by thd7t » Wed Dec 06, 2017 9:09 am
Hi,
I took the PA exam a week ago. Case studies are a challenge, but they are more in line with architectural practice than other portions of the exam. However, for PA I found that the case studies were almost never testing the material. They were more like puzzles. You had to know where to find information, how to appropriately cross reference various documents, and how to distill information. I had a few calculations in my case studies, including one that I had never even researched, but all of the information was in the supplied documentation..
The best resource that I found for case studies was the online ARE 5.0 practice exam. It gave a great idea of which tabs would be available and what the limited code resources would be. I took the practice exam several times and would look up the answers on the 5.0 forum while taking the exam. This gave me an idea of where there might be conflicts in the presented materials and I think was instrumental in my passing.
The case studies for PA are only about 20% of the exam, so I suggest doing them last. I know there might be an advantage to having "code research" available during the exam if you do the case studies first, but they are a small portion of your score overall.