Thanks for a great post, Paula! I took the exam in December 2010 as a Cornell student, and I didn't use the BD+C reference guide. Instead, I used the study guide that came with the course that I took, created flash cards from it, and took as many practice tests as I could (which I agree, is essential for passing the exam). I passed with a 95% - without ever reading a reference guide, going on LEED Online or reading USGBG's other "references" in the Handbook. The BD+C reference guide contains a lot more information than you need to know as a LEED Green Associate (it's really meant for the LEED AP BD+C exam) - and study guides are usually much more concise, cheaper, and contain additional information that you need to know that isn't in the reference guides (like LEED Online or CIR info). Since I'm a visual learner, I found writing my own flash cards and testing myself was very important for passing the exam. You can buy them, but I think that writing them out myself really helped. Now, since I graduated, I work with Poplar Network, which has it's own brand of LEED exam prep products. Based on my experience studying for the exam and listening to a lot of green building professionals questions is that they don't know how to prepare once they have the right materials. For this reason, we created a memorization guide that explains how to study for the exam based on the way that you learn (audio, visual, kinesthetic). It also explains memory tricks from memorization experts who have won memory contests (yes, they exist!), and how you can adapt them to the LEED material. I thought the people reading your article about how to study might be interested in this guide. This comes for free with our LEED Green Associate study bundle (sold for $149). One thing I do wish we had at Poplar, like you mentioned above, is the ability to mark questions to go back to in our exam simulator. Each time I've taken the exam, I've prepared with exam simulators from various companies that don't have this feature, but found it extremely helpful on the actual exam, like you said. We'll work on adding this to our system so that people can learn how to make the most of it while they practice.
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Tristan Roberts
RepresentativeVermont House of Representatives
LEEDuser Expert
11478 thumbs up
March 14, 2013 - 4:01 pm
I appreciate the helpful tips, Claire, and information on Poplar's offerings.
Kathryn West
LEED AP BD+C, O+M, Green Globes ProfessionalJLL
154 thumbs up
June 28, 2013 - 4:55 pm
how do you learn about LEED Kinesthetically? Change a bunch of air filters? :)