Final test passed. PDD is a beast!
Hi there ARE community,
Firstly, thanks for all your help over the last 4.5 year marathon. I am extremely grateful for this community’s help along the way.
Secondly, PDD is a beast. I passed, but I have never felt worse after an exam. Holy moly.
A quick summary of study stuff I used:
Amber Vids: a great way to get back into all the topics. It’s surprisingly enjoyable.
Ballast Prep: Almost all PDD prep stuff. Did the practice problems by chapter first, reading chapters where I really was rusty on the questions. Some of the PPD material as well to brush up on costs/budgeting. Did the practice exam as well.
Ballast 4.0 prep: I went back to my old CDS and BDCS flash cards and worked with those. Also dug up the 3.1 Building Systems and BDCS Archiflash. The building systems 4.0 guidebook is pretty good and still applicable.
Building Construction Illustrated: Read the foundation chapters, skimmed chapters 3-6, thoroughly noted chapter 7 & 8, skimmed 9-10, read 11 thoroughly, skimmed the rest. The light section is good for Zonal Cavity Method.
Building Codes Illustrated: reread 4, 5, & 6, read 7, 10, 29, skimmed the specific materials and interior finishes chapters.
AGS: skimmed lots of this behemoth. Elevators types, foundations, and almost the whole “Enclosures” chapter. They have a decent primer on vapor barrier location, but the building science website (https://www.buildingscience.com/documents/digests/bsd-106-understanding-vapor-barriers) is the most comprehensive.
AHPP: Construction Doc Chapter (9?) and Project Specification chapter. The terms glossary in the back is also useful.
MEEB: just went through this looking at all the diagrams for HVAC, electric, Plumbing, lights, etc. Worthwhile, but heavy.
Watched as much free black spectacles as I could find. All the old 4.0 and the newer 5.0. Structures 4.0, BDCS 4.0, CDS 4.0, PPD, PDD, CE, BS 4.0
Dug up some old sets to look at consultant symbols.
In addition to the ballast practice tests & flash cards I did the PDD DesignerHacks practice tests. I found them to be a little light on intricacy but useful to solidify knowledge. I also made new flash cards along the way and did those every so often, usually trying to put the questions into my own words to make sure I understood what was happening.
This is a hard one to study for, it’s so broad. Acoustics, Lighting, some structures, seismic, thermal (K, U, R value and their effect on assemblies), construction systems, materials, details. Vapor barriers!I honestly spent a bunch of time copying details.
The biggest surprise for me was time management. I really screwed it up. The case studies really eat time up, plus the classic “LOADING” screen for minutes at a time on the resources screen. Making a strategy for how you want to allot your time is well advised. Each question is weighed the same so that should factor in. As should waiting for stuff to load, it’s really frustrating.
Another thing to know: Prometric (does the whole country use that same center?) gets super busy around the holidays, so cut your break time short to make sure you’re not stuck in line to check in while your test is restarting. Yowza.
Couldn’t be happier to have this milestone behind me.
Hopefully this is useful to someone, I can also be reached at k.ranieri88@gmail.com if there are other questions that come up.
Thanks ARE community
Katherine
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Congrats Katherine!
Glad to hear you have gotten over the hill! PDD is my last exam as well, and I have already taken it twice (albeit I've passed some other tests since I last took PDD. I have some questions I would like to ask and see if I can get some insight into the best way to approach this exam for the third (and hopefully last!) time:
How many times did you take the test before? Was this your first attempt?
Did you feel that some materials were better in terms of what you saw on the exam? I have a friend who recently passed PDD and he said that he felt like AGS and BCI were what got him through (also on his third attempt).
Did you feel like you knew the content on the exam, or did you feel like you had to do a lot of guesswork? Do you think what you studied helped you gain sufficient knowledge to answer questions?
I recently ordered AGS, BCI, and Olin's Construction to see if these will help out with details, construction methods, etc.
Again congrats! Best of luck moving forward with your license and career!
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Sorry for the late response Taylor. I think that Amber followed by BCI was very much the base layer for everything else. AGS is a behemoth but has a lot in it. I think i spent like an entire day just looking through it. Having basic understanding of the concepts behind most systems maybe useful so that you can analyze complex issues but stay clear headed about what they are actually asking. Yes to guesswork, always feels that way to me. I did feel like i learned a lot studying for the test, Amber, BCI, codes illustrated, and AGS were really useful because they are so visual.
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