ARE 5.0 PcM Pass - Study Resources and Tips


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I almost can't believe it, but the screen at Prometric confirmed it, so I'm not going to dispute it...
I passed my Practice Management (PcM) on the first try. I have been studying on and off for this exam since May last year, but I only started studying intensely for this exam since around November.

I worked full time, and organized for lunch time study sessions, where I would often be the only one to show up. I mostly studied after work, since I am not a morning person, and haven't given up my night owl lifestyle since architecture studio. Just this week (wish I had found it earlier), I found this very informative NCARB forum post that helped give me a structure in terms of what content I should focus on, and making sure I truly understand the study materials.

My major motivator in looking for study materials was being very cost effective. I couldn't afford to pay for a lot of fancy programs, so I just checked for the best free or cheap resources based on online and forum reviews.

To pay it forward to people like me who were desperately searching for study materials and methods for passing the exam, here is what I used.

Updates

  1. I've moved! I can now be found on rmsmstudio.com, and all my blog posts, including this one, are being posted on that site. So if you're looking for additional reviews, tips and stories about my ARE journey, you can find them all there.
  2. I've created a free one-page study guide capturing the key points of this blog post, focusing on passing the PcM exam. If you are interested, you can get your copy here
  3. I will also be hosting a free live webinar on June 20, 2020 at 1PM EDT, Using Digital Tools To Study For The ARE. In this webinar, you can learn about tools I used to pass this exam and ways to study more effectively. You can get more information on this event here, or you can register for it now here. Make sure to register in advance. 

Books

Architects Handbook of Professional Practice - a critical resource and I have a separate post on my major key in terms of this resource for those taking PcM as maybe their first exam, and are wondering what materials they should focus on. The main AHPP reading guide I used was the one provided by Kevin Griendling, AIA, from Pluralsight, which I found on the NCARB forums! (more on those below) It would be pretty accurate to say that AHPP was the main physical book resource that I got for this exam. Luckily my firm had a copy in their library, so I didn't have to shell out the big bucks! I normally aimed to read about 4 sub-chapters per day, for example, sub-chapter 1.1 to 1.4 in one evening. This worked for me as I'm normally a fast reader, and I can finish a sub-chapter in around 30 minutes.
Price: 
AHPP: Free for me.

Contracts 

NCARB said that they only covered the B101 and C401 contracts in the PcM exam, but because people kept saying there was alot of overlap with other exams, I studied the A201 and A101 as well, but less exhaustively.
My method for the contracts was:
  1. Reading through the all actual contracts above at least once
  2. Tatyana Aksamentova's Contracts Study Guide
  3. Rewriting the contracts in shorthand as described in Christopher Richardson's NCARB forum post
  4. Go through, and ideally redraw the AIA Contract Relationships Diagrams
Price:
Contracts: free on AIA website
Study Guide: free
Contract shorthand: free
Diagrams document: free

Digital Resources

Quizlet - Michael Riscica and many others highlight the importance of flash cards and I agree! But! I feel like I am losing time writing by hand when I could be studying! And I type much faster than I write! Solution? Quizlet! It is the fastest way for me to create simple and customizable flash cards decks, with many different functions. Also usable in a mobile format which is very handy. I will be writing a longer post on my flash card studying techniques, but here you can find the decks I used:
  1. Financial Equations with Targets Deck - most critical and helpful! I walked into the exam really knowing this information!
  2. AIA Contracts Deck - Also very critical for ensuring you KNOW the contract numbers, and you're not just guessing. There are other, even more comprehensive decks for contracts, with more contracts types, but for PcM, I think this one covered the essentials.
  3. ARE 5.0 Practice Management Deck - A great resource covering terms across all aspects of PcM including some financial definitions as opposed to strictly equations.
Price for all decks: Free

NCARB Forum - Just this week (wish I had found it earlier), I found this very informative NCARB forum post that helped give me a structure in terms of what content I should focus on, and making sure I truly understand the study materials. The forums are a really great searchable resource, and I recommend that you use them when you have a specific question in terms of the best way to study specific types of content. Trust me, you're not the first to ask. There's no such thing as a dumb question! Some of the Forum Posts I found the most helpful were:
  1. Tatyana Aksamentova's Practice Management Study Guide
  2. Tatyana Aksamentova's Financial Ratios Study Guide
Price for Study Guides: Free

Schiff Hardin Lectures - A very important resource, that I forgot to mention in my initial release of this post was the Michael J. Hanahan, also known as Schiff Hardin lectures for AIA Contracts. These are a great resource for getting a refresher or deep understanding of the AIA Contracts, specifically the B101 and A201, for someone with lots of industry experience. These recordings can give great examples of how a particular article would play out on a real construction project. These audio recordings of his actual classes on these contracts and additional talks on risk, liability, tort, and the construction industry in general are a helpful resource. According to my productivity tracker, I studied this specific resource for at least 16 hours, normally listening during work or on long commutes or trips. 

