After passing BS on the first try, I knew what I had to do to pass the others. I could not have any distractions. No new projects, or new rental properties, or vacation planning, or anything. My husband was in the process of planning the move of his practice and every once in a while would come ask my opinion on the site, or what one could do with the space, or a consultant he was planning to hire. I shut those questions right down. I kept saying: “I”l be glad to look into all of this once I finish my exams.” Even though we still traveled a good bit in this early part of the year, I refused to make big plans. I was going with the flow. Any planning I was doing was related to the schedule I was going to stick by for the next 3 exams. So here’s how it worked out:
On the day I received the pass from BS, I scheduled the SS retake for 6 weeks later. Having enjoyed watching the ARE Building Systems videos, I knew I had to sign up for Thaddeus online lectures. I didn’t look at my old notes and I disregarded Kaplan for this round, including the sample tests. It took me 2 1/2 weeks to go over the lectures on my typical two mornings and every night routine. I took new notes. On the following week, I read FEMA and Buildings at Risk: wind and seismic, and, again, took my own notes. I signed up for Equals and spent the third week practicing, practicing, practicing. I wished I had known about Equals last year… This was so valuable to me since it helped me tackle my weakness on the previous SS exam: time management. On the fourth week, I practiced the vignette, re-read my notes and Jenny’s notes. By this point, Jenny’s notes were no longer a source of information, but of review of information, especially on the subjects that bridge different divisions.
I woke up on the morning of the exam feeling ready. I managed my time much better on both portions of the exam this time around. For the multiple choice, I answered every question (including the ones with calculations) and marked all of the ones I wanted to have a second look at, not just the ones I had doubts on. Aside from that change in strategy, I wrote down on paper the ones that required calculations, in the event that it was taking me too long and I had to move on. I would make a selection (I learned my lesson about not EVER leaving a question unanswered) and move on. I finished with 20 minutes left on the clock, plenty of time (in my experience) to review at least the first ten questions and the ones with calculations. I couldn’t review all of the marked ones, but I was able to get to the ones that mattered most. The vignette, like in the first try, was not a surprise. I id well and didn’t think I could have failed it. I left thinking that my success was riding on the multiple choice portion. And I succeeded. One week later, I passed SS! Yes! I was feeling good. Pretty good.
Without hesitation, I scheduled BDCS for 6 weeks later. I was going out of town for one week, so I had effectively a little less than 5 weeks to prepare. Once again, I ditched Kaplan. I felt that I had already learned what I possibly could have learned from that book the year before. I put all my time and effort on Fundamentals of Building Construction, which I studied alongside a series of lectures available online from prof. Grant Adams. I realized the lectures were not meant to prepare you for the ARE and they belong to a college discipline, but the one thing I learned from the previous two exams I had just taken, is that watching these lectures and taking my own notes were my recipe for success. I couldn’t do it differently here. So I downloaded all of the lectures and worked through them in roughly two weeks. My notes were looking good. I was actually feeling good about my new schedule and study strategy at the end of those two weeks. On the third week, I went over Ching’s Building Construction Illustrated again, but, this time, taking notes, and started practicing for the vignettes. I wanted to beat these vignettes to death! On the fourth week, I signed up for Equals again and took sample tests and kept on practicing vignettes. Although Equals for BDCS was not as thorough as Equals for SS, I still am glad I bought it. If anything, it helped me with time management. My fifth week of preparing was a short one. I had scheduled the exam for a Tuesday, so I really only had a couple of days to just review all of my notes and Jenny’s notes. Once again, I felt prepared going in.
The first ten questions keep hunting me… If there is an ounce of doubt left when I leave the test center, it is usually due to those questions. I came to think that they were not necessarily more difficult than other ones sprinkled around the rest of the exam; it is just that I would still be battling the emotional toll these exams take on me. So much preparation, dedication, and anticipation, that I tended to examine the first few first questions a bit harder, I guess. God only knows why they affected me they way they did, but there was no way I could get around that fact. My heart and palms expressed that effect. And it sucked.
