How long before the exam to start studying / am I crazy to take all 4 in a two week period

[Ashley Pilcher]

Hi y'all. I am taking all 4 LARE exams in December over 2 weeks and I am not sure as to how in depth the studying needs to be or where to start. I took and passed the PE (Professional Engineering Exam) last November but studied for almost 5 months and did 8 weeks of classes. In my head I imagine these exams can't be worse than the PE, but I could be naive. I have no one else at work who has taken them recently to refer to. For reference I have 5 yrs work experience as a primarily Civil Engineer in site design but I also have a BLA and do LA plans for my projects. The one person I asked crammed the weekend before and passed. 

Help. Am I crazy to do all 4 exams in two weeks? I am a pretty great test taker, though I had a reading disorder and ADD and my reading comprehension is not great. 

Someone please tell me if I am insane to attempt this or not.

I bought the study materials from LARE prep, but now I am just wondering when is the best time to actually start studying and trying practice exams.

[ADMIN]

I would absolutely not recommend doing this but you've already registered so here is my advice. First, identify any areas where you might not need to study. SInce you have worked in a engineering firm, maybe you don't need to look at grading calculations - just stuff like suggested slopes for specific uses or whatever. 

Beyond that, there is a certain degree of overlap between the exams and you'll want to determine what that overlap is and really focus there. For example, ADA guidelines will be a great use of your time because they could appear on 3 out of the 4 exams, whereas fasteners would not be a great way to spend time as they are really only on one exam and even then they don't appear with great frequency on that specific exam. Any guidance you are going to get here will be somewhat biased because everyone gets a unique range of questions, so, again in the limited amount of time you have, focus on the areas of overlap and you can determine that by getting input here or by reviewing the CLARB LARE Orientation Guide.

The biggest key to your success will be in how you approach test taking strategy. Unfortunately the LARE does not do a great job of testing practice-based knowledge - in my mind its more of a test on if you did the required readings and are able to deal with the little tricks they include in the exam. You'll need to rely on process of elimination on multiple choice questions. By taking 5 potential answers and identifying the two most likely answers, you've gone from a 20% chance of getting that question right to a 50% chance. You're really going to need to play the math like this and then do little things like flag any question you aren't certain of what the answer is, go through the entire exam and see if there are contextual clues in other questions that can help better inform your decisions. You will also want to skip complex questions (like the grading ones) and leave those to last - not only because they use a different part of your brain than the multiple choice, but also because even though the question may take 3 minutes to answer, its worth the same amount toward passing as a question that took you five seconds. 

Finally, CLARB has gone on record and said that multiple answer questions (choose all that apply) will never have only one correct answer and will never have all correct answers. This is the sort of stuff you are going to live and die by, not so much the actual content. Unless you are some sort of speed-reading genius (lol!) there is no way you can cover the material in the amount of time you have. Its literally probably 5,000 pages of reading and ranges from hyperspecific information (what does a specific admixture do to concrete, what is the height of an ADA-compliant handrail) to very general planning type information (what is the purpose of a zoning ordinance, transit-oriented development principles, etc) to ecological information (how is a bog different from a marsh, what uses should be located outside of aquifers). I truly applaud your ambition and hope you succeed, so be confident given that there is no going back and really focus on your test taking strategies.

[Caitlin Cunningham]

It seems crazy to me, partly because of the expense if you do not pass!

I would definitely take a couple of CLARB or LARE Prep practice exams to see where you might need to brush up. I spent two months studying for P&D and I&A and passed on my first go that way.

[Ashley Pilcher]

Thank you both for the help. My current plan was just to buy the LARE Prep guides and study those and do those practice tests. Is that adequate? I don't have any of the reference materials but I am not about to buy a bunch of textbooks unless absolutely necessary. 

[Douglas Short]

LARE Prep has a lot of good material, but I'm not sure if it has been updated for the new exams.  The outline from CLARB is a great way to get organized and you will need more than LP to have a full grasp of the topics they list.  It would be super helpful if the LARE Prep folks would organize their study guides in the same way CLARB organizes the topics in their outline.

If you have a good grasp of all of the general concepts then I guess it's possible to pass all four, but I imagine you are facing long odds.   Good luck and let us know how it goes.  Will be interesting to see if such a bold move pays off!

[BC]

Hey Ashley,

It is my opinion that using only practice tests/third party study guides will guarantee failure, regardless of real world knowledge.  The written material is critical study information and I would strongly recommend reading the textbook material outlined by CLARB. (at the end of the day the LARE is a book knowledge test. frustratingly, real world experience will not be very helpful for taking the exams).  Having passed all 4 sections, I can say with certainty that the practice guides and tests are a great litmus test of your knowledge, but do not cover all material that could be on the test. The design of the LARE is such that there is a large body of information you are supposed to know (all of which is sourced from the textbook reading material) and it will test you on ±20% of that study material.  This creates an issue if you only study with practice tests, which may have chosen a different ±20% subset of the study material to test you on.   

