by mariop294 » Tue Oct 24, 2017 9:57 am
I never thought the day would come but I got the word last week that I passed my last exam PDD on 10/16/17. I started the exam process approximately 4 years ago but don't be scared because for two years life intervened and I had to put a pause on my testing. So technically speaking it took approx. 2 years for me to complete my exams which is average. Year One was all about passing SPD, CDS, SD, PPP. The last 3 exam of 4.0 was BDCS, BS, and SS which I could not pass for one reason or the other. The vignettes for BDCS was killing me in particular the roof, BDCS I would come close based on the grading but I must have missed it by a couple of questions and SS was forget it. So when the option to transition to 5.0 came along it was really a no brainer for me. I was happy because it meant going from 3 exams left to 2 exams but a different format. I took PDD and PPD and failed each one, this was very demoralizing. I put in at least 150 hours of reading and practice taking in each time. The tool that turned it around for me was PPI exam prep book. At some point I decided that I had read enough and I should only do practice exam questions and be rested for the test. That was a good decision on my part because I got through the exams with plenty of time to spare to review at least 40% of my answers and change my responses accordingly. I was relaxed and felt that I knew a lot of answers but still were a few WTF questions. In either case I'm done and happy and grateful to all who post to this forum. I recommend the Ching books for construction illustrated and codes illustrated. Read the AIA contracts and do the NCARB practice test. I also used ARE EXAM PREP audio series - I'm a full time working parent so that was priceless to me. Use PPI formerly known as Ballast. Don't give up, its never too late, hang in there, I went thought a lot of FAILS to get to my PASSING grade!