LEED tips

Why Take the LEED Green Associate Exam?

While working on a variety of alternative energy and energy efficiency projects during a summer internship in the conservation department of a small town, my employer suggested that I look into the LEED Green Associate as a way to boost my career in a tough job market. I was intrigued and decided to pursue the Green Associate to learn more about LEED and the growing field of green building.

IMHO, there are two primary reasons to consider taking this exam:

1) Professional/career investment
2) Education about LEED and sustainability

My employer believed that becoming a LEED Green Associate would give me an edge in applying for jobs in the sustainability field and I found this to be true when I began my job search after I graduated in the Spring of 2011.

Many job applications asked for green credentials and some specifically asked for a LEED Green Associate. I found that it almost always came up in interviews, and I believe that it impressed employers that I had shown a dedication to the industry beyond my collegiate studies.

Exam Eligibility

There are eligibility requirements with the LEED Green Associate exam, however there are three paths to fulfilling this eligibility, and any one of them will do the trick:

1) Education: Take a class that addresses green building principles
2) Job: Work in a “sustainable field”
3) LEED Project: Work on a LEED registered project

I qualified for the exam by taking a two-day LEED Green Associate Exam preparation course. At the end of the class, we all received PDF Certificates of Completion. The Certificate was my proof of eligibility and it was very easy to upload it to my application with GBCI.

☆ Exam Tip:

Initially, I mailed my student transcript to GBCI so that I could qualify for student pricing on the exam... But after 3 weeks, I still had not seen my pricing updated on my GBCI profile. I subsequently called them and found out that they do not receive physical mail (even though their mailing address is posted on the website). I don’t know if this is permanent or not, but I do not recommend mailing anything to GBCI! :)

Studying Techniques

I took the two-day class in August 2010 (four months before I took the exam). The class was 7 hours a day for two days. I thought my instructor was great and that the time was used effectively. However, since I already had some knowledge about LEED and green building from my coursework at Cornell, I didn’t think it was crucial to my success on the exam. For someone new to LEED, I would recommend more extensive preparation, such as taking a class; however, if you’ve worked on a LEED project, I don’t think it’s worth the price (in my case, $595).

☆ Exam Tip:

Regarding exam eligibility, it turns out that I did not even necessarily need the 2 day class to be eligible for the exam. My coursework at Cornell would have most likely fulfilled my eligibility for "taking a class that addresses green building principles". That said, the LEED Green Associate study guide was helpful in preparing for the exam. The catch here is that the study guide the class provided might have been gibberish without an instructor’s explanation. There was a lot of abbreviated text and graphics that I wouldn’t have understood without her guidance. So, if you decide not to take a class, make sure that your study guide or other study tools are thorough and easy to understand.

Study Guides:
I found the study guide to be absolutely essential to my success. Ironically, I didn’t use any of the LEED primary references (which are provided as study tools by USGBC) because our instructor told us that the study guide was much more concise and effective. A study guide is a very efficient approach, akin to being given a map to navigate a city you've never been in before.

As I mentioned above, I needed an instructor’s guidance to help me understand the guide, but once she did, I found it to be a very valuable resource. I only studied the information in the study guide, and only 2 questions on the actual exam were not covered.

A good study guide will save you a great deal of time and effort. I highly recommend investing in one and you can find an excellent selection here.

Index/Flash Cards:
I made index cards that covered all of the material I found in the study guide. I reviewed them until I had memorized all of this information. This is my favorite way to study for any test and it worked very well on the LEED Green Associate exam.

Practice Tests/Exam Simulators:
After memorizing all of the information, I took practice tests over and over until I got every question right. I found that the questions on all of the practice tests were very similar to in the questions on the actual exam. In fact, some were a bit more difficult than the actual exam questions.

I had never taken a test in a testing center before taking the LEED Green Associate exam. If you’re in the same position, I highly recommend taking practice exams on your computer using an exam simulator.

The exam simulator allowed me to mark questions that I was unsure of and get comfortable with the timing of the exam (2 hours) via the timer in the corner. To make it even more realistic, take out a notepad and take the practice test in a quiet area. You will have almost complete silence and a whiteboard for the actual exam.

When to Take the Exam:

I took the exam during the Winter Break of my senior year of college, so I had plenty of free time to study. If you are a college student and have the opportunity to take the exam during one of your breaks, I would highly recommend it. Even if you work or intern during the break, I found it easier to focus on studying for the Green Associate without having to also study for my other 5 classes!

