In order to become a licensed architect in a United States jurisdiction, you must pass all six national architecture exams known as the Architecture Registration Exams 5.0, more commonly known as the AREs. According to NCARB, the average time it takes for candidates to pass all six exams is 2.5 years, from the first exam to last exam. It took me just 2.5 month to pass from the first to last exam. And if you consider the time for studying, then it took me six months from the time I started studying to the day I finished my last exam. So, how did I pass the exams so quickly?
Use AMBER BOOK!!!
Once the California Architects Board notified me that I was eligible to take the AREs, I immediately started studying. Luckily, at BIG, the firm I work at in New York, our office has a firm subscription with a third-party study course known as AMBER BOOK. Firstly, I absolutely stand by this: if you want to pass all six AREs as fast as possible, USE AMBER BOOK!!! Amber Book is an online ARE Study Prep course with hundreds of videos that cover all the content of the AREs. It is the BEST resource for the AREs because all you need is Amber Book and nothing else. I have read from blogs and articles that emphasize the importance of diversifying your study resources to succeed on the AREs. That is total BS. Just use Amber Book. It has everything you need. The point of Amber Book is that the creators of the course have already gone through all the resources out there, and they have distilled all the content for you. Which is also why the course is expensive.
But what is the alternative? Spend a whole bunch of money on various books that you may or may not be sure will cover the content of the AREs. Every friend I recommended Amber Book to has completed all the AREs within six months or fewer. Amber Book just works! If you do not want to spend the money, get your firm to pay for Amber Book! My dad got his company a firm subscription with Amber Book (also, go work for my dad: https://www.gmaarch.com/) and now all his designers are flying through the AREs. Even some of my friends got their firms to switch to Amber Book. Maybe there are better study courses out there, but Amber Book worked for me, and it has for all of my friends.
My Exam Timeline
January 2022: I started studying for ALL the exams at once, which I genuinely believe everyone should do.
April 16, 2022 (Saturday), Practice Management (PcM), Prometric, Passed. Even though my firm gives you weekdays off for exams, I scheduled all my exams on the weekend to not slow down work. For me, Practice Management was the most challenging exam, probably because it was the first exam I took. But, when I was notified that I passed, that gave me the confidence to immediately schedule the next couple of exams.
April 30, 2022 (Saturday), Project Management (PjM), Prometric, Passed. This was the easiest exam for me. If you know the AIA B101 and AIA 201 contracts well, you should be fine.
May 7, 2022 (Saturday), Construction and Evaluation (CE), Prometric, Passed. Know the AIA G-series contracts. Know the concepts of Contract Administration. And there will be Documentation (PDD) content thrown in here as well. Also, I took this exam after watching Doctor Strange: The Multiverse of Madness. And our apartment had no power due to Con Edison accidentally turning electricity off to the wrong building unit.
May 14, 2022 (Saturday), Programming and Analysis (PA), Prometric, Passed. My plan was to do PcM, PjM, and CE as one chunk. But, once I saw I kept passing the exams, I went for it and scheduled PA the week after. A lot of articles and videos say that PA is where the exams get really challenging and detailed, but I disagree to a certain extent. PA covers very basic topics, such as solar orientation and zoning. Additionally, if you are good at figuring out logic puzzles, you will be fine.
July 2, 2022 (Saturday): Project Planning and Design (PPD), PSI, Passed. NCARB decided to switch testing providers, from Prometric to PSI. As a result, there was a testing shutdown at the beginning of June where no one could take an exam. During this time, I re-studied all the material to get through the last two exams. I decided to just schedule PPD and PDD in the same weekend to get it over with. It worked!
July 3, 2022 (Sunday): Project Development and Documentation (PDD), PSI, Passed. Got the notification the next day that I passed PDD. Conveniently, it was on July 4th, so I had the day off to relax. Keep on the lookout for more ARE content!
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