Practice Exams

Designer Hacks PcM Exam - A very useful resource which came in highly recommended. These questions are much easier than the exam, but I mainly used them as a resource for testing my gaps in knowledge, and didn't really focus on my actual scores. They give explanations for why the answer is right, but not why the others are wrong, which can be a significant limitation. I liked the variety of formats, from short Pop quizzes to long Practice Exams, which helped concentrate my studying based off the time I had available. 
Price - My office policy only allows one study resource purchase per person, which is normally a physical book, but instead I requested that they purchase the DesignerHacks Practice Exam Package for all 6 exams. So another Free for me! *Tip* Look into your office policies on ARE practice material sponsoring and see if you can consolidate resources for multiple tests into one. 

Walking the ARE 5.0 Practice Exam - Do yourself a favor and get this exam. I did not purchase it until the day before my exam, and I feel like I could have done even better if I had. This exam comes the closest to the ARE in both the complexity and depth of the questions, and the actual exam format with the Case Studies. This is a must buy. It will give you a really good understanding of your knowledge gaps in applying the financial ratios, and the concept of time management. This is a must buy! 

Price: $39. This was the only study guide I actually bought, and it was completely worth it. I recommend it highly.They are also currently running a promo! Use the code"homestudy20" to get 20% off all Walking the ARE 5.0 practice exams. I've also posted a separate review for this material on my new blog.

Time Tracking Software

Productivity Timer App - This was the first time tracker app I used. It became critical for me to understand how much time I was putting towards which resources, and which I needed to spend more time on. My major driver on this exam was reaching 100 hours in study time, and this app was a big help in keeping me on track. The interafce is fun, and gives you levels to acheive and acheivements, similar to DEsignerHacks, but this one is a bit more tongue in cheek, with levels such as Unrepentant Slacker (where I unfortunately spent most of my time). Some of the limitations of this app were the limited number of projects you could use, and it tries to discourage you from clocking time shorter than their allocated sessions (adjustable, but stays the same after you set it). Very handy in that it's on your mobile devices and can take it anywhere and see your progress.

Price: Free version that I used, there is also a premium version if you need greater functionality.
Productivity Timer App Interface

Clockify Website - This is what I ended up using after the Productivity Timer App, due to the added flexibility of time tracking. This tracker is what I normally use for staff time tracking, but if I figured that this could work easily for tracking study times. It allows you to input time that you've studied, or just setting a timer with your specific study resource selected. I will be making a detailed post with how I studied with this resource, but you can also check out my study status screenshot below,
Clockify Project Status
Price: Free

Resources I Did Not Use

Ballast Review Manual - I bought this textbook first actually, based off of many recommendations all over the web. However, with a measly 3 chapters dedicated to practice management, I basically did not look at this book once since I started studying seriously. I am anticipating it being much more helpful for other exams that it covers more in depth.
Black Spectacles - Lots of bad reviews for their program, and their videos are looong. They put a lot of time into their materials, but I need a more condensed version.
Pluralsight - mostly positive reviews, but not enough for me to pay for it.
Brightwood - bad reviews in forums and Young Architect website
AEP - expensive, and not enough positive reviews to purchase
Amberbooks - If I fail 1 test, I may invest in these, or maybe for the more technical exams, as structures was a long time ago for me.
Young Architect Bootcamp - If I fail more than 4 exams, I will invest in the bootcamp, too expensive for me right now
Young Architect Academy - I did not have the funds to get it in time for this exam. I will be investing in this for my PjM exam, along with the contracts course.

In Conclusion, I hope you gain some value from this long winded post. I just hope someone gets some value from my methods. If you have any questions, throw them in the comments. For now, I'm going to bed, and starting tomorrow, I'm gonna start studying for PjM.

ARE 5.0 PcM Study Guide

I'm have a one-page PDF guide to the Practice Management Exam, capturing the main ideas of this very detailed blog post in one place. This one-page document efficient and easy for you to strategize how to approach this exam using my study method.

