Prepare to Pass the LEED Green Associate Test!

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Advice provided by: Rob Freeman Jr, LEED AP, Green-Buildings.com
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I know from first hand experience that preparing to take the LEED AP exam can be a truly daunting process. When one considers the exam's various fees, all the reference material that must be memorized, add the LEED Green Associate (Part 1) exam to the mix and the LEED AP (Part 2) portion's reputed 25%-30% pass rate... some may wonder, "Why bother?"

Because it's worth it when you pass. At the end of the day, conquering the LEED AP exam gives you a great feeling because you know that you've worked extremely hard and you've earned the right to have the letters LEED AP in your professional title. I will probably never forget the feeling I had when I saw my 190 score, the elated phone call I immediately made to my wife and the relaxing walk I took through Bryant Park afterwards.

Honestly, I had almost no self-confidence when preparing for the LEED AP exam. About ten years had passed since graduate school, so I hadn't had to sit for a standardized test in a long time. Also, while my background is in real estate, I am not an architect or an engineer. So many of the concepts and terminology that had to be studied and memorized in order to pass the exam were totally foreign to me. At the very beginning, a friend of mine who was preparing for the exam first showed me some flash cards he was using to study, and I thought it was some kind of joke. I said to him, "This is what you're studying...?!? You have to memorize all of this stuff?"... but I went ahead anyway.

Once you have decided to go ahead and register for the exam, there are four important decisions that you have to make that can be a determining factor, especially with LEED v3, in whether you end up passing or failing the exam. If you fail, you'll have to decide whether you want to retake the exam (and pay more fees to GBCI), and start studying all over again or simply forget the whole thing and chalk it all up to experience.

Should I Take the Exams Separately or Together?:The first decision you have to make after deciding to take the exam is whether to take the LEED Green Associate exam (Part 1) first, on a separate date. I recommend taking the LEED Green Associate exam first, on a separate date, prior to sitting for the LEED AP exam. There are several reasons for this:

• 1. Less material to absorb:

By preparing to take the LEED Green Associate exam first, you can focus all your efforts on studying the foundational material that the LEED green building rating system is based on. You would have had to study this anyway on top of everything else, and knowing this material backwards and forwards will be helpful in preparing you for the larger task of memorizing all the prerequisite and credit material for the LEED AP exam, while giving you a greater level of familiarity with the core concepts.

• 2. You'll earn the LEED Green Associate professional credential:

If you register for the LEED Green Associate exam and successfully conquer that exam first, you will become credentialed under LEED. You will be able to use the LEED Green Associate designation professionally. Also, achieving an early "win" can be a helpful confidence booster and eliminate any anxiety that might have been present had you decided to take the two exams consecutively on the same day.

• 3. All or nothing:

On the other hand, if you decide to go for the LEED AP exam from the outset, you'll have to achieve a passing grade on both the LEED Green Associate exam (first part) and the LEED AP exam (second part), or you will not earn any professional credential. Even if you pass the LEED Green Associate (Part 1), and fail the LEED AP portion (Part 2), you still don't earn the LEED Green Associate credential. You will have to retake the LEED AP specialty exam again until you pass it before you will earn your LEED credential. If you pass the LEED AP portion but fail the LEED Green Associate portion, you will not earn a credential and will have to retake the LEED Green Associate portion again until you pass.

How Much Time do I Need to Prepare?: The second decision you need to make is how much time you need to study. IMHO, the more the better. When I registered, I gave myself a good three and a half months to learn the material. I felt this was reasonable given how unfamiliar I was with the exam concepts, the fact that my wife and I weren't getting any sleep at the time (my youngest daughter was about 8 months old) and that I had a full time job that required a lot of travel. I knew that I needed a big window and this was definitely the right move for me. By the time three months had passed, my confidence level was much higher and I had memorized a lot of material.

What Type of Study Materials Should I Use?: The third decision is what your study strategy will be. In retrospect, I used everything I could get my hands on. Again, the more the better and using a broad range of LEED study tools does not necessarily mean it has to cost more. There are free LEED Green Associate exam study materials and free practice exams for the LEED AP with specialty exams that you can easily take advantage of. As mentioned in the links above, emphasis should be placed on taking advantage of free LEED practice exams. Taking practice tests again and again was extremely helpful for me because it helped me to identify areas in which I was weak. Also, I would time myself during each exam to see whether I was able to finish the exams in the two hours available and this was useful to set a comfortable pace in answering questions.

Another free LEED AP study option that I would recommend taking advantage of are the free Teknion LEED for Commercial Interiors audio files. The audio files are recordings of online/conference call study sessions administered by Sholem Prasow, an expert in passing the LEED AP exam. I enjoyed listening to these recordings because the students raise lots of good questions about the exam and, in addition to being humorous to listen to, Sholem was very good at weeding through all the material and helping to identify what is and what is not important to know. *Note* these audio files are focused on the LEED for Commercial Interiors study material. A lot of the information provided may be helpful to you, regardless.

What to do Right Before the Exam: Finally, once you've finished preparing, you'll have to decide how to spend your time right before the exam.

When you get to the Prometric testing center, before you sit down to take the exam, the test administrator will provide you with a pencil and a blank sheet of paper. This is yours to take with you into the exam and, once you are sitting down at your terminal, you may write whatever you want on this paper before the exam. Once you get started, Prometric gives you a ten minute tutorial on how the test is formatted, how to use the testing software, how to use a mouse, etc... The vast majority (95%?) of this information is stuff you already know. Presumably, Prometric walks test takers through this information in case someone doesn't know how to use a computer or something. If you're like most people, you can finish this tutorial in 30 seconds and then you will have about 9.5 minutes to do whatever you want while the clock winds down on your computer monitor. On the morning of the exam, I prepared for this 9.5 minutes ahead of time by creating a short list of items that I was having trouble with and creating acronyms for the words to remember. When my 9.5 minutes began, I jotted this and whatever else I thought was important to remember, down on this sheet of paper. While I think I only referred to the paper once or twice during the exam, knowing it was there was a big help.