The PMP Exam Prep is a compliment to the PMBOK Guide 2000 and is current with the 2002 PMP Exam.

I've been an IS project manager for over 10 years. I've studied Kerzner's book (good, but tedious) in preparation and the PMBOK, but took no courses or workshops. I studied PMP Exam Prep for 10 days immediately preceeding my exam. Read the book about 3 times. I took the test in 4 hours and got 168 of the 200 question correct. I think that the "study tips" in the book helped me get about 15-20 questions right that I might have otherwise missed. (your milage may vary) However, the book said to expect about 6 "math" questions and I had about 15. (All of which I got right) About half of the questions I missed were due to the test's wording which is tricky.

The book made me a bit more confident than I should have been, but is the best such book that I've come across. Expensive, but worth it especially if you haven't taken a review course. Good focus on PMI-isms (things important to PMI and passing the test that your experience as a PM may not help you) Also recommended: Principles of Project Management. With PMBOK, Principles, PMP Exam Prep, and the requisite 7,500 hours of PM experience you should be able to pass the PMP. Kerzner's book will also help if you have the time to read through it.

Good luck!


A Must for PMP Exam Prep   April 21, 2003
 77 out of 90 found this review helpful

If you are prepping for the PMP exam, this book is a must. This self-contained course explains the PMI certification process, offers exam-taking tips and focuses your attention on key project management concepts.

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.


This PMP Is Not At All Fond of the Rita Mulcahy Approach   June 30, 2006
 45 out of 52 found this review helpful

I bought Rita Mulcahy's 5th edition PMP Exam Prep book on the advice of a PMP-certified PM who had used her earlier book to pass the previous version of the exam. She spoke highly of Rita. I have no idea why.

Not only did I buy this book, but I also took and completed her online course in order to obtain the 35 credit hours required to sit for the exam. Don't waste your money on the online course. It's nothing but a rehash of the book, word for word, with little "next" and "previous" arrows instead of pages. But just so we're clear, these comments are about the book itself, not the online material. (Reviewing the online "course" would include an entire litany of different complaints!)

How do I hate this book? Let me count the ways. First, the presentation and organization of the material is disorganized and overly complicated. The book includes a LOT of detail, so much that it's hard to discern what's useful and what's extraneous. Yet, in spite of this I still had exam questions (such as PTA calculations) that the Mulcahy book doesn't mention, let alone explain in depth. This book takes the "quantity over quality" approach to PMI material.

Most study aids conveniently arrange the material in a logical format by process groups, knowledge areas, inputs, tools and techniques and outputs. Rita's book doesn't and it's detrimental to learning the material. Instead of telling you what the PMBOK lists as inputs and helping you understand them so you don't have to just memorize them by rote, she instead includes a large number of worthless exercises to have you "guess" what you might need. The same goes for tools and techniques, and outputs. While that's a delightful "pie in the sky" approach to organic project management, I found it a complete waste of time as an exam studying approach. And this from a book that claims to be a "course in a book for passing the PMP exam" no less!

In much the same fashion, Mulcahy proudly touts her "Process Game", an exercise where you cut up a bunch of processes from paper and arrange them into process groups, correctly ordering in the Planning process group. Again Mulcahy overcomplicates and obfuscates the entire process in two ways: 1) Half of the processes in her "game" aren't the same names that the PMBOK uses and 2) She randomly throws in additional "subprocesses"! Here's the thing, if you simply buy a real study book, and you learn that all of the processes occur in the standard PMBOK order (Integration, Scope, Time, Cost, Quality, HR, Risk, Procurement) in each process group where they appear, the rest of it falls into place. I found that this "game" actually confused me more, and made it tougher for me to learn. Once I trashed the pieces and stopped trying to learn it the overly-complicated "Rita way" everything came together for me.

More disturbing than the overwhelming volume of material, some of which I found totally irrelevant and all of which was terribly organized, I found the condescending, snarky, downright rude tone of the book insulting. I've been a professional project manager for many years and I think that the approach that RMC Project Management takes in this book of belittling the student is completely unprofessional. It distracts from the material and served no purpose. I don't understand why a business would insult its customers as routinely as RMC Project Management does in this book.