While I have no experience with other licensure testing (PE, Arch, etc), people who have taken other exams have made a point that the LARE is a somewhat unique/different animal.

As far as time to study, the longer the better, the more you read and re-read the study materials, the more they become subconscious knowledge. I studied for 4/5 months prior to each exam (reading for at least an hour per night) which proved helpful for me to build up a memory bank of the material.  However everyone learns differently, if you are a high functioning crammer like some of my friends, that may work for you, but I would advise against that method due to the sheer volume of knowledge. taking multiple exams does have an unintended upside however, due to the fact that there is some overlap of certain material from section to section.

I don't intend to scare you with this information, but rather encourage you to gather the books and read the material so you're not blindsided when you get in the exam room.  Best of luck!

P.S. You can often find people selling their used copies of the reading material books on here for cheaper than new.

[Vincent Yi]

I only used Lareprep and the Clarb practice exams and passed all 4 on my first try. The only study guide section that I thought didnt cover all the materials was CD&A, and even then it's just like really specific construction details. Especially in Ashley's case, going through all the recommended reading materials is a waste of time. She'll run out of time just sourcing the books

[Ashley Pilcher]

Thanks everyone for the advice, definitely skeptical about doing all 4 now, but we will see. The only person I know who took them did 2 at a time, but only studied for a couple days before and passed. So i have heard from both ends of the spectrum (some barely study, some study for months) which is confusing. This person took them in August and only used Quizlets to study. 

The LARE Prep guides claim to be updated for the 2023 format which I assume is current. It's kind of crazy to me that they assume you have or can purchase like 20+ textbooks for the exam.

Is there a set passing number or anything? Like a 70% and up passes or is it based on a certain percent of people who take it are passed? 

[BC]

I believe CLARB has made the statement in the past that the study books were selected in part because many are used as collegiate curriculum in many of the programs around the US. So the idea is that applicants would have some of the books already.

There is a minimum score to pass (640 pts I believe) but they do not divulge the point value of each test question, so it is impossible to determine the number of questions required to pass (this is intentional on CLARB's part).  Supposedly, CLARB used to curve the tests to target a specific pass rate (±70%) but that changed around 2018 when CLARB changed their testing philosophy to be more in line with "global standardized testing procedures". Attached are the pass rates over the last several years, you can see pass rates have declined since CLARB supposedly stopped curving the test.  Whether the lack of curving is the whole story of declining pass rates or not, I'm not certain.

I was fortunate to pass all 4 on the first try as well, but that is not the norm, the vast majority of applicants retake 1 or more of the sections.

I know a fair amount of people who have taken 2 sections at a time with mixed results.

[Rebecca Moden]

Good Morning, 

CLARB would like to provide clarification around the comments here on the scoring and the process and development of the L.A.R.E.

• The L.A.R.E. has always been developed in line with best practices for high stakes testing.
• The L.A.R.E. has never been graded on a curve.
• CLARB has never targeted pass rates for the L.A.R.E.
• The L.A.R.E. resource list is selected by the Exam Writing Committee to be used as reference for exam question development. This list is reviewed regularly for relevancy.
  

If you have questions about the L.A.R.E. we invite you to attend our free webinar for the December administration. We will cover general information about the L.A.R.E. and answer any questions. You do not have to be taking the exam in December to attend.

December L.A.R.E. Administration Q&A

November 12th

3:00 PM ET

Webinar Registration - Zoom

We hope to see you there. Please also feel free to reach out to in...@clarb.org with any questions.

[Ashley Pilcher]

I passed them all in one go! Thanks for the help. 

I used the LARE prep study guides and practice exams, and the CLARB practice exams and that's it for anyone wondering. 

[BC]

Congrats! that's no small achievement!

[Douglas Short]

This chart is excellent information. Wow, section 4 pass rate is abysmal.  One of the reasons for the reformat was to ease up on G&D by putting the materials in Section 1 (which had the consequence of nullification of past passing of section one for many of us.)  NOW, post update, pass rate is worse.  Something is not right.  Are they taking this into consideration?  Is ASLA aware?  Half of all test takers failing a section, time after time is a problem with the test.

I am on the Southern California ASLA Board and will share this with my fellow board members, in particular with the Fellows on the board.  I don't think this low pass rate is good for the profession and points to a critical problem with the exam itself, particularly the results post reformat.  I don't think this is what was intended at all.