Passed the ARE. Tips, tricks, and things people don't talk about.

Hello everyone,

Received my final pass of the ARE last week and I'm officially done with the ARE. Grateful to everyone who posted advice and thoughts on best practices for taking the exams. I wrote a post with my advice last year after passing 4 out of 5 during a week of consecutive testing. Although I'm biased, it is a worthwhile read. A few key takeaways:

1. Study using Amber Book and just stick with that. Here is the spreadsheet where you can sign up for a group discount. I can't recommend Amber Book more highly. I promise, this course is a godsend.
2. Attend 40m of Competence every Thursday on Zoom by Amber Book.
3. Find whatever ways you can to ENJOY the material you're working through. Don't think of the exams as boring and painful. It only makes studying that much worse. Think of them as challenging and well worth the effort of putting in the time.
4. Failing is not a bug, it’s a feature. But don't try to fail—learn the content, own the content.
5. The overlap in exam content is a real thing, even though there are six different exams. Treat it as one big test.
6. Study for all the tests at the same time, then take them all at once.

Everything above are the bullet points are from Michael Ermann at The Amber Book, and bullet points which admittedly I mildly scoffed at when I began taking the course because my self-confidence was not in a great place. All of that changed though.

Some other advice people don't generally talk about on here:

1. Exercise daily. Run. Yoga. Group fitness. Whatever works for you. You're much more likely to remember and recall tons of information by getting good exercise on a consistent basis.
2. Get good sleep. Also good for long term information recall. Intermittent 10m mindfulness meditations are great also.
3. Schedule the exams in advance and don't reschedule them.
4. Create a study plan and stick to it. Here is an example of the one I created in Airtable.
5. Listen to the Michael Hanahan lectures and go through the contracts point by point until things make sense. This should supplement your studies while taking the Professional Practice section of The Amber Book.
6. Create a behavorial pattern in the weeks leading up to the exams. Call me crazy, but two weeks prior to my exams, I started doing 5am group fitness classes, doing my morning duties until about 7:30am, then beginning studying and/or taking exams around 8am (the same time of all of my prescheduled exams). I did this daily for two weeks and by week three when I was taking five exams in a 6 day period, having this pattern established was absolutely critical.
7. Don't tell anyone you're studying except for an accountability buddy. Keep quiet, do the work. Pass your tests, then shout it from the rooftops if you want.

Happy to answer any questions about my personal experience with Amber Book or any of the details above. Have a great rest of your week and happy studying!

Skyler