This text is great and the CD-ROM which lets u take and review practice tests may even better. I was surprised at the effectiveness of the text. All the material was presented in sufficient detail to answer your questions, but no not so detailed as to be burdensome as a college degree. The end result for me was a perfect score on all four sections of the test, but I took a LOT of practice tests. YOU NEED THIS BOOK & CD!

This new 3rd edition is better than the fist two. It is not a complete guide to all you need to learn to test for a USCG License, but it is a good base. There are still a few corrections needed in the rules that should have been updated for this 3rd edition and not all the study text agrees with the USCG questions. The CD tests is okay for review and gives a good feel of what needs to be studiedfor the USCG exams. Over all makes a great referance and should help anyone looking for a lower level license.

I received this volume in the mail about two weeks ago and have been hard at work using it to prepare for my exam. While not yet licensed, I have boated and sailed much of my life and am familiar with most of the material in it already.

The new edition is quite thorough. It not only presents all the questions, but has substantial guides preceding each section to help you understand the principles, which I find to be the most helpful feature of all. The volume's only weakness is it is written in a very dry, technical manner making it somewhat laborious to read. Also, if you are not already familiar with some of the concepts, you need to read more basic, outside resources to prepare you to study them in this book, otherwise it will leave you behind. However, if you are not familiar with the material in this text, you probably should not be applying for licensure yet either.

Finally, the new version of the software is very good. It still does not offer to test on the navigation problems. The author correctly states it cannot do this because one cannot plot with compass and parallel ruler from charts on a computer screen. However, I wish the software offered the tests anyway so that I could at least put my answers down and have it confirm them. It would just be more convenient for practicing.

Cliff

The software not only is simplistic, but also is unstable.

No single text is going to allow you to ace the test, but this should be one of the ones you use. This is the second edition and supposedly updated as of 2000. While much of the information is available on the Coast Guard web site, Wing does a good job of "packaging it" to make it much more readable. I found the light and signal summaries worth the price of the book. Without these two summaries, memorization of the many, many lights and signals would be much harder. Another plus is a "plain english" version as well as the original rules - much more readable and easier to learn.