However, I managed my time well on the multiple choice and vignettes. Again, I changed strategy for this exam. I did so on the vignettes. I took them on the following order: roof design, ramp design, and stair design. Roof and Ramp were the ones I got a level 2 last time, so I wanted to make sure I was “fresh” when taking them. Leaving them for later, after dealing with the more time consuming stair design, would have made too tired and more prone to making a silly mistake. I thought my solutions for all three vignettes were good and very adequate. I was happy with them. However, as I reviewed them, I noticed I miscalculated a couple of elevation marks on my roof plan. OMG. How did this happen? Although I had plenty of time to review and correct my mistake, I left the test center feeling very uncertain. Could I have overlooked something else somewhere else on this exam? Oh no! I started to question my overall performance. I felt pretty scared. But ten days later, I was glad to receive my pass! Woohoo!!! “I’m on a roll, I’m on a good roll now…”, I kept saying to myself. What I great feeling. I’m over the hump! I had two exams left!!
So 4 weeks later, I was going in to re-take SPD. By this point, 4 weeks seemed like a long time. The anxiety to get the ARE over with was consuming me. And it turned out that 4 wasn’t a long time at all. With one week out on another trip, I really only had three weeks to prepare. Would it be enough time? I wondered if I had gotten cocky again… But by the time I looked over the material, I felt like I had covered a good chunk of it preparing for BDCS and SS. So I felt okay. I felt like I could manage the short time I had.
Once again, I ditched Kaplan. I went straight to the source. I studied Fundamentals of Building Construction (FBC), Ching’s Building Construction Illustrated (BCI), Gang Chen’s mock-up book, and Jenny’s notes. I purchased a cheap, used copy of Lynch and Hack’s Site Planning, but didn’t get to thoroughly read it all. I just skimmed it, looking for thing I may have missed in the other sources. Had I not recently prepped for BDCS and SS, I probably would have given it more attention. But after so much studying, this book just seemed redundant to me. I took my own notes on FBC and BCI, a process that took me one week. On the second week, I practiced, practiced, practiced: sample tests and vignettes. In fact, I spent a lot of time on vignettes, after all, it was the only level 3 I had gotten in all of the tests I had taken. On the third and last week, I reviewed archiflash, jenny’s notes, and my notes. I took the exam on that same week, on a Thursday. I felt no different going into this exam as I had felt for any of the ones I had taken this year (BS, SS, and BDCS). I felt prepared and ready.
The SPD exam experience also was very similar to the ones that preceded it. I had the same freak out moments, and, yet, I managed my time very similarly on both multiple choice and vignette portions of the exam. Once again, I had a change of strategy going into the vignette. I started with site grading, which is the one I had bombed, instead of the more time consuming site design. I finished it in about 25 minutes. I reviewed it right then and there. I felt I had a solid solution and I didn’t want to go back to it later. Thank heavens I reviewed right away. I had no time to come back to it, had I needed it. I thought site design was as challenging as the first time around. This time, though, I didn’t struggle with parking. I struggled with the program in general. My program was different than what I had been practicing. I had read about those possibilities and I knew what to do. I just had not practiced them on the software before… That threw me for a loop! So I ended up using every second on my clock working on the plaza, trying to figure out the best solution to address sun and wind concerns. However, I felt that I had laid out my site well, to what I believed was the best possible layout. When I finished this exam, I wasn’t sure I had nailed site design, but I also knew that I couldn’t have flunked it either. But with NCARB, no one ever knows, so I left this test with a bit of an uneasy feeling…
One week later, my uneasiness came to an end. I had passed SPD! Oh. My. God. I had completed 6 out of 7 tests! No re-take of a re-take needed. What a RELIEF! I felt wonderful!! At this point, I could care less about SD. I was just so happy with reaching this point. The end was really near. Man, it felt good.
archipath 