Section 3 - CLARB Recommended Reading - Anything worth reading??

[B]

I am going to be taking Section 3 for the first time in December and would like to get an idea on what (if any) of the CLARB books are worth spending the time (and money) on? Looking for some suggestions on what worked for people that took the test in August. I've read bits and pieces from other posts about different books but would like to get some additional info please.

CLARB LIST:

Landscape Architectural Graphic Standards - Student Version / Hopper

-Read several people say this was pretty general for a book called 'graphic standards' and thought it was a waste of time... should I bother??

Time-Saver Standards for Landscape Architects, 2nd Edition / Harris and Dines

-This one seems to have been a winner and ties over to Section 4, so I'm thinking it would be worth it... any thoughts?

Sustainable Sites Handbook / Calkins

-I have seen mixed feelings on this, and some have thought it was a bit too much common sense. I'm on the fence on getting this one.

Planning and Urban Design Standards - Student Version / Steiner and Butler

-Don't think I've seen a single person even mention this book as something they have used. Has anyone read this one and though it had value?

Site Planning and Design Handbook, 2nd Edition / Russ

-I bought this book since it was recommended for Section 2, but only read the 1 chapter on Site Analysis (and found it useless). I passed Section 2 without it, but I do own it. Should I bother going through it at all?

Any insight would be GREATLY appreciated as it's a lot to get through in the time available and I'd rather not waste too much time reading things that are of little value. Thanks!

[Shawn Smyth]

LaGro (ch 9-11) and LAGS is what I've been seeing most. Not ALL parts of the book will apply...

I've also seen a few study guides floating around this group that look extremely helpful!

[B]

Yeah I have been snatching up every study guide I have found (thanks to all that posted those).

The LaGro book wasn’t even a recommended book for section 3. And the one I have stops at chapter 8 (I have the 3rd Edition which is now called “Site Anslysis: Informing Context-Sensitive and Sustainable Site Planning and Design”) Am I missing something?

[B]

Does anyone that took Section 3 in August have any insight to the reading material in this thread? Any info would be appreciated. Thank you!

[Royce Utterback]

I'm in a similar boat and taking section 3 for the first time in December. I already have the LaGro and Russ books. I only want to buy one more book though because I'm not made of money. I'm leaning towards Landscape Architectural Graphic Standard. Anyone have any thoughts?

[K.C. Farrell]

Do you have any study guides that you wouldn't mind sharing?

[stefano ascari]

I took Section 3 in August, am retaking in December. I too would like to know the answer to this because I didn't feel like there was any direct reference to the materials. You have to infer what the question is targeting or speaking to. 

I found the Russ book to be the closest to the content of the exam. I did not read the Steiner & Butler but I will include it in this round.  

Landscape Architectural Graphic Standards - this is a really odd book. There is a disconnect between the title of the book and the actual content. The background information exceeds the actual discussion of graphic conventions used in the profession without adding much of value, in fact it detracts and confuses the reader. For example, there will be a section on project management that will go into great depth on what makes a good project manager but will contribute very little in terms of how an actual construction layout sheet is created or how to draw stuff. I have a hard time understanding the logic behind publishing this book because it's like the birth child of TSS and Site Engineering without the meat of the former two. 

[Joel G]

Hi B,

I passed sections 3 & 4 in April, so maybe not the absolute most current info.

TSS is the real winner here.

For LAGS the most useful IMO part was the Crime prevention through environmental design chapters, as I was unable to find this info in any of the other recommended reading. As far as Stefano's comment I do agree that the word 'graphic' may be a bit misleading because most of the relevant info is written (in super small type on think practically onion skin paper).

Ray freeman has a list of chapters for LAGS and TSS to study that he has posted on this forum somewhere, but I can't seem to find it at the moment. It leans more on the side of every POSSIBLE thing that could be on the exam, but that is the way I like to study anyway. I will see if I can dig it up. It is more or less a list of CLARB's bullet point study guide from the Orientation Guide but is cross-referenced to chapters.

We covered a lot of sustainability stuff in my education and professional background. I will echo what someone else said on this forum that any of the meat and potatoes stuff is best covered in Strom's site engineering book, and not too much of that should show up on Sec 3.

I looked at Planning and Urban Design Standards and it was even drier than the Construction Contracts book! Most was overly-detailed for the content CLARB is asking you to know. Some of the LAGS chapters go into community planning in sufficient detail IMO.

