Study Materials
Content-First
I’ve helped more than 10,000 people pass the ARE, and I’m ready to share some insights. The key to passing these tests? No surprise: learning the material. Of course, there are test-taking tricks, both general to test-taking and specific to the ARE that can help at the margins—and I’ll cover those in future posts on this thread—but the quickest, surest path to licensure is in owning the content. For most of you, that will mean a good deal of studying. This will be more fun if you are curious, but for both the curious and uncurious, if you are endeavoring to pass these exams, I encourage you to approach them with a measure of gusto, because owning the content—really really really knowing it—is more fun than trying to memorize a test item that was on your last failed attempt (and unlikely to show up again). And truly understanding the subject matter will both make you more likely to pass and will make you a better architect.—Michael Ermann (You'll want to follow this thread if you are studying for the exams)
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Where does the vapor barrier go?
Water moves through the enclosure in three different modes: as rain, as humidity coupled with air through enclosure air leaks, and as vapor that moves slowly through the molecules of the solid building material. Keep these three modes separate in your mind; people often confuse the last two.
Vapor control - Moisture moves (slowly) through many building materials at the molecular level. Old thinking (and the A.R.E. thinking still, sometimes): block all vapor from entering assemblies. Correct thinking: throttle vapor so that it doesn’t diffuse into assemblies in abundance, but allow vapor migration when it helps dry out a waterlogged assembly. Avoid designing two vapor-impermeable layers inside the same assembly because that traps water (rain control layers that seal, such as membranes and fluid-applied rain barriers, are also vapor impermeable). Warm air holds moisture that will condense when it hits a cold surface it can’t move through, so if the climate is clearly always hot or always cold, take the easy win and place the vapor control layer close to the insulation, on the warm side of the insulation. --Michael Ermann
You'll want to go here.
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This exam was designed to be failed. The CEO of NCARB is also the CEO of LineUp- the tech company that has seen exams crash for over a year and done nothing about it. There are a few people on both boards. They have to disclose their nonprofit salaries, but not their for profit salaries. Michael makes 450k ALONE from NCARB.
So sure! Read the posts above. Do everything you're supposed to do but also realize that your failure is Michael Armstrong and senior staff's success. So they don't want you to pass.
They have now decided to take your hands away too because that's more profit for them. You are not allowed scratch paper and pen for "security reasons" but in actuality using a mouse and a whiteboard to fail gives them two revenue streams off of your failure than a pen and paper so the pen and paper had to go.
Sign the petition. Contact your local AIA. This deserves real consequences. There should never be a THOUGHT to taking a person's hands away from them- especially an architect
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