Schematic Design: ARE Sample Problems and Practice Exam

With all the of the money you will spend taking the ARE, I am not sure this book will help all that much. Passing the SD exam is more about learning some tricks and knowing the CAD software. I would suggest The ARE Forum for learning the tricks to these exams and save yourself some cash.

In studying for the ARE, I found this helpful as a supplement to other study material. This book should not be used as a stand-alone study guide. You could pass the exam without it, but if you like to study alone and don't plan on using AREforum.org, then it's worth the expensive price tag of about a dollar per page.

waste of money. Far too expensive for such little material.

The Ballast series is great... Im on my last test (this one, SD) and I have purchased *most* of their other books and can easily recommend that you buy them too. But this one is different. It is quite literally (almost) worthless. As you (should) know this particular ARE test is all graphic so the only thing that is really going to help you is practice, practice, practice! I bought this book hoping it would have "tips" and "tricks" etc and maybe some pictures walking you through the process. But except for page 3 and 30 there is nothing but pictures of failing and passing solutions. The tips are total fluff, for example - One of the tips provided: "Read the program and space requirements carefully"You already know about the forum (eluded to by another reviewer), go there and get the alternate schemes and practice like crazy. There are some really VERY useful visual guides there too... All free and will help you more than any book.Again don't waste your hard earned cash on this guide (the others are good though) - Trust me for the $ its not worth it... I wish someone would have warned me about this before.