How can I Improve for PDD Case Study?
I only have the PDD exam left to get license. Although I’ve attempted it several times, I haven’t passed yet.
I find the case study section particularly challenging and frustrating, as it seems to test your ability to search and cross-reference information across multiple documents. Actually, I don't quite catch the point of question and intent of question. Also like many others have mentioned, the navigating different materials can be frustrating—the small font size/ resolution, the need to zoom in and out, and the time it takes for documents to load all make it difficult to navigate efficiently.
I’d really appreciate any advice or strategies for handling the case studies more effectively. This section has been a major obstacle in my path to licensure, and any tips would be incredibly helpful.
Thank you!
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Do the case studies first and take all the time you need. I spend 5-10 minutes on a case study question if it's a hard one. I'll flag and come back if I still can't figure it out after 10 min. Once you have the case studies out of the way the standalone questions feel like a breeze. With this strategy for ppd & pdd I finished the exam with about 90 min - 2 hours remaining.
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Thanks for the advice!
Sometimes it's hard to grasp what a question is really asking, even when I have enough time. Occasionally, a question is either overly simple or too vague, which makes me second-guess myself—like I’m missing something or misinterpreting the way it's being asked.
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That sounds more like a standalone question or a pro practice question. In my experience for pdd, it's less about parsing the question. And more about knowing how to find the answer. An example of a pdd question would be something like.. "The owner changed one of the rooms' occupancy to B. Name the two doors that need to have their fire rating change."
First you need to look at the plan. Ok, this room is connected to 3 different occupancies. Then you need to look up separated occupancies in the IBC. Ok, 3 out of 4 doors need to be rated. Finally, you look at the door schedule. Oops, one of them was already rated correctly. Now you have the answer.
This is why it can take up to 10 minutes. If you need additional material I highly suggest paying for the arequestions.com ppd & pdd bundle.
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Oh yeah one more thing I've noticed. When I take the case study portion first the documents load faster. I think the test program might get bogged down or something when you already have 75+ stored answers. The 2 exams where I took the case studies at the end, the computer was really slow and I was afraid the program would crash.
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Wow, these are great tips! Your example helped me intuitively understand how a case study problem progresses and why it could take longer in case of challenging question.
I didn’t think case studies were a big deal at first, since every problem has the same score and only about 20% of case studies didn’t seem worth the extra effort. But now I realize it’s almost impossible to reach a passing score without doing well on the case studies.
I’ve always done case studies at the end, so I didn't realize it, But now that I think about it, I recall even regular problems loading time more slowly after around 60–70 questions. I really appreciate your help, and I’ll give AreQuestions.com a try.
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