The PMP Exam: How to Pass on Your First Try, Fourth Edition by Andy Crowe
In order to read the PMBOK® Guide--Fourth Edition with appreciation, motivation and comprehension, you need to reverse your academic position. Do not read it from the perspective a student. Instead, imagine that you are a guest professor who has to deliver a lecture on one PM Knowledge Area per day to a classroom of 300 graduate students @ a prestigious university. Create an OUTLINE of each chapter in the PMBOK® Guide--Fourth Edition (putting an emphasis on what YOU think is important). Now take 1 or 2 Practice Final Exams from Andy Crowe resources or Internet (PMStudy), in order fine tune your OUTLINES. When you feel confident to give your lecture, go take the PMP EXAM! No matter how they spin the question, You WILL KNOW what you know!
This book is decent in helping one study for the PMP Exam, whether it's the first or subsequent try at it. The manufacturing of it is very poor and is not the worth the money spent to get it in the first place. Velociteach's customer service is also very poor should you need any help with anything. They seem to not want to help anyone despite the fact that the customer can share their view with the world. Chapter quiz questions are mixed up with other chapters, e.g. Ch 7 with Ch 4, so you are left wondering why they are asking about that when it was not in the chapter to start with. Can't say I would recommend this study guide to anyone who wants a decent guide to prep with.
Crowe's book is very well organized and easy to get through. It doesn't appear to be as comprehensive as some of the other books I have looked at, but I won't know until I take the exam whether what is left out is stuff I don't need to know.
There book's huge flaw is its worthless index. If you look up a concept there, it often points only to the practice quizzes, rather than to the place in the book where the topic is covered substantively. This makes the book very difficult to use as a reference manual. In fact, while it may be worthwhile as an initial learning tool, it cannot be used on its own as a study reference -- one MUST use books with usable indexes.
