6 out of 6 done. Bye ARE! What worked for me…

I passed PDD on Saturday and completed by my ARE Exams. I wanted to share my experience and what personally worked for me. This forum was a great resource for me throughout the process so I hope this is useful for someone starting on their ARE studies or looking to change something up. Here is my timeline:

Feb 2022: PASS - PA

PASS – PA. This was my first time taking ARE as well. I used Architect Exam Prep’s (AEP) study guides & practice test questions for PA. I did not use their flashcards. I tried their audio but I find it was not useful for me since I am not retaining the information when I’m multitasking it with something else. I will say PA felt easy for me because a lot of the topics were related to things I’ve done in my job, so the concepts just “clicked”.

June 2022: FAIL - PDD

I followed the same method and used AEP’s study guide & practice tests for two months. Realized when I took the exam that the amount of content was very broad and there were so many things I had no idea how to answer. My scaled score was 521. The score is not far off from passing and I credit that to my work experience providing me a lot of context to make educated guesses on the answers.

August 2022: FAIL – PPD

This was another two months of study for PPD. I read AEP’s study guide and found that a lot of content was the same as PDD (makes sense) but since I didn’t do well with PDD, I started to look at the source materials that the ARE Handbook references. Because I failed PDD, I was expecting to fail PPD but didn’t want to pay the reschedule fee (Prometric $100). I bit the bullet and thought of it as a very expensive “practice test”. My scaled score was 487.

Sept 2022 – Oct 2022

At this point, I was getting frustrated and feeling very discouraged. I would read posts on the forums about people getting all the books mentioned in the ARE Handbook. I got those books but reading a textbook was really challenging for me. Just looking at the textbooks was so daunting. Even in college, I had a lot of issues with just reading texts. I have a lot of respect to everyone who can study and learn well this way!

A coworker at my firm mentioned he used Amber Book and passed in 11 weeks. He actually has a post about it on this forum. I have already seen AB mentioned on this forum but the $$$ price tag is SCARY. I did more research on AB to understand the commitment it would take and how it would affect the rest of my time. 8 weeks, estimated 21+ hours of study each week. This is not for everyone and would not work for everyone’s life! But for me, I needed something structured that would guide me along and break up the content into less daunting sections. I decided to start AB in November.

November 2022

I had a monthly calendar and wrote out the different AB sections I needed to complete by which day. I also made some wiggle room in my schedule to allow me to catch up if I missed a day. Once I was done with work at 5pm, I would stay at the office and go through AB so I couldn’t be distracted at home or anywhere else. My goal was 2 hours on weeknights, and 10 hours over the weekend.

December 2022

I took off Mondays in December because I was getting nervous about making my deadline (the remaining 5 exams were scheduled at this point). Work was also not super busy this month, so that really helped me stick to my weeknight study schedule. The only day I didn’t study in December was the 25^th so I could spend it with family.

As you might have all heard, the goal of Amber Book is to treat this all as one big exam, so it is strongly encouraged to take the tests close together. Because of the way the holidays fell, I was able to utilize my PTO strategically so I would be OOO from December 23, 2022 – January 7, 2023.

December 27, 2022 – PASS: PCM

December 28, 2022 – PASS: PJM

December 29, 2022 – PASS: CE
Looking back, I do not recommend taking the exams 3 days in a row. Although those three divisions overlap A LOT, it was still really brutal. I was so drained mentally and physically. Seeing the three new green check marks did make me really happy though.

January 3, 2023 – PASS: PPD

January 5, 2023 – FAIL: PDD

Not passing PDD again made me really upset. Although I made a lot of progress, it still stung to not get that last one, I really really wanted to finish the ARE after two very brutal months. My scaled score was 510. Yes, that’s even less than my first fail!! I ended up scheduling a call with Michael Ermann and he let me know I was probably a few questions away from passing so I should definitely retake it again ASAP. I also asked him whether I should continue using AB to study for my retake. He told me if I start watching it again and find nothing sticks out as new, then I should cancel.

February 2023

I got covid for about 2 weeks so did not have the capacity to study. I had to push my retake to April 

March 2023

Got back into AB. I did not follow the same rigorous schedule as before since I was only studying for one exam. Honestly, I was burnt out from the November-December study schedule, so I did not want to give up half my life again. There was a post I saw where someone recommended a dopamine detox and HIIT workouts - I incorporated these in too.

April 1, 2023 – PASS: PDD

In some sort of sick April Fools joke from the universe, my PSI center was having technical issues and everyone was just crowded in the waiting room waiting to be checked in! Nothing like starting the test in a room full of extremely anxious people! 

I definitely give a lot of credit to Amber Book. As many others have said, they really break the content down into bits and pieces to make sure you can understand the concept. Not just memorizing the definitions and formulas. I also credit my success to some other factors:

1. I do not work more than 40 hours a week. I know overtime is a normal occurrence in some offices, but I am very fortunate to not be in that situation. This allows me to stop working after 8 hours and switch to my study mode. My manager also made sure that my workload was enough for 40 hours and didn’t overwhelm me.
2. I have enough PTO to take extra days off for studying & testing. My managers and my team members understand how important this is to me and are supportive of my goals. I chose Mondays specifically because we usually didn’t have deadlines or meetings that day.
3. My company reimburses me for passed exam fees AND the study materials. Yes, they have paid for Architect Exam Prep, the many referenced textbooks, AND Amber Book. Definitely encouraged me to study harder, knowing that the financial burden could be relieved.
4. I have about 9 years of work experience (commercial architecture) and it touched on a lot of the concepts covered by the exams. It was a lot easier for me to understand an idea when I could tie it back to something I have seen or done at work. 

Lastly, Amber Book and some others will tell you  “don’t tell people you’re taking the exams, so you won’t have to tell them if you fail”. I really told everyone when I was studying/taking the exams! It helped me:

1. Stay on track with studying. People were always going “how is studying?” At one point the managing director walked up to my desk and asked me “When is your retake?”
2. Realize how many people wanted me to succeed. So many study snacks!
3. Celebrate the passes with others, but also got so much encouragement on the fails for me to keep moving forward. The ARE is a personal journey and you can really become your own obstacle if you’re constantly negative like me. I tend to focus a lot on the fails, and the “what if I never pass….”

This was a very long post and I appreciate those who read it all the way! I hope there was something useful in it for you. I wish you the best of luck. I am onto the California Supplemental Exam next!