Stop Waiting: How to Finally Schedule (and Pass) Your ARE

Struggling to find the right time to take your ARE? In this Coaching Insights Overview, we pull highlights from a live Mind Over ARE call — from breaking past exam hesitation with a clear 3-week plan, to smarter study strategies, to contract lessons every architect needs. Quick, practical takeaways to keep you moving toward licensure.

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Transcript

 Hey, it's Bryn. So what you're about to listen to is actually a quick audio recap generated from one of our live mind over ARE coaching calls. These are meant to give you a little bite-sized takeaway and some motivation to help you pass your next architecture exam. Alright, let's dive in.

This is the deep dive, your, uh, your shortcut to being truly well-informed. Today. We're actually taking you behind the curtain, giving you a special peek into a coaching call  from the mind over ARE, program. This isn't just theory, okay? It's about real world stuff. Exam prep, finding clarity, getting motivated for your ARE journey, you know.

The architect registration examination. It's a big one. 

Exactly. And our mission today really is to pull out some of those powerful bits of wisdom, those practical strategies, and maybe those aha moments. Mm-hmm. You know, the things that can genuinely speed up your path to getting licensed. We're gonna unpack key insights that came straight from aspiring architects, people just like you, as they navigate their own challenges with the NCARB exams.

That's the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards, folks who run the ARE. 

Okay. So let's dive right in. We've all been there, haven't we? That feeling of just overwhelm and the hesitation that kind of creeps in when you're facing something as massive as the ARE, A huge hurdle for so many aspiring architects is just committing, just scheduling their exams.

Mm-hmm. Like during the coaching call, we heard from Carolina she'd been studying for the PA exam. That's programming and analysis across multiple groups, multiple cohorts, and she basically said she felt. Stuck. Totally stuck on finding the right time to actually take it. It's that feeling of, am I ready yet?

Oh, it's so relatable, isn't it? Carolina's struggle. I mean, it highlights something. Almost everyone feels that, that internal resistance, that need for some perfect moment, some sign you're a hundred percent ready before you take the plunge. But you know, our coach asked her directly. Point blank. When are we ripping the bandaid here?

Yeah. And that really raises the question, doesn't it? How do you, when you're in that spot, how do you push past that inertia, that feeling of just never being quite ready enough? 

Yeah. And that's where the coach offered this really, um, refreshing take, cut, right through the doubt. The strategy was super clear, totally actionable, and honestly kind of liberating.

Aim for three weeks, three weeks of focused intense study. Not this vague someday or when I feel ready, a defined three week push. You break it down. Yeah, week one, brush up on concepts, review your notes, that sort of thing. Then the next two weeks, pretty much all practice exams, it forces you to commit, gives you a finish line, 

and here's where it gets even more practical, even more powerful.

The coach actually gave specific targets using the official N-C-A-R-B practice exams. Mm-hmm. Like real numbers score around 65%. Okay. That's your sign. Take one more week, refine things. Focus on your weak spots. But if you hit 70% or higher, boom. Green light. You're ready. Go schedule it. See, it's not about being perfect.

It's about having clear, actionable goal, data-driven goals really to just get over that hesitation. You know, just get behind the wheel and rip that bandaid. Like the coach said, it changes. I feel ready to, my practice score says I'm ready. That's a big shift, 

right? And building on that, another huge takeaway, a real game changer, I think was this blunt truth.

Life is going to happen. Work is going to happen while you're taking these exams, your schedule won't magically clear up. So the coach's golden role, and this is something you can use like right now, was so simple. 15 minutes of quality studying that is just the same as reading for two hours. Think about that for a second.

It's not just a time hack. It's like redefining what studying enough even means. 

It really is. It taps into, you know, focused attention. When you commit to just 15 minutes, you often make a different kind of intensity, right? You're not trying to passively absorb for hours. You're actively trying to get the most out of that short burst.

So it reframes what productive study looks like instead of feeling guilty 'cause you don't have a three hour block. 

Mm-hmm. 

You realize. That consistent focused effort, even in these little microbursts can actually be way more effective than those long drawn out sessions where, let's be honest, your attention probably wanders after an hour anyway.

It means you can fit it in on your commute, lunch, break right before bed, consistently without feeling buried by the sheer amount of stuff. It's about making every minute count efficiently. 

Okay. So you tackle scheduling, you figure out how to find quality time. 

Hmm. 

What's next? 

Yeah. 

How you actually learn.

And that's where Farah's story about practice exams really shed light on, um, on shifting your study strategy. Hmm. Farah passed her practice management exam. Huge congrats to her. And she said a key factor was taking as many practice exam as I could. 

Mm-hmm. 

Especially because she struggled with time management during the actual test.

So the practice wasn't just about content, it was about pacing. 

Yeah. And Farah's approach connects directly to something the coach talks about a lot. The 600 question blitz, which is, well, exactly what it sounds like, committing to doing 600 practice questions. But here's the catch, and this is where people often stumble.

