PASS

Site Zoning Vignette and Multiple Choice

PASS

Postby yup1961 » Mon Mar 27, 2017 10:13 am

Hello everyone,
I passed PPP recently and thought I'd share my study strategies. The test was a toss-up, and I felt like none of the questions were even on the same topics that I studied. There are some things here that people said would definitely be on it, so I read books and stuff and then it never showed up. This test is like your friend pulling a box of posicles out of the freezer and having you guess which one the're going to pick. It's a wild guess, but you try to guess based on their personality, eating habits, and most recent popsicle choices. That's the best analogy I can come up with.

Anyway, here's what I did:

Primary source(s):
Ballast. I read it over and over again until I knew everything (SPD section too). It's a good outline, but there's a huge discrepancy between it and Kaplan. I had originally read the first half of Kaplan and thought it was too fluffy and quit. The last week of studying I read through the last half of Kaplan once and was glad I did.

Secretary of Interiors standards: Good to read the major definitions at the start of each chapter and skim the rest. Ballast doesn't go into enough depth. Just know the differences between the four.

Problem Seeking: I read the first part and got the point so I stopped.

Defensible Space: First part and stopped. Arguably I should have read the whole thing because I kept getting those questions wrong on the practice tests, but I passed so whatever.

Practice Tests:
Kaplan and Ballast. Neither is like the test, but going back and looking at both correct and wrong answers and why they are correct and wrong helped solidify what I wasn't strong in, or something that may have just shown up in one sentence but was important. I think I scored a 70% once (30 question increments) but basically hovered around the 50's and built my way up into the 60's.

Vignette is easy but their software is terrible. I accidentally moved one of my guidelines and caught myself. Double checked everything fast at the end but was running low on time. Write it all out word for word on paper so you don't have to flip back and forth or transcribe something in short hand wrong. Really, the biggest hindrance to this thing is the software... literally anyone in business school could do this.

Honestly, I was so mad at this test and was like 90% sure I failed.
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Re: PASS

Postby drfmpower » Wed Apr 12, 2017 1:07 pm

Is that Defensible Space, the original by Newman, 1973 or the new one Creating Defensible Space, 2013?
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Re: PASS

Postby vrcat25 » Fri Apr 21, 2017 4:46 pm

So you are "the one"! ;)
Seriously though, I have seen many people recently say they failed but very few who have passed PPP. Thanks for admitting how difficult it was. I think many people are complacent because they get a lucky test or get just enough of the questions right that they pass and don't admit how ridiculously difficult this test is. The pass rate has been very low in recent years and it's impossible to say how many of those people took this test multiple times before they finally passed it. Thanks for sharing your insights! It's pretty apparent that the rest of us feel the same as you and there's way too many obscure questions that aren't in any of the study material I've read and I've practically read everything on PPP. Where do they get these questions?? SURELY not from registered architects...
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