PA Pass (2nd attempt) & FINISHED with testing!
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Congratulations Jenn!!! You worked really hard for this. Excited to send you a YA GOLD medal!
Michael Riscica - The ARE Boot Camp
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Congrats Jennifer! PA IS a tough exam. I took it last, and passed on the first attempt. It was a great feeling!
To ARE candidates... Please BEWARE, "THE ARE Facebook Group" is NOT ASSOCIATED WITH THE ACTUAL EXAM OR NCARB IN ANY WAY. It's part of the marketing arm of Young Architect. The deception of the name needs to be addressed by both Facebook and NCARB. Many ARE candidates have been removed from the group for mentioning other products or disagreeing with its owner.
FYI, if you are being compensated, or given promotional gear or something in exchange for mentioning Young Architect (or amber book) on social media or it is being contractually demanded, it violates US law to not disclose that in your post. I find it very curious that there are many similar threads (promoting both YA and amber book in the same breath) littered throughout this site with similar wordings.
I highly recommend paying extra and getting a PAPER certificate from your state with your architect license # to frame. Hang it in your office or home. It's so much better than a meaningless faux medal. NCARB will also send you a paper certificate if you get NCARB certified, and you can frame/hang that too.
Rebekka O'Melia, NCARB, Step UP, Step UP ARE 5.0 Courses
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Here you go, Rebekka. I corrected your post for you. See below:
"Congrats Jennifer! PA IS a tough exam. I took it last, and passed on the first attempt. It was a great feeling!
To ARE candidates... Please BEWARE, "step Up ARE 5.0 Courses" is NOT ASSOCIATED WITH THE ACTUAL EXAM OR NCARB IN ANY WAY. It's part of the marketing arm of Step Up. The inflammatory remarks of the organization need to be addressed by the owner, Rebekka O'Melia. Many ARE candidates are about to be forced to listen to my personal opinion about a product that I fear is better than mine.
(removed)
FYI, if you are being compensated for mentioning Young Architect (or amber book) on social media or it is being contractually demanded, it violates US law to not disclose that in your post. I find it very curious that there are many similar threads (promoting both YA and amber book in the same breath) littered throughout this site with similar wordings.
(end removal)
I am growing a little curious about the frequency of posts specifically promoting Amber Books and Young Architect. Is there a watchdog person or committee at NCARB who is investigating this sort of activity? If not, would anyone else wish to form an independent third party group to investigate?
I highly recommend paying extra and getting a PAPER certificate from your state with your architect license # to frame. Hang it in your office or home. It's so much better than a (removed "meaningless faux") medal. NCARB will also send you a paper certificate if you get NCARB certified, and you can frame/hang that too.
Rebekka O'Melia, NCARB, Step UP, Step UP ARE 5.0 Courses"
I hope my corrections were helpful, Rebekka. If you wish to publicly lambast an organization that is doing great work for the benefit of the architectural community at large, do your research first.
All the best to all the candidates out there using any ARE study products.
Kevin Griendling, AIA
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Miko, I do not plan on selling my Amber book. I have marked it up and torn out pages throughout my pro practice journey. Besides, I think their online videos, flashcards and Beta tests are where I learned the most and that subscription is on an individual basis. There are groups you can join for a larger discount. Feel free to message again below if you need further guidance to that.
Rebekka, Thanks for the congratulations! I understand the facebook group is not the official NCARB forum, which is why I posted here. These forums are where I go to first when aligning myself with prepping for an exam. It has been a helpful arena for me that has helped allow for open discussion of a majority of the primary source material as well as supplementary products. I used Black Spectacles for Pro Practice exams (PJM, PCM & CE) while working with a firm that reimbursed for 2 months worth per test. I used it as default due to this company policy and felt the practice exams helped enough for those tests. When I moved onto the technical exams, I did not feel Black Spectacles was sufficient for me. Every candidate must assess for themselves their learning style and preferential content and when approaching the technical exams. I feel the options of primary materials and test prep materials can be overwhelming (which is why I've only posted my experience for the technical exams). I heard about the Bootcamp from a colleague by word of mouth. She merely stated that if she was to try and tackle the technical exams again, she would have taken the Bootcamp due to hearing other people's experiences. Just to clarify, I was NOT paid for any of the posts I have made endorsing ANY material. Amber book, Young Architect and Eliff's questions were just super helpful in helping me pass the technical exams the 1st (PPD/PDD) & 2nd (PA) time around, so I wanted to share with other candidates what I think helped me the most. I also used hyperfine, WeAre, WalkingARE, Ballast, designer hacks and read a ton of primary source material. I am looking forward to recieving my license, but it does seem to take some time to get that special sheet of paper.
Kevin, Thank you as well for your course on Pluralsight. It helped as a broader overview when first introducing myself to the material. I was fortunate enough that Pluralsight was having its free month at the start of my Bootcamp.
Hope this doesn't add to any tension between test prep providers but provides some clarification to the commentary above. The number of options and content for preparing are immense and I really appreciate the effort all the providers put into that content. Just hoping that sharing what helped me will also help other candidates. Best of luck to those still testing!
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Lol. I find this post hilarious. Can we not just focus on passing the exams. Who cares how people get there. Great Work Jenifer. I passed PA yesterday too. I can honestly say the Amber Book is awesome. I only studied the Amber Book for PA and I passed the first time. All the material they covered was spot on in preparing me for the exam. The 40 minutes of competence are great, they're on Youtube. I watched some of the key ones again and again. Anything site-related came up in the exam.
Just to be clear it hasn't been plain sailing for me. I failed 4 exams so passing at least one exam the first time was a huge relief. I now have 4 done with just PPD and PCM left.
I did use the Black Spectacles Practice exams as they helped me get used to using the whiteboard, time, and layout. The Amber book’s only downfall (they can’t be perfect, I mean they nearly are) is that they only have 1 practice exam for each topic but their exam is so much better. Michal gives a detailed analyst of each question and all the answers. This is where Black Spectacles falls short of the mark. When you get an answer wrong they just reference a book that might be a few hundred pages long. They do have 3 practice exams per division which are great for the case studies as they vary the material so you can cover different topics.
Everything in the Amber book flashcards is spot on for this division. Study them and you should have no issue passing the exam. I would also adopt Michael’s approach of studying for them all at once. It’s working really well for me. -
No, you pay for the whole course but they have flashcards for each division, which are almost a book in themselves. They also have panic notes that show what part of the course you should study for each exam so you could try and do it that way. I found the flashcards so helpful and their youtube videos which you don't need a subscription to access but need to sign up to get the link to the videos as you can't search for them as they are not listed
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Congratulations!
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