Study Guides for PMP Certification

About a month ago I decided to apply for PMP certification. PMP stands for Project Management Profesional and is a globally recognized certification facilitated by the Project Management Institute (PMI). The application took me about 10 hours to fill out. But it was well worth the effort. After about a week I receive notification from PMI that they had accepted my application. Now for the hard part... passing the exam.

 

The PMP certification exam is a 4 hour, 200 question multiple-choice test. I have up to one year from when my application was accepted to sit for the exam. However, my goal is to pass the exam by the end of May, 2009. So the key question is... what are the best study guides for PMP certification? After doing some research I found that Rita Mulcahy is considered by many as the leading provider of PMP certification exam study guides. So I purchased two of her products.

 

PMP Exam Prep. This book walks you through all the areas that you need to understand to pass the PMP exam on your first try. The book is very easy to read and includes numerous example test questions at the end of each chapter. Not only does Rita cover the key material from the PMBOK Guide, she also explains the area of project management tested in the exam that are not covered in the PMBOK. After my first lap of the book, I felt like I could sit for the exam that day!

 

PM FASTrack. In addition to the book, I would strongly recommend purchasing the PM FASTrack software. The software is a PMP exam simulation program with over 1,400 questions. Each question provides an explaination for the correct answer and links back to the PMP Exam Prep book mentioned above. There are six different testing modes, including an actual PMP exam test that randomly creates test questions in the same mix as the actual exam.

 

First I have been going through the chapter in the book. Then, I go through the test questions for that chapter in the software. I make note of all the questions I scored wrong and go back to the book after the test to study them further. I am now on my second lap of the book and software and I am consistently scoring in the high 80's to low 90's on all the exam simulations. I am feeling pretty confident at this point that I will pass the PMP exam on the first try!