Poor white board and calculator interface
Why does the exam have such a poor interface for the white board? And why are there no sheets to work with, considering every architecture school student is taught paper and pen are their best friends but a professional exam doesn't let us use any of those. The white board interface is extremely stressful. Also the calculator doesn't show commas, it's a minor thing but for quick calculations commas make a big difference, especially when there are project costs like 100 million $.
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Ishan Rakshit, I totally get where you are coming from. I also had a difficult time navigating the exam tools when taking the ARE, especially because they do not align with tools we use in the field. My first exam was really stressful because I didn't know how to operate the whiteboard and calculator, on top of not being familiar with the overall exam interface. This really hindered my ability to feel confident about the actual exam content.
For subsequent exams, I spent a lot of time prior practicing the tools with NCARB's practice exams. I played around with the whiteboard, calculator, highlighter, and strikethrough tools. This was very helpful to find my own tricks and feel comfortable when it came to the real thing.
A tip that I learned was to utilize the calculator in conjunction with the white board. As I calculated equations, I made notes on the whiteboard so that I could keep track of the figures and ensure that everything made sense. I also realized that I could create multiple pages on the whiteboard and save them for future reference throughout the exam.
I also recommend that you review pages 66-72 of the ARE 5.0 Guidelines, which provide details about how to navigate different areas of the exam and utilize each tool.
I know it is a tricky obstacle to overcome, but I confident that you will conquer it. Best of luck on your studying and any upcoming exams you have!
Kiara Galicinao, AIA, NCARB
Black Spectacles
ARE Community
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