Your ARE is JUST like the electoral college. . .

When asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton was quoted as responding, "Because the banks are where the money is."

When you run for president, if you get enough votes in Pennsylvania, regardless of what county they come from or how many counties you win. . .  you win all of Pennsylvania. And if you get enough test items correct on your ARE division, regardless of what section those correct test items come from or how many sections you "pass". . . you win that division.

The fail reports imply otherwise. But in my conversations with you, fail reports confuse many in this community.

Lancaster county has about 4% of the Pennsylvania's population, and the Philadelphia area, inclusive of Philadelphia, Bucks, Montgomery, Delaware, and Chester Counties represents about 33% of the state's population. You COULD hold a rally in Lancaster to get more of the votes in that sparsely populated country, but in most cases, Philadelphia is a better bet because there are more votes to be found in populated counties (and you'll still still touch some people who live in Lancaster County by holding a rally in Philly). 

Section 5, "Construction Cost Estimates" has about 4% of the PDD exam's questions, and Section 1, "Integration of Building Materials & Systems" represents about 33% of the test items you'll see in PDD. Because each question is worth one point, and a passing grade is based only on total right, agnostic as to which section the correct questions come from, in most cases you'll do better by focusing on Section 1 because it's the big one. There are like 10x more test items to be found in Section 1 than found in Section 5 (and by focusing on Integration of Building Materials and Systems you may also get a bit better at Construction Cost Estimates anyway).

Some of the pundits will talk about "winning" Lancaster County or "losing" Philadelphia and it's suburbs . . . but that's because journalism degrees don't require many math classes. Pollsters, who took the math classes, know that gaining a vote in one county--regardless of whether that county is won or lost--offers an equal benefit relative to gaining a vote in another county--regardless of whether that county is won or lost. So generally better to go campaign where the people are.

Likewise, it doesn't matter if you "passed" one section within a division and "failed" another. All that matters: how many total questions you get right in the division. Generally, you'll get more questions right by focusing on the big sections where most of the questions are.

Rob the banks because that's where the money is. . . and study Section 1, Integration of Building Materials & Systems, because that's where the questions are.

There is one place where this analogy crumbles. In politics, you understand where Lancaster County is and where Philadelphia is. In the ARE, however, how would you know what to study if you sought extra test items in Section 1? What PDD content isn't included in "Integration of Building Materials & Systems?" NCARB named the sections so vaguely, they're almost useless when planning out your studying. By contrast, the sections found in ARE 4.0 Building Systems exam division include straightforward categories like (1) Plumbing, (2) HVAC, (3) Electricity, and (4) Lighting.

For these reasons, and a few others, I don't recommend even looking at the second page of your fail report. If you earned at least a 500 on your scaled score, found on the first page of your fail report and an overall evaluation of your performance across all the test items, know that you made a good decision to take the failed test, that you only missed by a few questions, that your study routine is working for you and should be preserved, and that you should 100% schedule your retake for the first available slot 60 days later.

--Michael Ermann, Amber Book creator