NCARB ARE Exam Changes

please reconsider the use of pencil and scratch paper for test takers, it will increase the chances for some people to pass the ARE divisions!

NEED SCRATCH PAPER. 'WHITE BOARD' IMPLEMENTATION IS POOR AND UNINTUITIVE TO USE.

Using the digital white board was honestly one of the most useless and cumbersome features of the ARE so far. In addition to having to flip back and forth between multiple pdfs, the calculator and the actual exam content, it was totally disruptive and unintuitive to the thinking process. Very disappointing. We need back scratch paper now.

Please don't take away the scratch paper. Online exams can have the white board, or cancel online exams.

I agree

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t is the most anti-architect thing to ask: not being able to sketch with simple pencil &paper... a plot with dimensions, setbacks, FAR numbers, slopes, clearing simple mathematical formulas, geometries etc... it just goes against the essence of what an architect should be and the way his/her mind should think and work. using a digital board is just time consuming and distracting. NCARB please reconsider.

This is unacceptable. FIX THIS!!!!

The whiteboard tool is useless, we now don't have the chance to take down quick notes during the exam.

The proctor online tool White Board just doesn’t work well. It is already quite difficult to take notes with a mouse (not even a stencil), but the tool is imprecise and doesn’t write numbers. The text box and typing is also an option, but that doesn’t replace a pen and a paper in speed or ease of use either, especially if you have to be switching back and forth with the calculator. The tools of the exam are inefficient, slow and unnecessarily create an obstacle to performing well on the exam.

NCARB is suppose to promote the licensing by providing useful info for the examinee’s career in this path. However, throughout the years I have been with NCARB, i found the exams are unnecessarily difficult, not related to the real world (like seriously, how many of us are all gonna design a stadium, airport, or hospital in our career path)? And lots of things we learn are from our experience. Also, the codes, every city/ county has their supplemental codes, I don’t think the licensing exam should even test with code related stuff unless it is absolutely the same answer on EVERY amended code for every city snd county. Also, the business management exam, WHY do we needed? Business owner handles their business differently.

Digital whiteboard doesn't work. I lost so much time while writing a bunch of numbers. Calculations would have been so much easier with scratch paper.

Bring back the paper

We draw to facilitate thinking. It is an invaluable tool.

Unacceptable. Understand the concern about scratch paper for remote testing and the need to have equal testing environments remote vs. at test center, but using the white board is an insane waste of time. We are human beings. We scribble things out quickly on paper to figure it out. The laborious task of clicking various tools, zooming in/out, scaling the page, changing tabs takes time away from actual focus on the questions/content and kills any momentum. And don’t tell me “you just have to practice with the tool and it will become intuitive.” That’s ridiculous - nothing will be more intuitive than paper and pencil, and that is how we operate in practice. Let us focus on the content of the exam, not the dumb interface. Congrats on spending our money to develop this tool, but it’s time to throw it in the trash and give us our scrap paper back. TO ENSURE EXAM SECURITY FOR REMOTE EXAMS, CAN YOU MAIL A SEALED ENVELOPE WITH SCRATCH PAPER AND A UNIQUE BAR CODE OR SOMETHING THAT THE TEST-TAKER HAS TO OPEN IN FRONT OF THE PROCTOR???? There are ways to do this… please figure it out ASAP

NCARB is making the licensure process impossible and a big hurdle. 1. The way the questions are worded are so convoluted and tricky that even when you know the material there is a high chance of getting it wrong. Why does it have to be this way? 2. The rolling clock should be completely removed. These are a lot of exams and everyone has a life and emergencies. Why punish those that are not able to pass all the exam in the given amount of time? This is absolutely unfair and unfortunate if the biggest hurdle in a professional is to pass the exams, this leaves no room and time for innovation. The profession unfortunately has such a low pay and low market value that if we dont do anything about it now, it will be turned to a minimum wage career. Very sad because architects work hard and one of the smartest peoples I have meet. 3. Scratch paper should be allowed 4. Overwork and exploitations in the field are so common. NCARB, AIA and architecture schools do nothing about this. Can they teach architects how to respect and value their own time?

The digital whiteboard severely cuts into your test-taking time. It takes precious minutes to "write" on the whiteboard. Using a real pencil and paper is natural and much quicker. The whiteboard text function is absurd as is it difficult to move around, edit, or delete. Switching to freehand-writing with the mouse is even worse. I did not even finish the exam due to these technical barriers. I dread the P&A exam which will definitely require more sketching.

Not using scratch paper during an exam turns out to be very difficult for some of us. Trying explaining a construction detail to your mentee without a pencil and paper and you’ll understand. This is an essential tool and taking it away from us is not reasonable.

This will greatly affect my ability to pass these exams. Architects are visual learners and many need to sketch things out to fully understand the problems.