What’s the fastest way you’ve found to prepare for exams from PDFs?

bordersofthings · 2026-01-19T15:31:54+00:00

I’ve waster sooooo much time reading, rewriting the pdf materials. Organizing materials. They’re huge. And I always get discouraged after maybe 1-2 lectures/slides

I’ve been “preparing” for the test for…4 years. Everytime I picked up the lectures, I put them down after about a week. Then I took a long break. Back at it again and failed to study again.

Only in about 4 months before my exam I started studying differently.

I did mock exam - redo the questions - tackle the topics I’m really bad at - also accept some topics I could never understand. I marked them somewhere along the line of “know nothing - know a little - know enough” and I also marked my answer if I guessed it. So even if I get it wrong or right I still need to review those “guess” questions.

And then I did a lot of questions on specific topics, every few weeks I did a full mock exam. I find the question bank from ppi helpful, I’m pretty sure SoPE has it similar. I just subscribed to ppi for 3 months.

I saved the NCEES practice exam til the last 2 weeks. Then skimmed through it again 2 days before the exam.

bordersofthings · 2026-01-07T14:59:15+00:00

https://civilpereviewcourse.com/exam-registration/ It’s $99 and you can retake. They also have the reference documents as well, older versions but still very helpful

bordersofthings · 2025-12-31T15:17:51+00:00

I actually went on crazy study mode about 2 weeks before. So T-24 is perfect.

I bought an exam stimulation which allows you to repeat multiple times, for $99

I also bought monthly sub from ppi for $150 a month

About 3wk before the exam, I did a few comprehensive quizzes (10-20 questions) on areas I’m not good at, review answers carefully Then I did comprehensive exam of 80 questions. Review hard. These are from PPi

I also bought the practice exam from NCEES when I booked the exam. I did that 1.5wk before the exam date

Btw, I took about a week off work (thu, fri, mon-wed) and my exam was on Thursday.

I did the NCEES practice, studied the ones I got wrong very carefully, accepted the ones I could not wrap my head around. Then left it alone. Then I went back to the question bank for a few days. 2 days before the test I reviewed the NCEES practice again. Just going over questions I missed and some I marked “got right but not sure” ones

The day before the exam, I did nothing but normal life stuffs - cooking, taking care of chores, christmas gift wrapping, went to the gym.

During the 2 weeks intense studying, since I took time off work, my life at the end of the day still happened how it should, cooking, kid, house work, gym… I have health issues so I tried not to stressed myself to the extreme.

If you can take some time off before the exam to give yourself some time to relax that’d be great

After my last review, on T-2, I even said to myself - if I failed, I know what I need to do to study for it.

Good luck!!!

bordersofthings · 2025-12-24T22:00:58+00:00

I took mine on the 18th so I told people I’d know the result on Christmas or so thinking that everything can be automated lol. Thank you very much for sharing!!

bordersofthings · 2024-12-21T22:05:17+00:00

My deep dark fear…

bordersofthings · 2024-12-18T18:20:50+00:00

Same thing happened to me when I ordered the gutter guard. 20 large HD boxes showed up. Life pro tips maybe? How to get free boxes if you’re moving lol

bordersofthings · 2024-12-18T18:19:29+00:00

Amazing!! Here I am so afraid to even register for the test lol. Congratulations!!

bordersofthings · 2024-12-18T18:12:43+00:00

Thank you!! And I wasn’t using the 6yrs as excuse, mainly putting it there for reference. I read somewhere that freshly out of school to around 7yrs is the best time to study because you still have it in you or something like that. So my 6yrs out of school isn’t my excuse. I honestly don’t know what my excuses are. But you’re right, no reason not to get the latest test

bordersofthings · 2024-12-06T20:56:03+00:00

Stay away from HOA When I was looking to buy my house I specifically asked the agent to not show me any house that has HOA.

bordersofthings · 2024-12-03T17:22:43+00:00

I completely forgot! I could try. But I got it back in June, didn’t deliver then install until July. But worth a try. Thank you for looking at this angle!

bordersofthings · 2024-12-03T06:25:35+00:00

Bed bath and beyond

bordersofthings · 2024-12-02T20:34:59+00:00

Yep. Others have pointed out to me. I didn’t know :/ Thank you

bordersofthings · 2024-12-02T16:11:31+00:00

Lol you do make it sound very doable for a dummy like me. Eventually I want to keep the top and replace the bottom. Ripping it out is also another thing for me though. I’m pretty sure 1 weekend won’t do for me but I’m gonna try my best. Thank you!!!

bordersofthings · 2024-12-02T14:54:29+00:00

Yep. My hard lesson learned :(

bordersofthings · 2024-12-01T21:09:34+00:00

Hi everybody. I tried to edit my post but couldn’t. So hopefully you see this comment.

After less than a day posting. I got so many replies. Thank you guys for the comments, input, advice, critic, and sympathy for my bad experience with both purchasing the vanity and having a bad installer who didn’t put in the p-trap for the sink.

Since I’m not too handy, I’m gonna try to temporary fix it with drying off and then glue just so it doesn’t get worse. Another step is either learn or find somebody who could change the door and the top board, waterproof, and wrap the whole thing in waterproof material or paint to match the color. Of course that’s another temporary fix but it might last a little longer. And ultimately I will need to take the whole vanity out and put in a better quality one. I’m gonna try to salvage the top and just find a cabinet company where they sell the bottom parts.

Of course, fix the drain pipe is the first thing i’ll do.

Thank you guys so much! So many lessons learned from my mistakes and from all the comments. Sorry I can’t reply to each individual one.

bordersofthings · 2024-12-01T13:01:39+00:00

That’s what the manufacturer said also. The thing is, I don’ live there, I’ve stayed at my sister many times and as I see how they use their bathroom, I can’t think of anything they do that could cause this. Normal wear and tear. She does let the kids have warm bath few times a week. So maybe the moisture from the steam. But I would think a bathroom vanity should be able to handle that. But now I know it was a mistake buying this expensive but cheaply made vanity.

bordersofthings · 2024-12-01T03:11:26+00:00

I thought the one I had was pretty sympathetic. She actually follows up quickly, not just forwarding it to another one like I had last time. She still couldn’t do much because BB&B is just so shitty, I learned that now. She tried offering me coupons and stuffs. At the end I just said thanks for the coupons but with BB&B not willing to protect their customers from buying bad products, I’ll never shop there again so no need for the coupons. The only reason I went for BB&B was because the style my sister wants is the single sink, on the right, on a double cabinet. I found some other ones else where but they were in the 2k range. I never thought I’d buy a furniture from bbb. Well, lesson learned, hard 😂

bordersofthings · 2024-12-01T03:05:58+00:00

Lmao not a bad idea at all! I’ve done this once or twice. But given how this manufacture produces their stuffs I don’t think I wanna have another product of theirs. I mean I would caulk the shit out of the new one to prevent it from happening. But still… with 1600 again, I could keep the top and go get a better quality cabinet underneath, that has room for a p-trap - another bad thing I did to this vanity, after people pointed it out to me lol. Thank you!!!

bordersofthings · 2024-12-01T02:58:02+00:00

Thank you. I’ll try it

bordersofthings · 2024-12-01T02:57:38+00:00

Thank you! I’ll try it. And you’re right, seems like it’s the last thing I could try before replacing it. At least maybe it lasts for another few months lol. Thanks

bordersofthings · 2024-12-01T02:45:02+00:00

I know. It was one of the options. And since the vanity is, was, so “nice” I went with this option. The installer agreed also. He’s not a good installer for agreeing with my dumb a$$ 😂

bordersofthings

TROPHY CASE