My husband recently took the exam, and did very well, and he has no aviation background, he is a Navy hospital corpsman. His OSC said the study guide wasn't all that great. My husband did look at it for a few minutes at a bookstore, and took one of the practice tests, but he didn't feel it was worth buying. His OSO gave him a study packet that did help though. The first time my husband took it, he didn't do so well, but it gave him an idea of the areas he needed to work on. The next time he scored great. Good luck to you all!