PPD/PDD study material

PPD/PDD study material

Postby anonymous283 » Mon Nov 12, 2018 12:02 pm

I currently have access to the follow study materials for PPD/PDD:

Kaplan 4.0 BDSC, BS, SS = 750+ pages
Ballast 4.0 = 500+ pages
Ballast 5.0 = 1000+ pages
Architectural Graphic Standards, 11th edition (student edition) = 560 pages
Mechanical and Electrical Equipment for Buildings, 11th Edition = 1800 pages
Building Codes Illustrated = 480 pages
Fundamentals of Building Construction = 1000 pages
Building Construction Illustrated = 480 pages

I plan to start by doing all kaplan 4.0 material while also skimming through Building Codes Illustrated, Building Construction Illustrated. Then before taking an exam I will review the exam's chapters in ballast 5.0. That leaves me with ballast 4.0, which I'll only use for the questions, Architectural Graphic Standards (do I need to look at this or is Building Construction Illustrated about the same thing), Mechanical and Electrical Equipment for Buildings (this book is huge what parts should I study?), and Fundamentals of Building Construction (again is this necessary or is Building Construction Illustrated about the same?).
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Re: PPD/PDD study material

Postby thd7t » Mon Nov 12, 2018 1:48 pm

Almost all of studying for these two exams depends on how much experience you have and how broad that experience is.

First, don't start with Kaplan. Start with the review questions in the ARE manual on NCARB's website. Get an idea of the topics that the tests cover and where you're weakest. Also, try to get a copy of the ARE 4.0 manual. It has good, free questions. Pretty much the only thing to use Kaplan for is the questions. Because Kaplan is organized by topic (mechanical, plumbing, soils, etc.), you can use those questions once you've drilled into your weaknesses. However, don't study from there.

Second, depending on how much experience you have, you'll probably be able to look through Building Construction Illustrated and Fundamentals of Building Construction for the areas you don't know so well. I needed more practice on types of bricks and mortar, for example, but didn't need to learn about steel connections. Page through both those books. They cover a lot of the same material, but in a different order and each in their own way.

Third, only study code if you don't do much code work.

Fourth, do a search on this site (probably in the Building Systems forum) and you can find a short version of the best parts of MEEB to study. However, you can get the Architect's Studio Companion online for free and it has the info you need for the exam. Also make sure you read FEMA's earthquake document.

Fifth, I had Ballast 4.0 and found its PPP and SPD sections quite useful. They're short, so it's not a bad time sink.

Finally, page through AGS. It's a good book and if you're not too familiar, you'll probably find stuff that will save you time for the rest of your career.
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Re: PPD/PDD study material

Postby anonymous283 » Wed Nov 14, 2018 6:58 pm

Thank you for the reply and I'll heed most of it but I like to start with Kaplan because I find it the easiest to study and get into the topics. That being said, since I want to take PPD and PDD close together, I jumped right into SS kaplan and was overwhelmed by the math which they do a pretty poor job of teaching. I know for PPD this math might not show up but for PDD should I be comfortable with the math found in Kaplan's 4.0 SS study guide?
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Re: PPD/PDD study material

Postby thd7t » Thu Nov 15, 2018 7:22 am

If you prefer to start with Kaplan, start with BS and BDCS. They have much more of the critical information. Structural is really minimal on both exams. I barely touched the SS material that I had. The best reference for the structural portion was FEMA's seismic document.

You are making a really good decision to take these exams close together. I took them a week apart and it worked for me.
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Re: PPD/PDD study material

Postby anonymous283 » Fri Nov 30, 2018 3:04 pm

So I'm studying for both still which is why I'm going through kaplan 4.0 BDCS, BS, and SS (I have studied other things in the meantime). You passed PDD without studying SS material from ballast or kaplan? It took me 6 days total to finish BDCS and BS - I'm on my 5th day studying SS and I'm barely through chapter 5 which is maybe a third of the way. The math is insane - I am basically self teaching myself how to be a structural engineer. There are about 100 different formulas I've come across not listed in the tiny structural formula (4 total) section in the ARE 5 study guide. Do we really not need to know any of these?
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Re: PPD/PDD study material

Postby thd7t » Mon Dec 03, 2018 6:30 am

anonymous283 wrote:So I'm studying for both still which is why I'm going through kaplan 4.0 BDCS, BS, and SS (I have studied other things in the meantime). You passed PDD without studying SS material from ballast or kaplan? It took me 6 days total to finish BDCS and BS - I'm on my 5th day studying SS and I'm barely through chapter 5 which is maybe a third of the way. The math is insane - I am basically self teaching myself how to be a structural engineer. There are about 100 different formulas I've come across not listed in the tiny structural formula (4 total) section in the ARE 5 study guide. Do we really not need to know any of these?

You definitely need to ignore any formula that's not in the ARE 5.0 study guide. For structures, you should be able to do really simple truss analysis, determine reactions on a beam, and maybe calculate moment of inertia of a section. Don't overdo it on formulas. More important will be things like how lateral and seismic loads would impact a building with different materials or frame types. Also drop slabs, 1 way and 2 way systems.

