LARE Exam 1 - April 2018 brief recap

[Jessey Horvat]

Hey Everyone,

Just took the LARE Exam #1 today. Just wanted to give a brief recap of what I did to study and what I would recommend for anyone taking it in the future. 

To study I spent most of my time reading and taking notes on 'Construction Contracts' by Jimmie Hinze, 'Professional Practice of Landscape Architecture' by Walter Rogers, and a little bit of 'Sustainable Sites Handbook' by Meg Calkins. I also used some of the terminology notes posted in this group to study, and took a few practice exams from books that were laying around in the office. 

The practice exams were crucial and are worth the investment, and give you a good understanding for how questions are worded, what language to watch out for, and also give you a good indication to figure out what you need to spend more time studying for. With that said, the practice exams I took (which were admittedly a little dated) didn't really emphasize maintenance planning/procedures, and I would estimate about 30% of the entire exam was related to that. definitely find a good book that covers that, I would have walked away feeling much better if I had devoted more time to that topic. 

[jinger]

I just took it as well and felt the same way.

[elyana]

Thanks for your feedback! I am sitting for my first exam in a few short days, and I was just curious, did you find that the questions went above and beyond what you had read about in Sustainable Sites Handbook? I keep seeing that reading chapter 8 from that book would suffice, but maybe not? I just looked over on CLARB's recommended reading list for the first exam, and not entirely sure which book would be best for these types of questions..

[Tamara Sorensen]

EJ- The Hinze book is a must read in my opinion at minimum. I did skip the case studies at the end of each chapter.

[Bennett Smithhart]

So with a little research, it appears that folks are saying that Chapter 8 in the Sustainable Sites Initiative and Chapter 8 in the Sustainable sites Handbook are handy resources for Landscape Maintenance. Anybody find anything else useful?

[Jessey Horvat]

I also read through Chapter 8 of the sustainable sites notebook and used that as my primary reference for the maintenance related topics. I would say (emphatically) that it does NOT cover maintenance in enough detail to be of much use on the exam. I had 4-5 questions directly related to irrigation system maintenance and that (and other topics) aren't really covered there.  I can't answer what books would be best for maintenance as I did a pretty poor job of preparing for it. 

[WBS]

My thoughts after taking section 1. 

Construction Contracts seems like a vital read. Any similar books that go into more detail, maybe more LA focused construction textbook? 

Sustainable sites seems like a necessary read for this section. Maybe even Time-saver Standards?

I enjoyed reading the professional practice of LA but it doesnt seem helpful to this section. 

This would be my Recommended Reading (text books) for section one:

-Construction Contracts

-Project Management for Design Professionals

-Sustainable Sites Handbook

-Time-saver Standards 

[Dan Rebok]

Passed Section 1 in December. I don't think reading textbooks is the correct approach to passing these exams, using the practice exams is much more informative and provides feedback on what areas you need to study.

I learned a bunch of legal jargon for section one, which was not very useful...

My advice for section one is to know the bidding process down cold, who handles specific contract duties, the different contract types, and the order in which construction processes happen. 

The reason the practice exams are so crucial is at least 30% of the exam questions are common sense and require you to reason through them. The LARE exams are designed to test your critical thinking, don't overthink studying for these exams, there will be lots of questions that require you to think on your feet and reason through them.

There is value in reading textbooks to further your understanding of Landscape Architecture, but if you are solely interested in passing the exams it is a much better use of time to take as many practice tests as possible. 

[Peter Salamon]

So you mention that the books don't help, but form what I've heard the bid process is mostly found in Hinze, are there other resources you'd recommend for this?

[Bridger DeMars]

My advice would be to read Construction Contracts. It's the only book I've read so far and have passed 1 and 2 (and hopefully 3 once results are available for April).

I am fully aboard the take a lot of practice tests boat but I think something as dry and detail oriented as contracts can best be absorbed through reading the book.

[ej]

What are some practice exams to take? I took the 'shake and bakes' and the LAREprep. Are there any other ones that anyone would recommend or found helpful?

I took/didn't pass one, and am gathering up my energy to start studying for section two.