Yes! This suggestion isn’t based on a deep-held conviction, but rather sprouted organically from the emails I’ve received from folks who took the test right away–and from sad emails from those who waited. In other words, we’ve had lots of people email saying they wish they’d taken their exams closer together, lots saying they were glad they took them together, and very few saying they wish they’d taken them further apart.

We suggest you study for all your remaining exam divisions at once and then take them all at once as if it was a single test given in six parts. That said, some Amber Book enrollees choose to study for one exam division at a time, and we support that too.

Yes. The Amber Book course covers all of ARE 5.0.

No.

NCARB redistributed exam content in the 5.0 exams to better align with how a project flows through an office, rather than how content was taught in school broken up by topics relevant to all six exam divisions.

There is a ton of overlap in the 5.0 divisions and they cover a wide breadth of information, PPD and PDD especially. These are the main reasons why the course is broken up by broader topics that are relevant to all 6 exams. See our study matrix below for the breakdown.

One month is the fastest you could go through the course, though that would be an intense month and could not happen concurrent to a full time job. Average enrollment lasts about 3 - 4 months. Once you sign up, you can use the 16-week suggested study schedule or the 8-week suggested study schedule to help you establish your study cadence.

If you’re already enrolled in the course, you can reach out for a 20 Minutes of Quick Start session with Julie, a licensed architect who’s also one of our content creators to develop a study plan just for you! You can schedule a session with Julie or email her at Julie@amberbook.com.

We prioritize content based on “yield.” To calculate the yield, we not only consider the content of the exam, but also how much time it would take you to study that content, how familiar you are likely to be with that content already, and how many questions related to that content are likely to show up on your exam.

We are actively committed to keeping the course relevant. We’re always adding content and we monitor the course daily for opportunities to improve your learning experience.

Yes, we have a practice exam for each division.

Yes, lots of case studies. Thirteen of them.

Yes, when you gain access to the course you’ll find the form to request a hardcopy of the 375-page illustrated workbook. At that time you can also download a pdf version of the workbook.

Our ARE 5.0 workbook includes a small portion of the overall content in the course. The workbook is intended to act as a companion to the animated videos, and I recommend watching the videos with the workbook (which is almost 400 pages and is heavily illustrated, comes free with the videos). If you are interested in purchasing the workbook alone, without the videos, email us at info@amberbook.com. The cost is $90 (free shipping).

Again, we don’t recommend the workbook alone. Think of your favorite college class. Amber Book course is like that, and the workbook is like the textbook for your favorite college class.

Yes.

Each of the exam divisions, with the exception of Practice Management, requires access to all, or almost all, of the videos. Having fewer exams doesn’t mean that you’ll need access to less content. That is the nature of the extreme content overlap between divisions in ARE 5.0. See our Study Matrix.

Of course if you have fewer exam divisions remaining, you may require access to the course for fewer months, so you may pay less with fewer exam divisions to study for. That said, PPD and PDD are the two most comprehensive exams in 5.0 so for these two especially you’ll want to review everything. In other words, all of the content covered in the course could show up on either exam.