by chandrab » Sat Apr 01, 2017 9:03 pm
Thanks for your response arearcher, sorry for the late reply. I failed the exam because I failed the vignette (level 3 fail). I passed the other portions. And honestly I walked out feeling as if I had studied for an entirely different exam than the one that I took. Did you take it? Pass?
I haven't taken any other exams in 4.0, just the ones that I took and passed and that expired in 3.1, years ago:
CDs, Building Tech (which included the building section), Mech and Elec, Materials & Methods
The study materials I used for 4.0:
(for second attempt I am adding in "Professional Practice: A Guide to Turning Designs into Buildings", seems like a good overview)
-NCARB booklet: quiz and vignette study
-NCARB practice software vignette on their site (I only did it once, that was not enough. Practicing this thing until you can do it in your sleep is advisable)
-Ballast (read very thoroughly once and made full notes, but skimped out on ANSI/ADA (and there were a number of ADA questions on my exam)
-Ballast quiz (read answers very thoroughly and took some notes...sometimes I thought I was right and they were wrong)
-AIA contracts (thoroughly read A101, A201 and B101, skimmed the others)
-Schiff Hardin lectures (listened to sessions and took notes on A201 General Conditions and B101 Owner-Arch, and listened partially to a few others at random. These were absolutely crucial to understanding contracts more fully-- why and how--and useful to have around when it was hard to focus on reading)
-Caroline's notes (reviewed but didn't really get into the project management style stuff)
-Jenny's notes
-AHBP (I skimmed through this but it is so massive I really did not get into it)
-"The Life of a Project" visual map, good overview but outdated with the old CSI Masterformat (the one I grew up using)
Others:
-ARE in a Flash PPI ARE (cheap flashcard app for my phone, actually pretty helpful in conjunction with the other stuff)
-ARE Advisor CDs vignette e-book (helpful but not remotely the same as actually practicing doing the vignette...that software is a dinosaur and dreadfully slow)