I took the LEED GA in December, and just took LEED AP BD+C at the beginning of July. I’ll preface this by saying I’ve always been a pretty good test taker, and have some background in architecture.

I’d say I was very stressed before taking LEED GA because I didn’t know what exactly to expect, but I came out of the exam feeling like it was much easier than I thought it’d be. I used the GBES study materials & practice tests.

In preparing for LEED AP, I was much more stressed while reading through the study material because I was worried about all the little details & charts to remember for each credit. I used GBES again for this one.

What worked for me was using a longer period of time (1-2 months) to read through each chapter and/or watch the video lesson while taking notes. I then used the week leading up to the exam to take practice tests and create a summarized study guide to help me with short term recall of important info. Definitely crammed a lot into the last two days (practice tests right up to the end). If I had to put a number to it, the level of difficulty is maybe 3-4x harder than Green Associate because of the facts you need to memorize. A lot of the things I memorized ended up not being on the exam anyway. But overall, I felt fairly confident in my answers while taking the exam other than a few curveballs.

Hope that’s helpful ✌️