Just doing the questions isn't really enough. If you're just. You know, memorizing the answers. We've all done it, right? You see a question again, you remember, oh, the answer is see, and you move on. You feel like you know it, but that's just recall. It's not real understanding. So the big question is how do you avoid that trap?

How do you get to that deeper level of knowing, not just remembering. 

That's the million dollar question, isn't it? Recalling answers versus truly understanding. You might ace a practice test you've taken three times, but does that mean you actually get the concepts? Maybe not. So the coach's advice. Get creative, actively break that memorization cycle.

Don't just retake the same test over and over. Try rephrasing the questions yourself, reword the answers. Or even better, make up your own little quizzes. As you study the material, it forces your brain to work differently, to synthesize, not just retrieve. 

And expanding on that. One person on the call shared this great idea.

He called it a new form of flashcards. Super easy to do with Excel or a Google sheet. You just type a question in one cell, the answer right next to it. But here's the key. You make the answer, cells text white so you can't see it. Then when you review, you reveal the answer. Got it right. Highlight it green, got it wrong.

Highlight it red so you know, to come back to it. It's not just passive flipping, it's active recall. It forces your brain to engage more deeply. You're actively testing yourself, which turns that fleeting recognition into something stickier. You know, real learning. It builds those connections. That's the goal.

Okay. Let's pivot a bit. Mm-hmm. From study tactics to something just as crucial, real world practice insights. This came up during the deep dive into contracts, specifically around the A 2 0 1 and B 1 0 1 documents, the general conditions and the owner architect agreement. These aren't just lines on an exam paper.

Understanding these could literally save you headaches, protect your practice, maybe even your license down the road. 

Absolutely. It's fascinating how these whoa seemingly dry contract clauses translate directly to what happens and who's liable on an actual job site. Take the scenario from the coaching call.

You're the architect. You're on a site visit and you see an open elevator shaft with new caution tape. Big safety hazard, right? No site safety. Fundamentally, that's the contractor's job. They control the means and methods, how the work. Gets done. Your role as the architect, you inform the contractor immediately about the uns of condition.

You point it out, but if it's critical, you don't tell them how to fix it. You certainly don't stop the work yourself. Why? Because if you do that, even with the best intentions, you've just stepped into the contractor's responsibility, you've taken on liability. Understanding that line that's specific distinction is just so vital for protecting yourself professionally.

Wouldn't you agree? 

Totally agree. That line between observing and directing is. Everything and the coach had this great analogy for means and methods that really makes it clear, she said. If a contractor asks you which rotation to use to turn their screwdriver to get a nail in some piece of fabrication, that's a means of methods question.

See, it's about the how, the specific techniques, the sequence, how they physically put things together. That's all contractor territory. Such a critical boundary because if you, the architect, start advising on how to do the work, you're basically taking responsibility for that part of the construction.

Your job is the design, the vision. Their job is the execution, the means and methods. 

It's such a powerful distinction and, uh. Building on these contract points. Another really surprising, really vital update came up about projects that come in over budget. So back under the old 2007 A I A contracts, if a project bid came in way over budget, the architect might have actually been required to redesign it.

For free. The thinking was, well, you didn't deliver a design that met the owner's budget, so you didn't fully meet the contract, but, and this is huge. The 2017 contracts, the ones you're being tested on now for the a RE 5.0, they've changed this. The 2017 versions explicitly state that the architect is now entitled to additional compensation if they have to rebid and redraw because of an over budget.

Situation like that. This isn't just some tiny detail. It reflects a big shift in the industry. Better aligning risk and responsibility. It acknowledges that hey, market conditions, contractor bids, stuff happens that can push costs up things beyond just the architect's design choices. It protects architects from doing potentially huge amounts of extra work for free when external factors blow the budget.

It's a really powerful piece of knowledge for your exams, yeah, but also for your actual practice later on, shows how these contracts evolve. 

Okay, so let's pull this all together. What does this deep dive into the mind over our coaching call really mean for you listening right now? Well. From breaking through that exam, hesitation with a clear, actionable three week plan to really transforming your study habits.

Moving beyond just memorizing to truly understanding through creative practice, and finally getting a handle on the crucial realities of contracts and liability. Understanding those key distinctions. These insights hopefully offer some real clarity and some practical strategies you can use. 

Absolutely.

And remember these exams? Yeah, they're tough. They're meant to be challenging, but ultimately they're designed to make you a better architect, more informed, more capable in the long run. So embracing these kinds of challenges like Carolina and Farrah did, and really understanding not just the what, but the why behind it all.

Whether it's managing your time, how you learn or knowing your contracts to protect yourself. That knowledge is gonna serve you incredibly well, both for the exams obviously, but also for your entire professional career. It's truly an investment in your future self. 

We really hope this peak behind the scenes has sparked something for you, giving you some new tools, maybe a fresh perspective for your own area prep journey.

If this resonates, if these kinds of insights are helpful, you'll definitely find even more support and, uh, deep dives like this inside mind over ARE and the A b C Club premium. Thanks so much for diving deep with us today.