Project Management Professional Pmp Certification Exam Prep 6th Updated Edition

To those of you who consider ratings of importance when deciding on which PM study guide to purchase, hopefully you will find my ratings of the following PM Study Guides listed below useful in your quest to pass the PMP test! Since I have no affiliation with any of the Authors mentioned below, I can safely say there was no bias in my recommendation.I used the following criteria to rate the guides:A) CostB) Comprehensive coverage of what to expect on the testC) Multiple methods presenting same material to increase comprehension through redundancyD) Using Real-Life case studies to "drive home" complex and/or complicated concepts (look up the difference if you don't know) as they relate to Project ManagementE) How well diagrams, tables, graphs, charts, and presentation examples were utilized to put the 10 Knowledge Areas in context with their specific Process GroupsF) Amount of hints/guidance in order help decipher test questionsG) How right and wrong answers test questions were covered at the end of chapterH) How consistent subject matter focus was line with the percentage of test questions.I) Ratings (# of stars) to number of ratingsJ) Online test bank availabilityGuides I purchased and reviewed:1) Rita Mulcahy's PMP Exam Prep, 9th Ed. (4 ½ stars)2) Belinda S. Goodrich PMP Exam Study Guide (3 stars)3) Sohel Akhter, Exam Prep Book, 6th Ed. (5 stars)4) Kim Heldman, PMP Project Management Professional Exam, 9th Ed (3 ½ stars)5) Andrew Ramdayal, PMP Exam Prep Simplified (2 ½ stars)6) PMI PMBOK Guide, 6th Ed (3 stars)7) Andy Crowe, PMP Exam, How To Pass On Your First Try, 6th Ed (3 stars)Based on my reviews using the criteria I've specified above, I would highly recommend "Sohel Akhter, Exam Prep Book, 6thNonetheless, only you good people know what does and does not work for you. Good luck passing any and all tests you decide to take!Kind regards,-Michael

I read both this book and the official PMI PMBOK guide. First, I read this book, took PMP Exam Prep class and then read the PMBOK Guide.The PMBOK Guide is very dry and doesn't have many examples, so if you're relatively new to Project Management or not familiar with its many tools & techniques, reading PMBOK Guide will not be enough. You're going to need to supplement it with something else that goes into more details and has more illustrations.With that said, this book is actually perfect in my opinion. It covers the same exact material as PMBOK Guide + it goes into every topic deeper and the author gives plenty of examples (which PMBOK Guide severely lacks) in forms of graphs, charts etc. It's lot easier to understand the concept of PMP reading this book than the PMBOK Guide.There are questions throughout each chapter + series of questions at the end of each chapter. Again, PMBOK Guide has no questions whatsoever, so it's hard to validate your knowledge just by reading it.This book has a final 200 questions exam (you get 200 questions on the real PMP exam as well) and this mock exam was the only thing that I wasn't a huge fan of. It was too easy. I got over 80% on this mock exam, but failed my first PMP exam. I took 2 real PMP exams and the questions on these exams where nowhere as easy as questions on the mock exam in this book.However, I still highly recommend this book regardless of your knowledge level. Now, I paid $22 for it about 7 months ago and I see that it's actually $90, but I would've paid $90. It's worth it.With that said, you're probably going to need to read the official PMBOK Guide too since you need to get used to the terminology and lexicon PMI uses.There are are some great mock exams on the WEB too. I took some free ones and they were a bit easy. Do your research and good luck!

This book might be even much better if the reader is knowledgeable about PMBOK guide. In my opinion, there are many good features in this book but some bad too. I am really able to see the author's heartfelt effort to organize contents and descriptions regardless of some editing errors. I can be confident to say this book is most beneficial, when readers study with PMBOK, as a secondary study guide for PMP exam.Pros : Relatively easy to read but not too easy in case of less knowledge of PMBOK guide, many examples and sample forms allowing better understanding, many valuable concepts explained even not included in the PMBOK guide, emphasis of seemingly important concepts by repeated quizzes with crosswords and various exercises in each chapter etc.Cons : In some sections of especially ITTOs, it needs to be organized better by adding more explanation, and by omitting repeated ones and a few mismatches against PMBOK guide , relatively easy practice test at the end of each chapter etc.