Customer Reviews

Preparing for the Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification Exam, Second Edition

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I bought this book specifically as a tertiary resource of practice questions for my PMP exam preparation. What a waste. First of all, the questions are taken, in some cases verbatim, in other cases rewritten inaccurately, from another source: "PMBOK Q&A. A Pocket Guide of Questions and Answers to Learn More About the Project Management Body of Knowledge" published by PMI. Nowhere in this book does it credit the PMI source material. Secondly, in at least 7 questions(pg 215 - #7, pg 217 - #19, pg 219 - #2, pg 233 - #12, pg 233 - #13, pg 235 - #20, pg 300 - #13) that I was able to document, the answers given are just plain wrong as verified by cross-checking both the PMBOK itself, and the "Pocket Guide" listed above. Thirdly, unlike the "Pocket Guide", this book doesn't give references to the sources of correct answers (which prabably explains why the answers are wrong) so that you can look up and study missed questions. Although I didn't read any of the preparatory materials in the front of this book, I would be very leery of them, based on the inaccuracies I found in the test questions. I would suggest to anyone who wants accurate and useful preparation materials, to use PMI published sources, take practice tests with the ESI materials, and take a good review course from your local PMI chapter.

Thank you, Mike Newell, for getting me through the PMP exam! I passed on the first try, scoring more than 80%.

I used this book plus the '96 PMBOK to study for the exam. Neither book is adequate preparation alone. Newell seems to have taken a strategy of complementing the PMBOK rather than replacing it. After some experimenting, my study approach was:
1. Read a chapter of Newell to understand the topic
2. Read the corresponding chapter in the PMBOK for the data in sparse form
3. Do Newell's practice questions for the chapter

I bought the book for the practice questions (he provides two sets), and that turned out to be an important part of my study. To me, it was a bonus that I could understand Newell's discussions better than the overly terse PMBOK. Make no mistake, the PMBOK is about laying out a systematic organization in 37 "knowledge areas," 5 "process groups," etc. It is neat and highly structured, but not intuitive. I needed the insights I got from this book.

The sample questions in this book are very badly written and not representative of what is actually on the exam. Rita Mulcahy's book is much, much better. Rita's sample questions are closer to the actual exam questions and her book is easier to read. Buy Rita Mulcahy's book and skip this one!

Michael Newell's book is an excellent partner to the PMBOK, from PMI, to help you in preparing to write the PMP exam. Even if you are not a candidate for the PMP you should acquire this book as a reference companion.

It explains key concepts, tools and techniques in clear english with supporting diagrams and stories. It is structured around the PMI PMBOK knowledge areas but focusses on the techniques rather than the processes. Dip into it to clarify such things as the Crawford Slip technique, for a clear explanation of Earned Value or the Precedence Diagramming Method.

This book pulls together in one place explanations of the techniques project practitioners should be using. To assist in preparing for the PMP nearly half of the book relates to sample questions to test yourself, or use in a study group, and then debate why the right answer is the best answer! The bibliography provides ideas of further specialist books that you can refer to.

Remember, a single book cannot give you everything for the PMP preparation, but this book is a MUST to help you put the techniques into perspective and to learn their method and theory.

There is no doubt that you need to be thoroughly familiar with the Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK) in order to pass the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification exam. I took the test this week and passed on the first try, responding to 85% of the questions correctly.
My experienct is that about 70% of all the test questions can be answered correctly using the PMBOK alone. However, a score of 70% is just passing. This means that you have to gain additional insight and knowledge from supplemental materials or attend courses to have a better chance of being certified on the first try.
The only learning tool that I used in my two weeks of preparation was Preparing for the Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification Exam by Michael W. Newell. The author's alternative presentation of the core PMBOK material made them much easier to understand. The book is especially useful for its statistics' explanations. Importantly, the book also includes many specific items that were part of the test, which do not appear in the PMBOK. The hundreds of questions contained in the book were excellent preparation for the test. In fact, many of them were actually on the test. You can't beat that!

I checked out this book from a local library, and didn't use it at all during my prep. It even doesn't cover some very important(for the exam) chapters in PMBOK. There are much better resources available..

I have Rita's book which is also very good. But this book supplements her work with more of an emphasis on the quantitative materials which I thought was very helpful in preparing for the upcoming exam. (...) And I purchased MANY books which I did not find useful.

I was very dissapointed with this book. The entire PMBOK was updated in 2000, this book was published in the late 90s, and did not reflect new methodology. Check the publish dates here and see for yourself. Many chapters, like the chapter on Risk, were entirely incorrect. Nothing was more frustrating that spending a lot of time studying material that you later find is incorrect. This book should be pulled from the shelves as it provides users with incorrect information.

I'm also disappointed by the bogus reviews here. This book's information is substantially outdated and cannot be effective.

The sample questions in the back were especially bad. They were plagarized word-for-word from old PMI publications, and the answers were often incredibly incorrect. Even worse, the memorization based nature of the questions in this book were entirely different than the situational based questions in the exam, and provided no preparation value.

If you're studying for the test, don't waste your time with this, spend the money and get the Rita's exam prep book, it's incredibly expensive, but worth the money.

If you want some basic project information for the fun of it, this book has some value.

Here's a good example of what to expect from this book:

The learning curve theory says that the number of times a job is done doubles, the cost is reduced by 70%. If the first time cost is $1,000... the second time the job is done the cost will be $700.

DOH!

The book is full of stupid inaccuracies like that! It's not even up-to-date with the 1996 PMBoK (even though he's added a couple lines in the book to refer to the new 2000 version).

The sample tests are very outdated.

Save your money and just use the PMBoK!

I must admit I was also disappointed by this book. The material does not reflect the changes in the PMP certification exam, even though the author refers to the fact that the exam has changed. Minor detail, but there were a number of typographical errors, which is unacceptable to me for a professional publication.

Two of the most aggravating points for me:

1. There were a number of "practice questions", with descriptive answers. However, the answers frequently didn't answer what I felt were the most important questions, such as "why was the option I chose incorrect?" Often, it seemed like the description didn't even explain why the correct answer was correct.

2. There is a full practice exam in the book, but then the reasons for those answers are not described, there is only an answer key.

3. I haven't taken the exam yet, so I can't say if this is accurate, but there were an inordinate number of questions with the answer "all of the above".

Overall, I wouldn't recommend this book at all. Rita Mulcahey's books provided more helpful information in the first 10 pages.