This is actually an area where 5.0 makes sense. They deal with structural issues that would have architectural implications. There are light calculations, but you should not be learning to be a structural engineer. Ballast and Kaplan go way too far into the weeds on this and are not the best use of time.
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Re: PPD/PDD study material

Postby anonymous283 » Sun Dec 16, 2018 4:27 pm

So I have 4 days left to exam day and I have studied kaplan bdcs, bs, and ss until the chapter on earthquakes, ballast 5.0 ppd, construction illustrated cover to cover, every single lesson and practice test question from kaplan, ching, and ballast's bdcs and bs - are 3.1, 4.0, 5.0 related bdcs and bs questions too - at least over a thousand questions. I then skimmed MEEB and couldn't handle how dense the info was - just too much for me to bother with. I also know building code pretty well so didn't bother looking at building code illustrated. I didn't find studio companion to be that helpful at all and I have sun wind and light but haven't looked at it. I will skim through design standards if I have time. I didn't find jenny's notes very good at all - I liked carolina's much more but she doesn't have any for these exams. I now still have to review all my test questions again and try to memorize key terms - still am quite confused on the refrigerator process and how its intergrated into other systems (I've research this from 4 sources and still don't really get it). I gave up trying to study PDD or SS material more because there's just too much info and I'm already forgetting what I studied a month ago.

Is there anything I should study in the last 4 days that is crucial and I missed?
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Re: PPD/PDD study material

Postby thd7t » Mon Dec 17, 2018 6:29 am

Look at the FEMA earthquake design guide. There are two chapters about seismic design that are useful, but they're solid gold.

Watch youtube videos for the refrigeration cycle. Also, for three phase electricity if you haven't. I found them to be clearer than any other source on these.

Architect's Studio Companion had two useful things for me. One is the diagrams and descriptions of the types of mechanical system and the other was the super basic span table. I didn't even try looking at MEEB, but this gave me what I needed. I also didn't look at Sun Wind & Light, so I don't know if it's useful.

I'd take a little time to choose parts of Building Construction Illustrated that you haven't worked with as much. I spent some time reviewing masonry (types of brick and block and mortar), because I've always counted on masons for that.

With four days left, this is a pretty light amount of information, so you should have time for other recommendations.
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Re: PPD/PDD study material

Postby anonymous283 » Mon Dec 17, 2018 7:55 am

Do I really need to study the earthquake stuff for PPD - I thought that would only come up in PDD? And know spans of different construction? Spans vary greatly so it would be a lot of info to remember
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Re: PPD/PDD study material

Postby Anob » Mon Dec 17, 2018 8:14 am

anonymous283

Can I ask how long it took you to go through all that material?
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Re: PPD/PDD study material

Postby thd7t » Mon Dec 17, 2018 9:09 am

anonymous283 wrote:Do I really need to study the earthquake stuff for PPD - I thought that would only come up in PDD? And know spans of different construction? Spans vary greatly so it would be a lot of info to remember

I found the earthquake information very easy to take in and useful on both PPD and PDD. The span table I referenced is about a quarter page and also provided answers for both exams. You're looking at under an hour of time to review both of them.

I only recommended them because they're low hanging fruit, but you never know what your exam will have.
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Re: PPD/PDD study material

Postby anonymous283 » Mon Dec 17, 2018 11:27 am

Okay thanks for the info but the Designing for Earthquakes, A Manual for Architects, FEMA 454 is a 400 page document - not sure how I'll read it in under an hour. There isn't a summary of this somewhere or the most important parts to read? Kaplan has a super dense section on this in SS - I might check out ballast first
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Re: PPD/PDD study material

Postby thd7t » Mon Dec 17, 2018 12:49 pm

Well, when I studied, I did a cursory web search and found that chapters 4 and 5 had the information that you need on this. These chapters had large numbers of photos and diagrams.

Don't use Ballast or Kaplan for this. Believe it or not, the FEMA document is easier and clearer.
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Re: PPD/PDD study material

Postby anonymous283 » Tue Dec 18, 2018 2:50 pm

Should I brush up on PPP and SPD with caronline's notes? I really don't want to but if this test is that broad I might have to as I don't remember much after passing them in April.
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Re: PPD/PDD study material

Postby thd7t » Wed Dec 19, 2018 6:04 am

anonymous283 wrote:Should I brush up on PPP and SPD with caronline's notes? I really don't want to but if this test is that broad I might have to as I don't remember much after passing them in April.

SPD would be helpful. I don't think there's as much PPP there, but I might be misremembering. I didn't review either of them before my PPD/PDD tests.
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Re: PPD/PDD study material

Postby anonymous283 » Sat Dec 22, 2018 3:06 pm

Anob wrote:anonymous283

Can I ask how long it took you to go through all that material?


Sry didn't see this - took me 120 hours to study all that
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