PcM Passed! My Takeaways
Passed my PcM test on Friday; 1 down 5 to go!
I passed on my first attempt, and felt pretty comfortable with most of the questions on the exam. I used Ballast primarily, and Amber Book for their practice problems. I also watched the Schiff Hardin lectures on the B101 and A201 AIA documents.
I did the case study problems first, which I think worked pretty well. They definitely take the most time and mental bandwidth, so I think getting them out of the way at the beginning prevented burn out. The digital whiteboard SUCKS SO MUCH. I would definitely recommend to practice doing calculation in MS paint or something, because that was one of the most time consuming aspects of the exam for me.
Happy to answer and questions if you have them!
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Congrats Ysa ~
Very proud of your charging energy. I have failed PcM, PjM, & CE once, and have moved onward to PA. I am not satisfied with the "programs" I bought into, and am exhausted with "purchasing" more books, etc. Can you share any notes, or .PDF documents that you used to help pass??? If not, no worries, my "bundle" purchase should allow me to pass at least (1) this year, if not I guess I'll purchase the ones you recommended. Thank you for your time, and good luck!
Again, congrats.
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Hey Paul-- what materials are you using to study with now? I don't really have any pdfs I can share, but here's a good list of the sections to read from the Architect's Handbook if you have that available: http://sganwdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/AHPP15e_ARE5_PCM.pdf
The Schiff Hardin lectures are free on youtube, here's a link to the first one on the B101 document: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0r5ys2WC7xw
Hope this helps!
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Congrats Ysa Bella!! I am also going to use the Amber Book to prepare PcM as well. But it seems the "Profession Practice" part is the only part related to PcM. Do you think it is helpful to use Amber Book? And have you watched any other parts of videos in Amber Book to prepare PcM? thanks!!
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Hi Lily! I used the workbook for Amber Book and went through the problems in there and read the solutions, which I found to be helpful. I think I only watched like a quarter of the 'Professional Practice' videos, but they follow along with the workbook. I don't feel like Amber Book covered everything that was on the exam. I used Ballast as my primary study material, which I think was a lot more comprehensive. Amber Book does a really good job of explaining concepts in a way that's easy to understand though, so if you're struggling with something see if there is a video on it. I think Amber Book covered the project delivery methods and accounting (utilization/expense ratio/etc) really well for example.
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Ysa, can you explain how exactly the amber books work? Did you do the month-by-month subscription for $390.00 / month? I`ve gone over to their website and I`m having a bit of problems understanding how this all works. It seems you would have to renew your subscription as long as it takes you to conclude your exams. is this correct. Thanks in advance!
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Hi Ysa Bella, thank you for your inclination to help. I just rescheduled my first PjM exam I was taking going to take next Tuesday, since after taking a practice exam from Black Spectacle I did terribly. I had studied primarily from Ballast and skimmed over the Handbook. Did you cover all Handbook material only by the material you said you studied? Thanks
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