Rita Mulcahy

Extremely comprehensive and well worth reading. However, I would recommend reading Rita's book over the course of weeks and use a less comprehensive and more approachable book right before the exam (I personally used Head First 2013 edition). Rita tends to do two things which really detract from her being the best source of information, in my opinion.

FIrst, her anecdotes and demeanor do not paint the PM in a good light, despite her overt effort to elevate them to some kind of end-all-be-all position. There are multiple times where she explicitly says that if you haven't managed a multi-million dollar project, then you're probably going to fail the exam (thanks a lot for the confidence). Theres also a story she tells of a PM telling her how proud they were of getting a project done before a hurricane hit and her response was "Well, you should have been fired for not planning for the hurricane." (no explanation was given for the nature of the project so it might was well have been boarding up some windows)

Second, she places emphasis on nearly all the material. Granted, the PM should be aware of all the information in the book, but not all of it is going to be on the test and definitely not all in the same amounts. Her approach to this information, such as scheduling diagrams, is to imagine you're on a multi-million dollar project as a PM. Which is fine, but this is her assumption for almost all examples despite a vast majority of PMs who are first going for the exam not having touched a project in that scale. Again, should this be something the reader is aware of? Yes. Is it completely necessary for passing the exam, the purpose of this book? No. An approachable example should be used instead (wedding planning, starting a small business, working on teams
I could not have passed if not for this book. But I also could not have passed if I had only read this book.… (más)

This book will not teach you about project management but provided you have half a brain cell it will teach you how to pass the exam. This happens to be a method of learning I despise and that combined with the bad structure, appalling writing and patronising tone upsets me no end. But I'll pass the damned exam.

Update 2008/01/11: Did pass the damned exam. Having said that, I'd strongly recommend using more than one source for preparation. The exam is ultimately about interpreations of the PMBOK, and those vary wildly between the different exam prep guides available. The more different views you've been exposed to, the higher the chances of one of them actually matching what PMI think their standard means. Case in point: I used about four of five different sources of exam questions for my prep, and often I'd see that same question in different places, with a different "right" answer and explanation. So Mulcahy is a good start, but I'd use something else too.… (más)