IMPOSSIBLE pick 3-4 questions in 5.0

[vrcat25]

There were numerous "best guess pick 3-4" MC questions. I would say almost half of the MC were those type. I understand that this is a regulatory test, so shouldn't questions be less subjective and have more direct answers? I had hoped that 5.0 would have less of these type of questions since i'm better with code, technical, practice or environmental type questions. Anybody else run into these and have a strategy to answering them? I've watched a bunch of Black Spectacle's vids and i think Mike Newman is really good with analyzing and explaining these type, but the question NCARB has are very different and more debatable.

[sb84]

Have you even gotten you're results yet? You've written 3 posts pretty close together stating exactly the same thing. You e said that 5.0 sucks. Got it. But I've also heard that 5.0 Is great. Just seems like you are complaining about something that you do t even k ow if you did good or bad on yet. I know many tests that I walked out of thinking they threw curveballs at me and it was material I didn't even study but still passed. All I'm saying is wait till you get you're results before blasting how unfair the test was. With that said, I hope you enjoy your Memorial Day and I do hope you passed this one

[vrcat25]

Actually, all 3 posts were different. Maybe you should read a little closer before criticizing. I'm not trying to be rude, but I was actually trying to find out if anybody else had so many "pick 3-4" type questions?? Do you have anything constructive to share on this sb84?? Most people would love to here what kind of questions to expect. Sure, i'm venting my frustrations with the subjectivity of the questions, at the same time...As far as if I pass or not, that doesn't change the fact that there were ambiguous and subjective questions. I think it's ridiculous when people complain like i'm doing and then turn back around if they get lucky enough to "make the cut" and pass and say "5.0 is great". It's not great...it's a very poorly programmed and written test and for those people who are considering transitioning or taking PPD, I would urge you to consider and actually read what i posted. It might actually help and know that NCARB will consider feedback for 5.0 questions.

I hope you enjoy your Memorial Day too sb84. We grilled out steaks yesterday and will probably do the same today. My plan is to keep working on my growing list of over 50 questions and see if i can find any info on how to answer them if they come up again if i have to retake PPD and when i take PDD. Not having much luck due to obscurity, but actually enjoy these "easter egg hunts"..Not to mention how rewarding it will be once i'm done and have my license after jumping these last two poodle hoops...Anyhow, cheers to you too. Try to have a beer or 2 and relax sb84. Don't let me get you all riled up.

[sb84]

Very hard to get me riled up lol. I wasnt trying to be critical, just stating that ALL these tests are curveballs and your going to get questions that there was no way to prepare. As you know, I stayed in 4.0 bc i was hopefull that it was easier to focus on one study area , rather than multiple areas that 5.0 offers. That works for me, but wont for everyone. I know your trying to help out the 5.0 test takers, and im sure it is appreciated. Vent away. Everyone, myself included, vents after these tests. But ive learned, pass or fail, i take it and move on. Sucks but we'll all get to the end eventually. No beers here today, crappy weathe plus my last test on the 10th, so Structural material all day/night. Keeping positive you get some welcomed surprise and get a pass regardless. Keep up the good fight.

[vrcat25]

Haha! Was only joking...The only thing i'm drinking today is coffe and tea, lol...Best of luck to you for SS...I have a PDD test the week after next and am hopeful that i'll be a little more prepared and a little better at the hoop jumping. My new strategy is to move right past the WTF questions and write them off as throw aways...At least that way, i won't waste time on them. Anyhow, take care and happy studying to you too sb84.

[rwwon]

I heard a quote recently given by the Dalai Lama.

"“If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it's not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.”

I've done my fair share of grousing on this site about the injustices of the ARE, but in the end, nothing about the exams changed, so I have to adjust my out look. Hang in there and don't worry about the things you can't change, and focus on the things you can. Above all, stay positive!

[vrcat25]

I heard a quote recently given by the Dalai Lama.

"“If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it's not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.”

I've done my fair share of grousing on this site about the injustices of the ARE, but in the end, nothing about the exams changed, so I have to adjust my out look. Hang in there and don't worry about the things you can't change, and focus on the things you can. Above all, stay positive!

Nice quote, but the Dali Lama never had to take the ARE exams did he? j/k.... I'm entitled to at least a week of grousing right??

[gbalaka]

Here's one thing you need to know about these exams. There are a bunch of questions on there that are not graded and my guess is that it's the WTF questions. I've taken all 7 exams in 4.0 and those questions are always there and always will be there. For that reason, I really don't stress over them and just answer with my best guess. I'm not really sure whey they have these questions on there - perhaps to trip you up...i'm not sure. I always go through the test and answer all that I can and flag and answer the weird and odd questions.

