PASSED PDD / PPD - resources I used to prepare

I'm not going to sugarcoat it, these two exams will definitely take up a huge portion of your waking free time, so here are a few tips for how I approached this. 

STUDY HOURS: 

In total, I studied for about 8 weeks, around 3-4 hours per day, 7 days per week. There's a huge overlap in content, so I didn't think it was necessary to string it out. 

MINDSET: I found it incredibly helpful to look at these tests as an extension of my work day. Rather than looking at my study time like it was taking away from all the fun things I could be doing at that moment, I just considered it an extra few hours tacked on to the 9-5 so when I was done around 8pm or 9pm, that was the actual end of the workday. It's a small shift but it really helps when you want to do something a little bit more exciting to tell yourself you still have to "work", rather than saying you have to "study". 

Secondary Mindset: I know this will be incredibly unpopular, but you HAVE to memorize for these exams. If you don't know a LOT of facts about a LOT of material, you're probably going to have some difficulty when test day rolls around when you get hit with a bunch of fact-based questions. See below for what to use for your memorization.

RESOURCES: 

This is in no particular order, but each and every one of these resources was incredibly valuable to me.

PRIMARY RESOURCES

Elif's Questions: First and foremost, not only are her questions incredible, but she's also just a really cool person. For me personally, I never really liked reading books in school, so I wanted to take the "book-less" approach to the AREs. I figured that since her questions are really detailed, I would just screenshot the answer to every question and make flashcards from there. Because her questions are so detailed and pull from the primary resources, it was almost like I read the books by doing her questions. Doing her questions should be the first thing you do before ANTYHING ELSE. Of course, I got 0s or 10% on every single quiz, but a good score wasn't really the point. The point was to gather as many flashcards as possible and make them as short as possible that I could start connecting the dots without having to bury my face in a book. And by doing the questions, I would basically be getting double exposure, because i remembered the question, and then I reinforoce that answer with a flashcard. Essentially, Each quiz answer was a flashcard, ideally under 10 words so that it stuck. And a single word flashcard was the holy grail. For example, the front of the card would say, "what is typically the only kind of elevator that can go above 300?", and the back of the card would say, "Gearless Traction." I used this method for both PPD and PDD. Her questions are a God send, don't skip these. 

Karin's PPD / PDD cheat sheet: I would say that this is where 50% of the memorizable facts came from. She has over 10 pages of pure facts and graphs that she put together from her studies and it covers a lot of what you'll need for PPD specifically (electrical, HVAC, plumbing, structural, etc), and detailed sections for PDD as well. Just do a quick search on this forum, and download her notes. From there, turn each note into a fact. The goal is to treat the brain like a data base, where we're just feeding it more information where we can start to make sense of it in the next resource section (secondary resources).

Desk Crits: This is where the other 50% of the memorizable facts should come from. Once again, the goal was to avoid the primary books, so the way that the authors summarize facts, and even create definitions for you, makes it super easy to add them into your flashcards. 

SECONDARY RESOURCES

Amberbook: I used Amberbook for  PcM, PjM, and CE (which I'll make another post on), but for PPD and PDD, I just felt like I needed a bit more content to feel confident going into the exams than what was in the program. Not to say it's insufficient on its own, it was just a  personal thing. I would definitely still recommend having Amberbook as a resource for their PPD and PDD practice exams, lots of valuable information that can be added into flashcards. I would slightly adjust your practice exam score downwards by about 5 points here though. They test more material from their own content, which will give you a slight artificial boost in your score. However, recently, they just added two more exams which pull from content outside of the flashcards which is super helpful. Also, huge s/o to Ralph at Amberbook, if you're lost, he will help lead you in the right direction. The guy is an ARE EXPERT

Step Up Architecture: Rebekka has some of the best exam day advice that you'll find anywhere. At the end of the day, the AREs are a standardized exam and we want to squeeze as much juice out of the fruit as possible. When it's such a game of inches, having distinct strategies is a game changer. Also, her practice questions are MUCH harder than the actual exam, which is a plus when you're trying to prepare your test taking muscles.

Black Spectacles: I used their practice questions a few times here and there for PPD. I think it's solid, the way it worded questions and their answers maybe just wasn't for me. I would get so many wrong that I just kind of set it aside for PPD / PDD. But if you're looking for an interface that will help prepare you for the real thing, their practice exam interface is 1-1.

Arniko Academy: Rajan, the founder of Arniko, is a super cool guy, and he'll be there to answer any question you have about the program or even the content for that matter. I used his practice exams for PPD and PDD and would skim his content notes before each exam which was invaluable.

NCARB practice exams: These are a MUST. You should never EVER skip these questions. They are the closest thing you'll get to the real exam, and I would save these questions for last in your process to be the best barometer of where you are. Don't take this test up front, because if you do well here (between 60-70%), I would schedule the real exam immediately. 

PRACTICE EXAM MINDSETS: 

While you're trying to assess where you are in the process with these practice questions, it's important to see them also as a learning tool. Every time you get something wrong, I found really helpful to look up why I got it wrong, why my thought process was off, and what makes the right answer correct. 

Support: 

I have mixed feelings on this one. Some tell you to avoid letting anyone know that you're taking the exams due to the added pressure, which I would tend to agree with. But for me personally, it was super helpful to let a select few people know that I was going after these exams (like my pastor) and I am eternally grateful for his prayers and words of encouragement. I would try to read a Psalm every day while studying and I found it really helped calibrate the time. But other than that, I avoiding telling work colleagues for the obvious reasons. 

In conclusion: 

It's going to be a dogfight tackling these two exams, especially if you want to do it in an abbreviated time frame, but pursuing hard things is what makes this life worth living.