PDD Pass

Recently passed PDD, my second last exam (PPD is last). Since there are so many posts listing studying resources, I'll just highlight the few that I felt were really useful, since I probably took a look in everything (MEEB, Olin's, AGS, etc) for one thing or another.

1. Elif's ARE Questions. Her questions accurately represent the level of detail on the exam.
2. Karin's notes: https://arevisuallearning.gumroad.com/#DnOkN 
I felt extremely lost on what to start studying, and this was a tremendous help as an overview of topics I needed to know.
3. Mehta's Building Construction, Principles, Materials as my main textbook for architectural topics
4. Architect's Studio Companion for MEP/Structural
5. Building Codes Illustrated - Ch. 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, just to get to know where you can find stuff, though if you aren't familiar with code at a high level it'd be good to read as well. 

Since the exam is so broad in scope, but so detailed in questions, and you don't know what set of questions you will get (I had no seismic questions, but a lot of questions on wood grain/species that I literally didn't know the answer to), I think it's good to plan for some time to just browse anything available on related topics from websites/youtube/etc to get maximum exposure to information, which may come in handy since no textbook will cover everything. 

And a tip for studying - focus your attention on the specialties or differences between things (ex. brick is the only material (out of the main ones like wood, cmu, steel, etc) that expands irreversibly with moisture). Due to the nature of multiple choice, it's likely you'll be able to exclude one or two choices even if you don't know the answer.