Study Strategy
Those candidates for ASHRAE certifications who choose to prepare for their exams may want to use the following strategy:
- Download the Candidate Guidebook found on the certification program’s webpage.
- Review the Detailed Content Outline (DCO) found in the Guidebook. The DCO outlines the topics that will be covered on the exam AND indicates how many items (out of 100) from each topic area will appear on the exam. Some topic areas will have more items than will other topic areas.
- Determine which topic areas you are most comfortable with and which ones you want to “brush up” on.
- Decide how much time and effort to expend on studying each topic area, based on the relative “weight” of the topic area and your experience and comfort level.
- Browse the list of Available Resources found on the certification program’s webpage to determine which ones align best with any areas you want to brush up on. Then you can decide whether you need to obtain additional materials to help with your examination preparations.
Exam-Taking Strategy
- The first time through the exam, mark an answer for every item – there is no penalty for “guessing.”
- “Flag” items that either you are not sure of or will take more than 30 seconds to address and return to them for more consideration if you have time at the end of the exam.
- On ASHRAE exams, each of the four answer choices will be correct approximately an equal number of times. No single answer choice is correct a significant number of times more than any of the others.