The ARE 5.0 PcM Study Guide is now available for only $10 here:

Comments

  1. Thanks for this post! Can you please share your version of the shorthand contracts? Thanks

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi, the method I used for the short hand contracts was the same one used by Christopher Richardson, which I found on this ARE forum post: https://are5community.ncarb.org/hc/en-us/community/posts/360037880173-PCM-Pass-First-Try-What-I-studied-for-2-months

      "If you want to really study the contracts I recommend:
      Printing the Draft versions and read through it
      Making a short hand version paragraph by paragraph - what is this really saying vs all the lawyer words
      Write word for word key clauses like Indemnification or the basic services
      Study this short hand version"
      Hope this explains it, the way it will be written will really vary from person to person, based on their personal understanding of what a particular clause is trying to say.

      Delete
  2. Thank you for this blog. I'm approaching late middle age and am starting my push towards licensure. I need all of the support and insight I can get and your approach is refreshing, streamlines and inspiring. Congrats on the PcM pass!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're welcome, I'm glad you got some value from my post and all the best with your exams in the future!

      Delete
  3. Excellent write up and congrats on passing PcM! I took this exam yesterday, but sadly I have failed :(
    I've been using the AHPP as my main source for studying, along with the AIA contracts and other supplemental documents recommended by NCARB. I am also subscribed to Black Spectacles and have been scoring pretty high on the practice exams (89%), but the questions were incredibly much easier than the real exam. I will be taking some (if not all) of your advice on preparing for the re-exam.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sorry about your results, but all the best on your next exam! To be honest when it came to practice exams, I did not check my scores at all. I used designer hacks practice questions, but almost no practice test will ever prepare you for taking the actual exam. The only exception might be the Walking the ARE exams by Erik Walker. I have a link to it above. Focus on ensuring you understand the concepts, and maybe the amount of hours you put into studying, over any practice quiz results. This is also because ARE exams vary in difficulty, so you may end up with something much more challenging than anticipated. Let me know if you have any questions and best of luck!

      Delete
  4. Hi,
    In the screenshot you provided of clockify (thanks by the way) it doesn't show how you spend all of your time. It would be really helpful for me to see the entire breakdown of time. I have already failed once and I want to make sure I spend time doing the right thing.
    Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi, yes, I am planning on creating a separate post for Clockify, I will post on both the NCARB Forum and within the ARE Facebook Group when I do, and I'll respond to this comment as well :)

      Delete
    2. Hey, I didn't forget about your request, I will be hosting a free webinar on June 20, 2020 at 1pm EDT on how I used the digital tools mentioned in the blog post to track my time and organize my study materials. The event information is here: http://rmsmstudio.com/2020/05/31/live-webinar-using-digital-tools-to-study-for-the-are/

      Delete
  5. Thanks Rama! I've been using Black spectacles to study for this test and recently failed my first Attempt. And just browsing some of the items you've posted, the gaps in the information that i was studying is kinda obvious. ill be taking another crack at in 60 days using some of the resources and techniques you've suggested

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hey, thanks for this awesome guide. This might be a long shot, but would you mind sharing your information for walking the ARE? I'm taking the test next week and I'm a little tight on money. Is it a PDF or is it a website that you click through? Please let me know, and thank you again!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi the walking the ARE exam is a PDF that can be bought through erik walker's website. Here is the link: https://gumroad.com/l/WTARE50PcM It is both one of the most comprehensive and one of the cheapest practice exams honestly, so if you were gonna make an investment in any practice exam, I would go for it, as early as possible.

      Delete
  7. Great study guide. Used this and passed PcM saturday. Thank you for your help.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Awesome, so glad to hear it! All the best with your remaining exams!

      Delete
  8. I came across this post a couple weeks ago and it really helped me narrow down my resources as I was running out of time and drowning in material. I will also add what helped me a TON was the young architect academy course, I absolutely recommend if it is in your budget. I purchased the bundle for PCM/PJM/CE & Contracts, and just personally, videos are much easier to digest than reading everything although of course its critical to read the handbook and contracts. The exam was definitely super challenging but I took it this past weekend and passed! Thank you so much for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Also, your link to the Schiff Hardin Lectures is no longer valid but I did come across other links where people have saved them:
      https://archive.org/details/hanahan-schiff-hardin-professional-practice-lecture-series-2019/Lecture+07+-+AIA-B101+-+Part+2+-+Owner-Architect+Agreement.mp3

      https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1G1wiKIPsfqUZQd_PHI7r3Di2QLjUd0Ti

      Delete
  9. Thank you so much for this post!. I was reading all the AHPP and finally have a guide of the topics in the exam.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Great article. As the world continues to change, I hope to see the day where “working from home” becomes the norm in the US.

    ReplyDelete
  11. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete

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