Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Bottom line - I passed the PMP exam on my first try 3 days ago, and while Rita's 8th edition book was the most valuable source for my study, I didn't feel comfortable having it as my sole source outside the PMBOK. How I prepared: Approximately 2 months study time, 2 hours per day average. Rita Mulcahy's 8th edition Andy Crowe's 5th edition PMBOK guide 5th edition Free practice questions online and iPad apps My take on Rita's Book: Pros - Goes beyond the processes and ITTOs and actually discusses and shows how PMI's framework can make a PM better prepared, more effective, and more knowledgeable. - Sample questions are around the same difficulty that I found on the actual PMP test, all other sources (other than Lehmann's free questions) were easier. - The book itself is well edited for content, I didn't find a single spelling or editorial mistake (the Crowe book is full of them). - Rita's Process map, when combined with what the PMBOK says, brings it all together and makes sense. - Some people say the book has a negative tone (lots of "ways you can fail" or "do you do this on your projects? If not, you better study extra hard because you have bad habits"), however if you can take constructive criticism well, I think you learn a lot from the guidance provided. It helped me! Cons - The organization of the book is similar to others, but less detailed on the actual ITTOs. The book must assume those studying will actually study and read the PMBOK (a good assumption), so in a way it is unnecessary. However, I found that between the 'VCR instructions' style of the PMBOK and the elaborate but not as formally written Rita book, the Andy Crowe 5th edition served as a good bridge. - Each chapter has its own questions, but there is no "final exam" offered in the book. Therefore you're stuck using example problems that are all similar (you'll take 35 risk questions, then next will be 30 or so procurement questions, etc), which helps you answer them, possibly giving you a false sense a security. The Andy Crowe book offered end of chapter questions, but also a 200 question "final exam". - Most of the exercises in the book are simply blank boxes with questions like "What do you think a PM should do to measure risk?". I didn't find these useful at all, the open endedness was actually very annoying. The exercises regarding calculations were extremely good though.