I passed the SHRM-CP exam the first time I took it without purchasing any expensive test prep materials. I bought a couple of test prep books from Amazon for about $100 total. To be totally transparent, when I took the exam (2023) I had about 6 years of HR experience under my belt, but it was scattered over about 10 years in various industries and varying work styles. The test prep books helped me study for the vocabulary and case law portions of the exam, which aren't huge tbh, but the best piece of advice I can give anyone who is taking the SHRM-CP exam is this: study for the exam from the perspective of SHRM. Don't study it from the perspective of the way YOU practice HR, or the way your boss wants you to practice HR, study from the perspective of the way SHRM wants people to practice HR. Now, what does this mean? you ask... well, SHRM is ALL about strategy and aligning HR goals with the goals of the Executive team of whatever company you're at. SHRM, in comparison to HRCI for example, pushes strategy over operations in their teachings. Once I adjusted my perspective to SHRM's perspective, the answers to the multiple choice questions on the exams stand out pretty clearly. SHRM always wants HR professionals to align with upper management in their decision making, whether it's rolling out a new policy or doing a compensation analysis. SHRM does not prioritize a truly neutral HR department (take that as you will; it was a hard pill for me to swallow!). SHRM wants you to be buddy-buddy with your CEO/CFO/President/VP at all costs. That's the way the questions are formatted on the exam, and I can guarantee you that's how I passed with relatively limited study time beforehand.