Feeling overwhelmed - study schedule reccomendations?
I have been doing amberbook, black spectacles, desk crits, and ballasts and I feel like nothing is helping. Everytime I take a practice test it just feels like I've run into new information I've never seen or heard before! I failed ppd recently after passing the NCARB practice test, my test was NOTHING like the practice test. Feeling discouraged and like I won't pass pdd either. I feel like I'm learning nothing and am so far behind. If anyone has any study schedule reccomendations that would be great. even reccomended chapters for the other resources like BCI, MEEB, ASC or anything it would be helpful.
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I only did Amber Book and passed both. Use all the material they offer and quiz yourself repeatedly. I didn't do any practice tests, but I think I am an anomaly there since most people find those essential. Only after passing all my exams did I finally begin to read other material out of interest like "Simplified Engineering for Architects" etc. Colleagues of mine who prefer studying from a book just used Ballast supplemented with the primary sources.
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To elaborate on my previous post, I made heavy use of Amber Book’s flash cards and all the linked resources (from those flash cards). That’s actually a ton of material. I also took lots of notes (while watching the videos) and quizzed myself from those notes. I believe the flash cards and my notes were the most helpful in preparation for PPD and PDD.
I purchased other material, like the excellent book Fundamentals of Building Construction, and considered using it to deepen my knowledge, but it felt like overkill. A lot of the diagrams and charts in the book actually resembled those used by Amber Book.
Like others have said elsewhere, the difference between a pass and a fail might be down to luck. Answering a fair number of questions on these exams will always be through eliminating the obvious bad choices and then choosing among the best of the rest.
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