetition helped me spot the patterns in how they phrase situational questions — especially around stakeholder engagement and change saturation. There's a lot of scenario-based stuff where two answers look almost identical.
I also picked up a study guide that breaks down the Prosci ADKAR model in plain English, because the official materials are dense. Timeline-wise, I gave myself eight weeks and hit roughly 40-50 hours total prep. Passed with an 81% last week. Happy to answer questions if anyone's grinding through this right now.