HOWEVER, one thing I can tell you is that after each exam, i would look up the WTF questions (that i can remember) and figure out what the answers was. And those are the questions that remember coming out of each exam. It's like saying "Do you really expect me to know such and such from the IBC????". Well, now i know. lol

I remember watching an NCARB video awhile back about the 4.0/5.0 transition and they basically said that it's the same bank of questions (maybe a few extra here and there). The biggest difference being the elimination of the vignettes (which i actually liked a lot).

Best of luck on your future exams.

[corbismyhomeboy]

I got quite a few of these on 4.0 BDCS, BS, and SS. And yes, THEY BLOW. I was so thankful for the pop up message that said 'you have chosen too many' or 'you have not chosen enough' because yeah I never choose the right number of answers. As far as strategy goes, I would say look for the most obviously wrong/right answers as a first pass, and then try to narrow down from there. Often times, the most obviously wrong and right ones will help you mark out one and check one, then you're down to the remaining to figure out. (A few I had I didn't know for sure the 3 I checked were right, but I knew 100% that the ones I marked out were definitely not.) Then with the remaining choices I try to think in terms of an ordered list, like if I had to put the remaining in order from most correct to least correct, how would I do it? Then choose the ones that are 'the MOST correct' because the ideal actual correct answer may not be a choice!

Also I've noticed, and maybe this is just on the tests that I had, that sometimes you'll get a question, and 20 questions later, they'll be a different question that inadvertently answers the first question. I had that a lot on my SS exam. Like 'which one of these components would you use for this type of detail' and then later a very similar detail showing the correct component. Good job NCARB.

[vrcat25]

I understand that there are "trial questions", but I had over 50 ambiguous questions. I have been on a wild goose chase digging thru, ballast, MEEB, AHPP, etc. and have only found a couple answers, but the rest i'm sure I won't find because they are hypothetical questions made up by NCARB. What's funny is that people have indicated that they had basically the same question with missing info. It turns out one of the people had to retake and finally passed PDD after there 3rd attempt. What's a real shame is that our licensure relies on the competence or incompetence of people that make up some of these questions. For me, I failed and I'm convinced that it has to do with the low standard of quality control. i wouldn't be surprised if it takes NCARB years to remove the questions and from my experience with 4.0, they will just add new questions that are just as bad or worse. At least with the vignette's, they were not left open to interpretation. Thanks for the good wishes of good luck gbalaka. It looks like i'm going to need it just as much if not more for 5.0. Take care and I do appreciate your comments.

[vrcat25]

I got quite a few of these on 4.0 BDCS, BS, and SS. And yes, THEY BLOW. I was so thankful for the pop up message that said 'you have chosen too many' or 'you have not chosen enough' because yeah I never choose the right number of answers. As far as strategy goes, I would say look for the most obviously wrong/right answers as a first pass, and then try to narrow down from there. Often times, the most obviously wrong and right ones will help you mark out one and check one, then you're down to the remaining to figure out. (A few I had I didn't know for sure the 3 I checked were right, but I knew 100% that the ones I marked out were definitely not.) Then with the remaining choices I try to think in terms of an ordered list, like if I had to put the remaining in order from most correct to least correct, how would I do it? Then choose the ones that are 'the MOST correct' because the ideal actual correct answer may not be a choice!

Also I've noticed, and maybe this is just on the tests that I had, that sometimes you'll get a question, and 20 questions later, they'll be a different question that inadvertently answers the first question. I had that a lot on my SS exam. Like 'which one of these components would you use for this type of detail' and then later a very similar detail showing the correct component. Good job NCARB.

Thanks Corb. It's nice that you can relate even though you took 4.0. The big problem i have is that there are even MORE questions like that in 5.0. I also use deductive reasoning and by process of elimination and am able to narrow it down. Unfortunately, some of the possibilities were too similar so it ended up being a 50/50 chance that it was the one answer or the other. Although 50/50 is better than 20% or 25%, it's still not very good odds and I hate having only a 50% chance for 20 or more questions. My nightmare has come true and 5.0 is worse and MORE ambiguous than 4.0...I will get over it eventually and there's nothing i can do now than keep studying and retaking these last 2 tests until i get lucky enough to have a better pool of questions. I honestly don't think that any study source or seminar will help me with the hypothetical questions that NCARB created. The illustrations were also very bad. I wish i had one good thing to say about this test. I guess the good thing would be there's only 2 instead of 4 tests if i would have stuck with 4.0...

[sb84]

did you get your results back?

[vrcat25]

did you get your results back?

yeah, FAIL. I haven't really narrowed down my list of 50 bad questions either....Not trying to complain, but need to know how i'm going to respond if the come up again...The problems is most of them are impossible to study for because they are "pick 3-4", "pick a crappy illustration" or a case study where the owner changes his mind in the middle of the questions...Not sure if just that question is based on him changing his mind or the previous and follow questions, since they are reliant on it!! Man, these tests are terrible. Not sure how to proceed and study for something when NCARB creates imaginary questions with missing or ambiguous info...

