PMP Exam Prep (4th Edition) [Paperback]

Written to save you preparation time, the book:
* Helps you identify potential problem areas in your knowledge.
* Review topics not covered in the PMBOK.
* Become acquainted with what the author calls "PMI-isms."
* Prepares you for sitting through a four hour exam.
* Acquaints you with the type of questions that appear on the exam.

Make no mistake; the exam is much harder than the questions that appear in this guide. However, the time spent reviewing Mulcahy's material will focus your attention on material appearing on the exam. It will also broaden your approach to project management from your personal, narrow experience to the broad-based approach tested on the exam.

If you are serious about passing, this book is well-worth the money.

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Guess what? In order to pass the PMP, you need thorough expertise with the 5 Process Groups! Sure, if you understood the 9 Knowledge Areas 100%, you will indirectly have a grip on the 5 Process Groups. The only problem is that it is almost impossible for that information to stick in your head unless you go across and not just drill down! Preparing for the PMP using the Knowledge Area approach is like learning a language by reading a dictionary!

I was wondering why I was scoring so poorly on the practice tests till I decided to check out the PMP Exam Prep and PM FASTrack(the day before the test). When I started using Rita's PM FASTrack which tests your expertise in both Process Groups and Knowledge Areas, I realized what the missing component was. I then spent the next 4-6 hours carefully studying the more difficult chapters from Rita's PMP Exam Prep book and took another practice test. I only spent about an hour per chapter since I had already been exposed to a lot of the Project Management techniques that are tested. Suddenly, my overall score started improving!

I then kicked myself for not opening her CD-ROM and book till the last minute. But I decided not to panic and just study with high concentration. At this point, I reconciled myself to not passing the test this first time and promised myself that I would read her book cover to cover and take 100% of the practice questions in her CD-ROM the next time.

Fortunately, the next day when I took the test, I was able to stay calm and felt a lot more comfortable when I noticed that the questions on the test were VERY similar to the ones in her book and CD-ROM! I could not believe it, but I was glad :-) I was very happy that I used her material at least for that one day. When I got the score at the end of the 4 hours, I had scored 86. Whew!

... If I were to do it again, I would just take her class instead (much cheaper) where you get all this material free on top of the class. More than anything, following the approach in her book will relieve you of all the tension resulting from the unpredictability and difficulty in taking the PMP exam.

The PMP exam's main source of difficulty stems from the seemingly subjective nature of the questions. Only by thoroughly understanding the material in the official 'Guide to the PMBOK' will anyone be able to see that the questions are actually quite objective in nature. But to understand this really dense 'Guide to the PMBOK', there is no substitute to the 'PMP Exam Prep'! Her material also gave me a much better understanding of project management than any of the other material/class. Among a couple of other books, I still use her PMP Exam Prep book whenever I am going through a project life cycle as a reference.

Good luck with the exam and I hope that the information above helps you pass the exam with a lot more ease.

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This book is good from exam point of view. The cost of others calling this "great" is probably $1000+ for some 3-day classroom courses either with Rita or with cheetahlearning etc. Passing the exam only with the help of this book is impossible.

This book covers the key points for the exam. This book keeps reading more interesting and easier. But number of practice questions are very less (only 30 questions from each chapter. Passing only with this book is impossible. The highlight of Rita's book is the time and cost chapter - she has done a great job in those two topics.

Remember PMBOK IS the bible. Other book that you might want to consider is from ESI. I bought their practice exam guide. When you compare Rita's book with ESI's practice exam guide, ESI has 40 questions on each topic and one set of 200 questions exam as in the real exam. ALL of ESI's questions are directly from PMBOK. Believe me they are hard to answer. If someone scores over 75% in ESI's practice exam, they will score 80% in the actual exam.

From my friends' circle, all who passed the exam - including me - either attended an expensive course or bought an expensive CD for practice exam. I bought Rita's PM Fastrack - very expensive one - VERY USEFUL. Lot of PMBOK study+PM Fastrack = my success.

Hope this helps

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