Which one to take next, PPD or PDD
Hello everyone,
I am done with 4 exams, with PPD and PDD are left. On November 2025, I failed PPD (score 498), and I decided to take a little break on studying since it was holiday season and realistically I was not able to spend time on studying that time. On January 2026, I took PA and passed, and after that I got back to studying on PPD and PDD. I read here that there is a lot of overlap between PA and PPD but that was not the case for me, I got a lot of structural questions (formulas, diagrams, etc.) and seismic questions in PPD. NCARB PPD practice exam was also not very close to my actual experience (practice exam score was 73 back then).
- I have a company provided Amberbook subscription which was my primary source for all exams, and it generally worked actually, until PPD fail.
- Now I am trying to fill the gaps and feel like I needed to study more on seismic, structural and MEP. So after I went over Amberbook 2 times, and failed PPD, I changed my study sources a bit and taking a look at MEEB, ASC, FEMA 454, and graphic standards. I will look at Amberbook flashcards again after studying these.
With the information given above, should I try PPD again since I recently passed PA, or should I try PDD first and then PPD? And any other suggestions/comments on the study resources methods mentioned above?
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Hi Lisacy,
Know that a 498 is 4, at most 5 questions from passing. 50% of all exams taken have a score that falls within 4 questions either side of the cut score question - so you didn't fail PPD, you just didn't pass it. The big blue fail at the upper right of your score report is misleading - if you've passed 4 exams with no retakes, you're already doing better than the average. With an average pass rate below 60%, only about 2% of examinees will pass all 6 divisions the first time - don't let this one break the pace you've had that has been successful four times already.
PPD has 100 questions - but pulls from a pool of about 1000 topics - practice exams give you a sense of the way questions are asked, but can't possibly represent the full range of topics you could be tested on. Know that it is relatively unlikely you'll see the same topics focused on for your retake too - with a score around or over 500, you should spend the majority (75+%) of your time reviewing the topics you already understand, so that you don't lose the knowledge you have now on the very-likely-to-be-covered topics before your retake.
If you have the time, PPD and PDD both test on close to the same pool of 1000 topics - there's at least a 90% overlap. Questions are asked with a different focus for those two exams, but the things you need to understand to have a good chance of passing either are very similar. You'll likely see different topics on the tests when you take them, but that's just because the exams each only have 100 questions - and by the time you test on ADA ramps a couple of times, and egress dimensions a couple of times, you're left with about 975 topics and 150 questions for the two exams - not a recipe for seeing many of the same topics repeated from test to test.
I would not put off your retake much beyond the 60-day waiting period - our brains are leaky buckets, and the longer you wait, the more work you'll have to refill the bucket to replace the topics that dripped out in the meantime.
Best,
Ralph, the Amber Book Team
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