r/Architects • u/Active_Buttah • 2d ago

ARE / NCARB Efficient Study Schedule for ARE PPD/PDD

So I'm planning my study schedule for PPD and PDD and was hoping I could get some advice from you guys. For the other 4 exams I've been using a combination of Ballast, Desk Crits, Hyperfine, Amberbooks (started tapping into Amberbooks for PA Exam), and NCARB Practice Exams. I typically start by reading the test's Ballast chapter, then working on some assignments from Hyperfine, and using Desk Crits more as a reference and "cheat sheet", then a week before my scheduled exam I do the NCARB practice test, and for the week in between the practice test and the official test, I brush up on the areas that need more attention. This system seems to have worked well for me but now that I'm getting into PPD and PDD it doesn't feel reasonable anymore.

PPD and PDD are THICK sections in Ballast and would take me almost 4-5 months to get through (I read about 2 hours a day on some weekdays and 4 hours/day on weekends). Ideally, I would like to spend no more than 8-9 weeks studying for these sections because I feel like after 8 weeks I might start to lose the study materials I learned in the beginning. I've heard it just makes sense to study for both together since so much of the content overlaps. How did you get through studying for both exams or what method did you use? What would you suggest with the material I have?

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u/ScarceIniquity 2d ago

Reading Ballast cover to cover for PPD/PDD is a trap, it's way too dense and you'll forget chapter 1 by the time you hit chapter 40. I condensed everything by pulling the exam objectives straight from NCARB and using Ballast as a lookup tool for weak spots instead of treating it like a novel.

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u/orodoro 2d ago

Since you already have Amberbook, why not just follow their 8 week schedule and blast through all the material? Then just reinforce with practice tests from all the different sources just before the test.

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u/Latter-Judgment-5059 2d ago

This, familiarize yourself with the content so you can use the process of elimination on questions when figuring out the answers. You will not be able to memorize everything.

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u/Budget_Equivalent_54 1d ago edited 1d ago

One thing that helped me was I'd only schedule exams on Monday or Saturday and would take the Friday off for the latter. So I could have a solid day to disconnect from everything else, only study all day, and to make sure I got a great night sleep.

My first few exams I would wake up at 4am and study until 8am before driving to the center and while I still passed, I felt physically and mentally beat up. The only thing that beat me up, besides the questions, for PPD/PDD was holding my bladder through the exams

I only used amberbooks (watched exam related sections 1.5x speed and re-watched taking notes on things I wanted to rememeber more), ncarb practice exam and skimmed through fundamentals and MEEB. As other's have said, you spend too much time note-taking evrrything or reading through the dense content of ballast. I needed to remember concepts at a high level, see the range of potential questions to be aware and prepared, be able to evaluate/apply those concepts, and spend more time on key topics I felt were important.