Passed 6 in 9 months with Amber Book - after 25 years gap from architecture - my strategy

Last week I passed my last ARE exam and now I am done with all 6 exams, within 9 months of starting cold after 25 years of hiatus from architecture. It feels unreal. I passed PCM, PPD & PDD on first try, and PJM, CE and PA on 2nd try. A HUGE SHOUTOUT TO AMBER BOOK without which this would not be possible.

On a suggestion of my friend, I am sharing my studying strategy, in case it helps. Please take it at face value and feel free to reach out if you want to talk about any of it - ashisharch@gmail.com.

I treated this whole exam as “1-exam”. First, I built a base of knowledge from multiple sources: 

• Reviewed all the Amber book content, including all the flash cards. This formed my base knowledge. Then I supplemented this base knowledge with the content below. 

• Scanned “Mehta” book on Building Construction materials - cover to cover - This was PURE GOLD for PDD/PPD/PA, even tho Amber book covered most of it, it was super helpful to read this book.
• Used the “Wiley focus guides for AHPP” to cover all relevant topics in AHPP. This helped cover topics like quality, project management, practice management etc.
• Listened to Schiff Hardin/Mike Hanahan lectures on B101 and A201, if nothing else. Take notes. They helped me understand the nuances of responsibilities between O/A/C.
• Scanned “designing for earthquakes -manual for architects” - although this was marginal value and was already covered in Amber book, but it still was somewhat comforting to scan.
• I did not pick up any other book, but I did a lot of googling to understand non-intuitive concepts like proctor test, vapor extraction, flexural bending etc.
• I used quizzes from other paid sites and the Amber Book and NCARB practice tests to find my gaps.

While the above gave me the confidence that I had the base material covered, the actual test prep required a different strategy.

• Master Cheat sheet - I made 1 master cheat sheet in Google docs (which allows searching), with 2 sections: Technical (PDD, PPD, PA), and Business (PJM, PCM, CE). Mine got long, divided into sub-sections, but at exam time, this was the only thing I reviewed on exam day and it took me about 90 minutes. I diligently reviewed this cheat sheet before every exam (practice or real). It was extremely helpful to me as I had one doc to review and it gave me confidence that I did not accidentally leave out any concepts in this intertwined 1-big exam format. After every practice quiz, book reading, practice test etc, I would update this master sheet to make sure any new topic was included in my cheat sheet.
• Mnemonics (part of cheat sheet)- You have to memorize some key things if they are not intuitive. Create your mnemonics, in any language, whether funny or silly, doesn't matter. For me, things that fell in this section were - Spec sections, ADA door clearances, Materials interactions & nobility, Egress widths, Project types & benefits, Slopes, Sun angles, Lamp types, Types and heights of elevators, doc bundles, etc. I had about 30 mnemonics. For every mnemonic, I created a prompt and then used the mnemonic to write the answer. E.g. For the prompt - “ADA door clearances”- my mnemonic was “Push is easy, Pull is hell”, along with some numbers and I was able to write all the 6 door clearances. I spent about 30 min before every practice test and real test, answering all prompts from memory, till they were ingrained in memory. It was confidence boosting to know that I was not leaving anything out.
• Synonyms (part of cheat sheet) - Maintain an active list of synonyms as you come across them so you dont trip on a word in a question  e.g. The word “furnace” in Heat pump furnace is a synonym for heat pump, so even though the word furnace appears, there is no fire, hence no chimney. Having this list was helpful in avoiding confusion. E.g. Albedo = Solar Reflectance. I had over 30 synonyms across all 6 sections. Review them before each exam.
• Types table (part of cheat sheet) - Like it or not, you will need to know “types” of various things and their sequence, sizes, properties etc. E.g. types of soils, types of insulation, types of partitions, types of lamps etc. I had 2 “type tables”, Technical Types Table had over 70 rows, Business Types Table had about 30. Review this table before each practice test and real test.
• Lastly, I created a list of “terms” I had never heard before, as part of my base knowledge. E.g Lamella, Laitance, tag line and girt, to name a few. 

Ok, that was long but I will say that Amber Books’ guidance of “positive ambiguity” is fairly profound. Dont overthink it, just do it. The worst is only a “fail” but the best part is you know where you stand and you get to try again.

All the best! You can do it!