☆ Exam Tip:

The instructor told us to take the exam soon after we completed the course, so the information from the course was fresh in our minds. I did not do this. I took the exam about 4 months after I completed the course. If, for whatever reason, you are unable to take the exam with the information fresh in your mind, I found it was easy to jog my memory using a study guide. Whether you are engaged in online or traditional classroom training, use a study guide and take notes in it during the class so that you can easily understand what is meant by the information.

How Long to Study:
Length of study is very much an individual thing, but I studied for about 6-8 hours a day for 6 days leading up to the exam. In retrospect, I may have studied too much for the exam. However, since the exam is relatively expensive (GBCI charges a $50.00 application fee, an exam fee of $150 for USGBC members and full-time students and $200 for all others) I wanted to be positive that I would not fail and have to retake it.

Since I studied so much, the test only took me about 30 minutes to complete. The two questions that I missed were not covered in my study guide (we had been warned that there might be one or two questions that would not have been covered in the class). While it was better to be too prepared than under prepared. I think about 30 hours, or 5 hours per day, would have been sufficient.

Test-Taking Strategies

The LEED Green Associate exam is administered by Prometric, an international testing center company. Prometric has testing facilities throughout the United States and other countries. When you first arrive at the Prometric testing center, you will be asked to take everything out of your pockets and put your personal things in a locker.

They do not want you to bring anything into the testing room except a pencil and a piece of blank paper. You may use this blank piece of paper to do a brain dump if you need to. In other words, you'll have time at the beginning of the exam session, before the exam starts, to write down important information that you need to remember, but may be afraid you'll forget during the exam.

The test-taking strategies I used were the same as I used for every multiple-choice test, which are:

Process of Elimination: Write down A, B, C, D, and E on your piece of paper. Cross out the ones you know are wrong, and then decide between the ones you think are right.

Use the Test itself as a Tool: If two questions are on the same topic, sometimes you can use the information in the prompt of one question to help you answer the other question.

Mark Questions You Are Unsure of: Mark the questions you are unsure of and go back to them later. I find that when I spend too much time on a question I don’t know, it makes me nervous. Prometric allows you to go back and revisit questions that you may have had trouble with. If you're unable to answer a certain question, you may find that later questions may jog your memory on an earlier one. Plus, it’s a much better use of time to answer multiple questions that you know the answers to than to labor over one question.

Credential Maintenance Program (CMP)

I applied for the LEED Green Associate exam about two months before I actually took it. When you apply for the exam, you agree to GBCI’s Credential Maintenance Program (CMP), which specifies that a Green Associate needs to complete 15 hours of continuing education (3 LEED-specific) every two years in order to maintain his or her credential. Otherwise, you have to retake the exam. There are many ways to fulfill "non-LEED-specific" CMP credits as well as LEED-Specific CMP Credits.

I honestly forgot about this requirement until I saw articles on LEED CMP on green-buildings.com – probably because I was so concerned with earning the credential that I hadn’t thought about what I needed to do after the exam. It's somewhat confusing determining what qualifies as continuing education for GBCI CMP.

☆ GBCI Credential Maintenance Tip:
The original authorship option is excellent for learning and retaining new information about green building because writing requires my full engagement. 500 word articles earn me 3 Continuing Education Units (CEUs) for LEED CMP. You can learn more original authorship/publication on Green-Buildings.com here.

Key Takeaways

1) Take as many practice exams as you can. Review your incorrect answers carefully and re-take them until you answer every question correctly.

2) Use a study guide. While USGBC lists their “Primary Reference” materials for the exam, this material is too broad and unorganized to be helpful. Using a study guide will save you time, energy, and confusion.

3) If you are a student, take advantage of your breaks to prepare for the exam. You will already be in “study mode”.

4) Do a "brain dump" before the test to write down any key information you want to have handy during the exam. Use the exam questions as a guide for answering other questions. Revisit questions that you're having trouble with, Prometric allows you to go back and review everything before submitting.

5) There are many ways to maintain your credential under the LEED Credential Maintenance Program. One way to do this, which is free, helps you learn while also promoting your expertise in green building, is original authorship.

5) Earning your LEED Green Associate credential will likely give you an edge in applying for jobs in the sustainability field.