I studied for the PMP for several months, on the side. I didn't have a chance to take a week off to prepare solidly. About three months into using the Rita Mulcahy book and online system, I was so frustrated that I went out and started looking for other books instead. I found "The PMP Exam: How to Pass on Your First Try" by Andy Crowe of Velociteach and started reading that. VERY quickly I realized that Crowe's book presented the material well, logically, and without all of the extraneous fluff and insults that characterized the RMC book.

Using Crowe's book, I finally was able to pull all of the elements together that I needed for the exam. If I felt I didn't understand an area or feel 100% comfortable with it after reading Crowe's book, I went to the RMC book and researched it further. I found that after reading Crowe's book, I was able to pass the Rita Mulachy book's quizzes with 85%-90% scores. Something I wasn't able to do when I was reading the Rita Mulcahy book!

The ONLY thing that this book does better than the Crowe book is that the Rita questions are confusing, annoying, frustrating and frequently seem contradictory. This makes them very much like the PMP Exam! The questions from this book are tougher and prepare you better for the exam than the Crowe book. It's a shame the trademark snarky Rita Mulcahy tone comes out in so many of the answers. Snide remarks like "Did you forget that...." in lieu of real explanations appear far too frequently in the answers section of this book. I still don't get the point Mulcahy is trying to make while she unprofessionally insults the readers of her book.

In short, I only recommend this book for the exam questions, and even then, only halfheartedly. I passed the exam solidly on my first try just a few days ago, but credit for that rests solely on Andy Crowe's material. I don't think I would have been able to say that if I had just used "PMP Exam Prep" by Rita Mulcahy.


Efficient and effective PMP preparation tool   May 28, 2002
 40 out of 45 found this review helpful

This 244 book fills in the gaps in the PMBOK 2000, and also provides complete coverage of professional responsibility topics and requirements. It's designed as a 120 hour course of instruction, and is focused on the important knowledge factors that you'll encounter on the PMP exam.

It provides clear and complete explanations of the PMBOK 2000 core concepts without the fuzziness or verbosity that characterizes the PMBOK. It also contains exercises and practice exams to help you prepare, and gives tips on what to study, including material that will be on the exam that is not covered in the PMBOK.

What I like about this guide is the lack of fluff, the focus on learning the exam and the preparatory advice that is given.


One among the top three PMP Exam Guides   April 20, 2006
 33 out of 36 found this review helpful

I have recently read a few PMP books cover to cover, and I thought I should share my experience with other readers with an intention to help them to find the right books. A brief review of what I think are the top three PMP books follows:
1. This book: The PMP Exam Prep.
It is a very good book if you are either taking a course from the author or from an instructor who is using this book as a text book. There are lots of exercises. Unfortunately, this is not a self contained book. Topics are not covered with enough depth. Also there is a poor flow and a lots of hopping from topic to topic. Moreover, it's outrageously high priced. Too many cross references and overhyped.
Overall I recommend this book of you are using it in a course.

2. The PMP Exam by Andy Crowe; Velociteach.
This is a great book and relatively self contained. You can study this book and pass the PMP exam. There are a only a few topics, which are not covered in adequate depth. In this and the preceding book, The coverage is organized around the knowledge areas while the exam objectives are organized in order of the process groups. That breaks the exam objective coverage into pieces, and may cause confusion.
I recommend this book if you are looking for a self contained book to pass the PMP exam.

3. PMP In Depth by Paul Sanghera, Thomson Course Technology.
This book has just hit the market and is relatively unknown. But I found this a rock solid book. Almost all the topics are covered with adequate depth. The material is presented in a logical learning sequence and the presentation is very cohesive: no hopping from topic to topic. It's an easy and interesting read. All concepts are clearly defined and expalined. This makes it a great book for both the PMP and the CAPM exams. I feel that the communication management could have more coverage. Although for the exams, the current coverage is enough.
The material is organized in order of the project lifecycle (the process groups) consistent with the way the exam objectives are organized. Furthermore, exam objectives covered in a chapter are explained in the beginning of the chapter. This makes the exam preparation easier and confusion-free.
I recommend this book for the PMP and the CAPM exams, and also if you just want to build a good understanding of the project management basics.