[gbalaka]

I understand that there are "trial questions", but I had over 50 ambiguous questions. I have been on a wild goose chase digging thru, ballast, MEEB, AHPP, etc. and have only found a couple answers, but the rest i'm sure I won't find because they are hypothetical questions made up by NCARB. What's funny is that people have indicated that they had basically the same question with missing info. It turns out one of the people had to retake and finally passed PDD after there 3rd attempt. What's a real shame is that our licensure relies on the competence or incompetence of people that make up some of these questions. For me, I failed and I'm convinced that it has to do with the low standard of quality control. i wouldn't be surprised if it takes NCARB years to remove the questions and from my experience with 4.0, they will just add new questions that are just as bad or worse. At least with the vignette's, they were not left open to interpretation. Thanks for the good wishes of good luck gbalaka. It looks like i'm going to need it just as much if not more for 5.0. Take care and I do appreciate your comments.

I'm curious to know if NCARB actually creates the exams. I'll be taking the California Exam soon and I know that CAB (California Architects Board) hired an outside consultant who specializes in creating exams to create that exam. I'm curious is NCARB does everything in house or if they also hire consultants.

You would think every question that goes on an exam has been looked at by several people to see if they're hard to understand and so on and so forth. Standard quality control you know.

Sorry to hear you did not pass the exam. No matter how much info you read out there, you can never truly prepare for the questions that come up on these exams. But I certainly see your point of view. I understand your frustration - I've been there and it sucks. Don't give up - you've worked too hard to get where you are today. Just keep pushing forward.

[vrcat25]

Thanks GBALAKA! I will definitely keep pushing forward!

As far as whether they make exams, yes. They may hire consultants, but that's no excuse for the lack of quality control. I've had some very bad experiences with a vignette and quite a few questions in 4.0 and I'm pretty certain that they have been in circulation for years. They didn't even accept feedback and you just had to hope that they were trial questions...It appears that 5.0 has bad questions too and i've already found numerous people who are unhappy with many questions on 5.0 ppd exam. Instead of just looking at test rates, they need to look at individual question and i'm very happy that they accept feedback for 5.0. I really hope they take a close look at the feedback that i'm going to send them and that anybody else sends, but i'm not sure there's a way to tell that they are doing this. I can't say whether the CAB system is good or not, but i can say from first hand experience that the ARE tests are lacking in objectivity, programming and even common sense. It's almost as if they hired some architects off the street to make the questions. Even somebody who specializes in making test would do better than whoever is currently making the questions on the ARE. I'm VERY curious about whether they take a look at questions that have a very high "miss rate" or do they just look at the overall rates and cut scores? I'm also curious about the pass/fail rate for PPD and i can't wait to see it when they finally publish them this summer. I have a feeling it's going to be lower than any of the pass rates in 4.0 and will be surprised if it's not.

[corbismyhomeboy]

Really good points vrcat and gbalaka! I'm curious to know how long they let questions fester on the exam (with candidates so unhappy) before they retire them. I mean I had one that was so completely obscure about a real project that happened in the 1980s - not a hypothetical project. How the eff would I know that?! It was clear to me that it was just one of those oldies (but unfortunately not goodies) that had been around for way too long. Like a candidate from the 1990s would probably know the answer, but I certainly wouldn't.

[Coach]

Really good points vrcat and gbalaka! I'm curious to know how long they let questions fester on the exam (with candidates so unhappy) before they retire them. I mean I had one that was so completely obscure about a real project that happened in the 1980s - not a hypothetical project. How the eff would I know that?! It was clear to me that it was just one of those oldies (but unfortunately not goodies) that had been around for way too long. Like a candidate from the 1990s would probably know the answer, but I certainly wouldn't.

That's related to history or concepts. If I had to guess, I'd say that the project in question was related to eminent domain and the question/answers probably alluded to it.

[corbismyhomeboy]

Really good points vrcat and gbalaka! I'm curious to know how long they let questions fester on the exam (with candidates so unhappy) before they retire them. I mean I had one that was so completely obscure about a real project that happened in the 1980s - not a hypothetical project. How the eff would I know that?! It was clear to me that it was just one of those oldies (but unfortunately not goodies) that had been around for way too long. Like a candidate from the 1990s would probably know the answer, but I certainly wouldn't.

That's related to history or concepts. If I had to guess, I'd say that the project in question was related to eminent domain and the question/answers probably alluded to it.

Nope coach. It was a "what was the scope of this certain project?" I picked the one I thought most logical due to its site. I actually got it wrong. Come to find out, my firm did a report on said project shortly after its completion which is how I discovered the correct answer.