Site planning and design Handbook I glanced at and also felt was useless.

The best advice I can give is:

•  to look carefully at CLARB's orientation guide and make sure you know all of the bullet points inside and out. 
• practice all the AIT's you can get a hold of. I took Ray's class and used his as well as the CLARB practice exams that are available on this site.
  
• Study consistently and diligently - I studied for about 10 weeks for both 3 and 4, 30 minutes of reading every weeknight, 2 to 4 hours of AIT's every weekend. Of course learning styles vary but that was my strategy.

Joel

[B]

Thank you for your insight Joel. I've kinda graduated to those choices just through luck. My father (a registered LA) happened to have TSS in his personal library, so that became an automatic study book. And I decided to get the LAGS book though found that I really already knew most of the info it presented. It was the Student version and I had red that the non-student version was better, but I didn't see an ebook available for it. I went with the Student version and am a bit dissapointed. But oh well, at least I maybe solidified some ideas in my mind about certain topics. I will be on the lookout for Ray's post because my first glance through TSS seems like the info doesn't really have a rhyme or reason why it's being presents (i.e. like a normal book) and it seems to be just a bunch of snippets of information, but then again I have only glanced at it to date. But it would be nice to have a focus rather than 'read the book' (thanks CLARB). Okay, back to this weekends studying! Thanks again.

[B]

Found it!

Originally Posted by Ray Freeman:

Caveat: Don't expect very many questions on Planting or on Materials

Harris, Charles, and Nichols Dines, Time Savers Standards for Landscape  Architecture,  2nd ed., McGraw-Hill Publishing Co., NY, NY, 1998.

 

Section 210: Spatial Standards

Section 220: Energy and Resource Conservation

Section 240: Outdoor Accessibility

Sections 340-342: Circulation

Section 550:  Plants and Planting

Division 800: Materials

Hopper, Leonard J., editor, Landscape  Architectural Graphic Standards, John Wiley and

Sons, Hoboken, NJ, 2007.

 

Environmental  Factors: pp. 81-129

Cultural Factors: pp. 140-157

Security Considerations:  pp. 158-182

Site Planning: pp. 183-234

Circulation:  pp. 235-265

Accessibility:  pp. 266-294

Planting: pp. 629-671

Therapeutic  Gardens: pp. 741-745

Wildlife Habitat: pp. 749-753

Restoration and Remediation:  pp.792-820

Parks and Recreation: pp. 821-840

Wayfinding:  pp. 894

Materials: pp. 899-981, 986-992, 998-1021

Geotextiles: p. 1034

Paints and Coatings: pp. 1035-1041

Materials Selection Criteria:  pp. 1042-1045

[Shawn Smyth]

Is this all inclusive for 3 & 4 or just section 3? I've take 3 twice and don't remember anything about paints, plants, habitats, security or material selection. It's mainly community involvement, design development and processes and the like. Thoughts?

Shawn

[B]

List may be older as the post I copied was written in 2017. Was supposed to be only section 3.

[Chris W]

I had some material questions on my section 3 exam ( passed in April) mostly regarding choosing the most sustainable material like the most porous paving material or choosing a material with the lowest environmental or human impact for a particular environment. Chapter 6 of Meg Calkins book was good for this.  I found that the material questions that I did have were less about construction methods ( which is more section 4)  and more about which material would be best suited to a specific design narrative or goals for a project like are you aiming for LEED, is the site a public plaza in a hot climate etc.

In regards to the above comments on books. I found that the  urban planning book listed by CLARB was really good for community engagement. It also addressed Transit Oriented design but so did LAGS ( the full version). I found LAGS (the full version, the student version is crap) to be really useful for this exam. Like others have stated, Crime prevention through environmental design is well covered here and not really addressed anywhere else. 

 An additional book that I found useful for this exam that wasn't listed on CLARB was Landscape Architecture Documentation Standards: Principles, Guidelines and Best Practices by Design Workshop.  Their descriptions of framework plans, the stages of design, and what should be included in each stage was very relevant. It seemed that a couple questions were either taken from the book or someone from Design Workshop is on the CLARB committee writing exam questions. 

I agree that the focus seems to be primarily on community engagement, design development and processes. 

