2nd CE fail, last remaining exam
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With your other exams passed, it will be helpful to focus solely on CE and construction administration items, responsibilities, reading through the relevant CA contracts and G-series AIA forms. Know your project delivery methods, who is responsible for what, when it's appropriate for a change order vs CCD vs minor change. AHPP/Wiley guide are good resources to circle back on for CE information and A201, as well.
As for the % correct, I would utilize it more as a gauge for the content areas to focus on or areas to improve on, and what areas you're excelling at or should be less study intensive, for the next attempt. What questions were hard to process, what topics did you struggle with, what answers/options were unfamiliar, and try to culminate it all into the next round of studying.
Good luck!
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Ching's Code/Construction books would be good to add for knowing construction details, clearances, slopes, etc. I'd say they are more supplementary than primary, as AHPP and AIA A201/G-series documents are the core pillars for this exam. CA experience also helps to have to be familiar with terms but that's more situational.
Any and all practice questions/exams you're able to find and use. Walk The ARE, ARE Questions by Elif, all mock questions and exposure is helpful. NCARB practice exams are key, if you're not already utilizing them, so you understand the questions, wording, verbiage, and relevant answers you may find on the next attempt.
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Hi morooster,
That passing candidates % correct column is extremely misleading - I have yet to figure out how it is useful and I don't know why NCARB includes it. It shows the average score in each section of all the candidates who passed. 30% of exam divisions taken pass by 0-4 questions (that's not 30% of exams passed are passed by 0-4, that's out of all exam admins), so you're averaging a few people who passed by a lot (that one person you know from college who broke the curve on every exam) with people who passed by very little (your classmate who graduated on time - by half a percent in their structures class). The figures in that column are usually around 7% higher than the actual cut score % correct. Given that all you have to do is pass - unlike in college, there's no benefit to passing by anything more than the cut score - and almost everyone misses at least 20% of them with how the exam is designed, know that you don't need to be anywhere near those passing candidate % correct percentages to actually get over the line.
I see a lot of people who were extremely close - in a revise and resubmit situation where they need to spend most of their time maintaining the knowledge they have - but they don't realize it and spend all of the time in the 2 months before their retake reviewing new topics - and forget a third or more of what they knew before their first attempt. If you passed all 5 other exam divisions, you're likely in that camp - what were your 3-digit scaled scores on your CE attempts?
Best,
Ralph, the Amber Book Team
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