So I logged onto NCARB this morning and saw that I had passed! I had all about convinced myself that it'd be a fail. This was my second test so I'm 2/2 right now. I can breathe again and move on to BS.
Anyway as far as thoughts on the test go, I walked out feeling ehhh. Didn't know if I felt good or bad. The questions were about on par as what I expected, and the calculations were pretty basic. The vignette was pretty on par with the NCARB practice.
Study wise I took 2 months to pace myself. I set up basically a syllabus in Microsoft Excel of what I would study each week and day. Obviously this was altered multiple times throughout because you can never account for real life. Honestly, if I hadn't done this it would have been much more difficult to stay focused and motivated.
I started out with the Thaddeus videos (took two weeks to go through these, taking notes). Next I began reading FEMA and B@R, both were pretty dry and I needed the audio of the two to help get something out of them. I also read 'Why Buildings Stand Up' (basic overview of structures) and 'Why Buildings Fall Down' by Mario Salvadori. These two books were really great to get a feel for earthquakes and wind. They basically give you historic case studies on what happened before modern day reinforcing was brought forth. Both are easy reads, and I got them for about $6 a piece used on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/s/?_encoding=UTF8 ... lias%3Daps
I also read through Mike's Notes and Jenny's Notes a couple times to get an overview of information. Both were helpful. Having access to only one practice test, I broke down and spent the $60 for the EqUALS program. I HIGHLY recommend this and wish I would have done it earlier in my study process.
Here is a break down of what I studied:
-Week 1: Thaddeus Videos
-Week 2: Thaddeus Videos
-Week 3: ....work and reality took over
-Week 4: FEMA, B@R, Jenny's Notes
-Week 5: 'Why Buildings Stand Up' & 'Why Buildings Fall Down', Vignette Practice
-Week 6: EqUALS questions all week, Rewatched some Thaddeus videos at 1.5x speed to relearn the problems
-Week 7: Jenny's Notes and Mike's Notes, Vignette practice, Equals questions
-Week 8: Test
I have read a few posts about people taking practice tests and getting low percentages correct. Honestly when I first started working practice problems, I was only getting about 30% correct. I think the best I got was 50-60%, so don't get discouraged if you aren't blowing the practice problems out of the water! Just focus on understanding basic concepts and applying them to different situations!
I gained a lot of confidence from reading previous posts about study habits and test experiences, hope I was as helpful as possible with this post. And goodluck to everyone else taking on SS!