by eoanna » Fri Jan 06, 2017 6:14 pm
I would say about a month and a half. Gather materials, breeze through it all and then go back to focus on topics you didn't totally grasp. Focus on the concepts, no need to memorize equations or specifics.
I went through Kaplan 4.0 on BDCS, SS, BS. I thought ARE prep for 5.0 was not too helpful, but got much more out of Ballast for 5.0 (including the integrations chapters in PDD).
I also bought the MEEB book and used alkikats guides for BDCS and BS and used those as my reference guides throughout as it is a great collection of diagrams.
I took the NCARB 4.0 quizzes from their study exams, too and the NCARB demo exam for 5.0 to get a feel for the exam. There isn't much out there to prep for the case studies besides what's in the demo, so maybe go through those and time yourself a couple of times. About a week and a half before my exam I took the Kaplan 4.0 exams, Ballast 5.0 exams and ARE prep exams.
As mentioned in previous posts, there is NO tutorial before you take the exam, you just jump right into it.
I flew through the multiple choice, marked questions that looked like they would take much time, looked over the case studies, took my break, got back to the case studies, then to all the incomplete questions, then went back and got through about half the marked questions before time ran out.
Good luck!!