[Jacqui Harris]

Does anyone happen to have a pdf copy of the Section C LARE Review Manual that is refereed to in the vignettes? I am trying to understand a few things that I’ve seen in the vignettes that I don’t have resources to review. It seems like the Reciew Manual is the best / most definitive source for what CLARB is looking for.

Thank you!
Jacqui

[Mike]

Make sure to read the SITES book. Especially sections on stormwater.

[Joel G]

Though some like the SITES book, I personally found it was not necessary if you have Strom. All the critical stormwater stuff is in Strom with more detail. 

I did have to find a green roof typical section online, perhaps SITES would have covered me there.

[B]

Just got the SITES book just to see if there was any last minute info that could help me out with my Sec 3 exam next week, and immediately wished I hadn't bothered buying it. What an absolute pile of fluff with maybe 5 good facts sprinkled throughout the book (that you can get elsewhere of course). Granted I only have time to give it a super fast read through, but I found it ridiculously repetitive on the water chapter (the one I was focusing on closer) and feel like the chapter could have been 1-2 paragraphs long and still presented the same amount of information. Maybe someone will find it useful, I'm wishing I hadn't spent the $65 on it (got the kindle e-book as it was the cheapest).

[Royce Utterback]

Hey this is slightly unrelated but are there actually soil volume calculations on section 3?ive seen several people on here mention them and CLARB orientation guide doesn't say anything about that. None of the practice exams seem to either.

[Mike]

I agree that the book may be repetitive and expensive however there was information in that book that I found useful for the section 3 exam which I took and passed last spring. 

[B]

Royce, I am only guessing as I haven't taken section 3 yet, but from what I've seen with LARE testing, they don't seem to get into actual complex calculations as it would take too much time on a test with so many questions. I would think it would be more related to the process and maybe dealing with grading/contours and the like (e.g. out of 2 areas, which involve more cut/fill to undertake). At most I would expect if given all the pertinent data (cross section quantities, or depth/length, etc.) you could plug them into the right equation and get an answer. So at the vary least I would understand the 3 main methods. Better off knowing and not needing it than getting surprised on the test.

Of note, the best resources for this... have typos. TSS and LAGS both show examples that have the parentheses in the wrong places or have flat out forgotten to do the full equation. Really lame, but if you just follow the fairly easy equations you should be able to get it.

For those interested in the mistakes:

The LAGS (Student Version) issue is for the grid method example on page 198. He does the depths of all the common points, BUT forgets the equation is a + 2b + 3c + 4d and instead just does a + b + c + d forgetting that you are supposed to multiple b*2, c*3, and d*4. Kind of a critical step.

In TSS, strangely enough they have an error in the same equation. They properly do the math and the end result is their answer is correct, however, on page 320-29 their example states: Volume = 31.0 + 2(38.0) + 3(4.7 + 4(12.2)) which is just a silly mistake of locating the parenthesis, but if you do it like that your answer will be wrong. It should read simply: 31.0 + 2(38.0) + 3(4.7) + 4(12.2) which if you look at the next line they show the answers as if they had done it like that.

[B]

So after taking the test today, I can say that all the books are a waste of time. In fact spending time reading them from cover to cover (besides driving you crazy) will not help you with the tests more than just reading the notes posted on this form already. There is a post titled “LARE SECTION 3 STUDY HELP” that has 2 downloads with snippets from the books of really the only important stuff you need to know. Maybe since some of them overlap into section 4 they might have some use there, but for section 3 save some cash and just study the notes. This is after taking the Dec 2018 section 3 test though. I don’t know if future versions of the test will be different, so take that advice with a grain of salt. Good luck to all.

[B]

Figured out how to switch to desktop view on my phone to grab the exact link to the post that has the downloads:

https://groups.google.com/forum/?nomobile=true#!topic/lare-exam/jW71sX-Evcg

Good luck all.

[Chase Gonty]

I agree w/B. After seeing what is in that PDF and from my own understanding of what the books were, I actually didn't read any of the books and I feel pretty confident in how I did on Section 3. Now that being said, I definitely didn't skimp on studying. Reading and highlighting that PDF (and other resources) every day, along with taking regular practice tests, is still required. Professional experience is almost a must for this test as well, from what I saw (I've only been out 2 years, so take that as you will). Everyone studies their own way, but I would say save yourself money and time and find other resources that can substitute and save you from these books.

[stefano ascari]

Strongly agree with B,

None of the literature is relevant, except if you are able to synthesize it effectively. In fact, this is one of those instances where the summaries are more relevant than the actual content. My recommendation would be to work back from the practice tests and the study guides. The literature is also vastly out of date too...

[laura sokol]

Someone just mentioned to me that Russ was a good source for section 3. Can anyone attest to this and have any suggested chapters to skim as oppose to reading the entire 450 page book??

I found the urban design standards  book (Part 1) to be a good resources for the types of plans on the Master Planning section but that seemed to be all it was good for. 

SITES book to me always seems to be useless and information I can find elsewhere; overly descriptive, not-to-the-point text.   

TSS has been good if you just get the main gist of each chapter (Section 210, 240, 340-42, 550) and overlook the technical jargon (which I'm sure will be applicable to section 4) 

In no way did I actually buy these books (nor would I ever), thank god for rotating digital resources and college libraries. 

Thank you for all of these additional resources as well :) I would say most of the digital resources I have come across have been the best so far.

Good luck everyone!!

[Tianyi Jiang]

Hello, B,

Could you please advise where to find the LARE SECTION 3 STUDY HELP?

Thank you so much! 

[B]

Link posted a couple of reply’s up in this thread.

[Ray Freeman]

The field has gotten so broad over the past 15-20 years that the amount of info that can be tested on far exceeds the # of test questions available. CLARB has two tendencies I've noticed. One: They focus a number of questions on certain topics. This may constitute 25-30% of the section in maybe 3-4 topics. Some stuff is tested with 1-2 questions, then next time that topic is skipped entirely. The obvious difficulty is that you need to be prepared for a lot of topics, but CLARB may not address some of them on YOUR exam.

I can tell you will some certainty that 0n Section 3, topics that WILL be tested include:

CPTED

Transit oriented development

sustainability.....suggest SITES Guidelines probably a better source than Meg Calkins book, which is excellent, but very all encompassing.

Expect lots of urban design/city planning type questions

Design for special populations (elderly, misc disabilities, children)

All of the new specialty plans that appeared in the 2017 exam specs.

TSS is more technically (engineering) oriented than LAGS

LAGS more planning oriented

[Ray Freeman]

Understand that my lists are based on limited feedback and my best guess. I am not infallible.

[Ray Freeman]

You need to know the methods and what they are best suited for.

As far as volume calcs, you will be doing very rough estimates only, mainly visual....like of these grading alternatives, which one looks to be the most balanced?

[laura sokol]

Ray,
I agree with the wide array of topics covered for Section 3. I don't believe all of the suggested reading material combined would touch on some of the things that were on the December exam. I found a handful of questions were topics I would only know through professional experience, observation, and word-of-mouth.
While I find it challenging that we are asked questions that I particularly don't work on in my line of work (urban design, bike lane design, TODs) I know for some, those topics are probably found to be easier to answer and vice versa for other topics so it's understandable that there is such a diversity of topics and questions. Since this is the case though, there needs to be better material out there to expose those unfamiliar with such topics in a clear and concise way. Otherwise, we're just studying a broad and vague subject topic that is said to be mentioned on the exam somewhere.
I also found that some of the questions tended to be super vague and open-ended or extremely detailed. There was a question on the placement of a septic tank leach field and what to consider when placing one. I brought this question (and potential answers) back to my colleagues made up of Environmental Scientists and Landscape Architects and everyone was questioning the answers, delving into reasons why it could be or wouldn't be the answer. In other words, there needed to be more information. There were tons of cut/fill questions and one specifically relating to the different methods used for estimating costs and determining haul off amounts. Again, another question that would only mean something to me if I hung over the should of our construction estimator in our company.
I spent 15 minutes after the exam looking up TODs and the types of development (mixed-use, office, single-family, townhomes) that should be located within in a certain walking time from a transit station. This was a Drag and Drop question on the exam. Nowhere was I able to find a clear and concise answer to this.
So please CLARB tell me where you pull these crazy questions from?!

[skyeti...@gmail.com]

Hi B and everyone,

Do you have any PDF files of the reading materials could share?

Thank you!

[SD]

Hi Chris

Could you share a pdf copy of Landscape Architecture Documentation Standards: Principles, Guidelines and Best Practices by Design Workshop