How I aced the LEED Green Associate Exam

LEED Green Exam

Knowing what to study for the LEED Green Associate exam can be pretty tough. There’s a lot of information out there that ranges from highly technical to very broad. Since I aced the test, I want to point you in the right direction so you’re spending your time studying the right stuff so you can ace the exam too.

First?  A quiz for you to assess where you’re currently at.  The 25 question quiz below randomly selects questions from a growing library.  So every time you take the quiz, it will be different.  You can use the quiz to gauge where you’re at or use it as a study tool itself.  If you do poorly, you might want to look into the resources below. Without further ado…  Good luck!

Find this quiz helpful? Checkout the premium LEED Green Associate practice exam bundle!

LEED Green Associate Practice Exam Bundle

Key Study Materials

  • LEED Green Associate Study Guide & Core Concepts.  Directly from the horses mouth, the study guide from LEED.  It’s a great foundation to start from but admittedly won’t fully prepare you for the test.  There is a ton of more technical information that these two books leave out.  It’s also quite annoying that it’s essentially the same book split into two.  It makes you switch back and forth between the two.
  • GBES Online Practice Exams.  If you were to ask me, this is possibly the most important resource to invest in.  There are  different practice exams you can take and if you’re doing poorly in a particular category you can take a test of all the questions in that category.  There were a number of questions on the test directly from the practice exams.
  • LEED v4 Green Associate Mock Exams – If you still like to have physical resources this is a good resource to use to study from.
  • Designer Hacks Green Associate Visuals.  The hardest thing for me when studying was remembering all of the references and what those references meant.  I developed some visuals to help me study that proved to be pretty helpful.  If there’s interest, I’ll add more to it.
  • LEED Green Associate Exam Guide Audio – I have always had a long commute so I like audio guides.  It’s pricey but if you need or like to multi-task its worth it.

LEED Green Associate Exam

Other Study Materials

  • Green Exam Academy.  Pat Flynn over at the Green Exam Academy provides a lot of useful information about the test.  Although I didn’t use his materials to study for the test, I found myself back on his site often when trying to find out other information like… that the LEED GA exam has a pass rating of 95%… or that there are a total of 200 points available on the exam and a passing score is 170.
  • LEED Green Associate Candidate Handbook.  The USGBC touts this as being a must for the test.  I skimmed it and used it when I needed it.  Is a good preliminary resource if you’re on the fence about taking the test and want to see what it’s about.  It’s free and there are a few sample questions in it so you can see where you’re at and how much time you’ll have to dedicate to studying.  For heavens sake don’t think you can show up without any studying and ace the test.

The Key Themes of the LEED Green Associate Exam

  • There’s a general theme in LEED that parking and automobiles are bad.  Strategize to minimize the use of parking lots, incorporate mixed use parking garages, or make the surfaces pervious with high SRI (solar reflectance index) values.  Simply meaning let water run through your hardscapes and make sure they’re light in color so they aren’t retaining heat.
  • LEED does not supersede any local or national codes or regulations.  The USGBC makes it clear that LEED does not take precedence over any existing codes.
  • Know your refrigerants.  There are a ton of questions about refigerents.  Study them and know their Global Warming Potential (GWP) and Ozone Depletion Potential (ODP) and their relationship to each other.
  • Sustainability costs no more… no less.  I ran across this in a number of questions simply phrased differently.  According to the USGBC, sustainable buildings are comparable in cost to conventional ones.

howiacedtheleedgreenassociateexam02

Tips When Taking The Exam

  • Pay close attention to keywords.  A lot of times you’ll notice the keywords ‘economic’ or ‘environmental’  give the answer away.
  • Mark questions.  During the test you can mark questions and go back to them at the end.  You’ll notice as you go through that some of the answers are revealed later questions.
  • Don’t drive yourself crazy.  If you don’t know an answer skip it and go back to it later.  There were a few questions I had a hard time understanding the first time around.  When I came back to them later they suddenly made sense and the answer was clear.

Hope this helps! Stay green hackers!

Have your own tips for taking the LEED Green Associate Exam? Leave a comment below!

14 Comments

  1. adamwolf13 April 4, 2016 at 8:54 pm #

    Cool, thanks again!

  2. DesignerHacks April 4, 2016 at 6:57 am #

    There were some oddly-specific questions on my exam but the majority of the content was focused on fundamentals.

  3. adamwolf13 April 3, 2016 at 10:59 pm #

    Hey Designer Hacks, thanks for all this helpful information! I’m studying for the LEED GA exam as well and hope to pass in late April. I’ve noticed there are a number of factoids in the USGBC materials, mentioning things like how much runoff goes into the Puget Sound each year, or how many acres were lost to development per minute in the US (PS – it’s 200k barrels and 4 acres!). Did you encounter any factoids like this on your test? Thanks!

  4. DesignerHacks February 2, 2016 at 5:28 pm #

    I personally used the USGBC online practice exams. They were very helpful.

  5. Xandre February 2, 2016 at 2:18 pm #

    Where did you find the technical information you said wasn’t provided in either of the “LEED Green Associate Study Guide & Core Concepts”?

  6. Tony Gushanas September 15, 2015 at 11:18 am #

    Glad I could help!

  7. DesignerHacks January 13, 2015 at 1:24 pm #

    Good luck with your test Robert. If you’d like more resources to prepare for the LEED exam you should visit http://www.greenexamacademy.com/

  8. Robert January 9, 2015 at 12:30 am #

    Thanks for sharing such a great informative blog post! As, i am also looking for a experts in order to prepare for a LEED GA Exam Prep.

  9. Tony Gushanas March 23, 2014 at 12:10 pm #

    Alica,

    Thanks so much for letting me know about this. When I bought the book, I did, in fact, only pay $20. I called Amazon to see if the price was a listing glitch. The rep assured me it is not (and the product is being sold through a third party). I don’t think the book is worth $200+ so I’ve crossed out the product on this page and will look for alternatives. I’ll also keep an eye out for copies that are reasonably priced. Thanks again.

  10. DesignerHacks March 17, 2014 at 8:40 am #

    Alica,

    Thanks so much for letting me know about this. When I bought the book, I did, in fact, only pay $20. I called Amazon to see if the price was a listing glitch. The rep assured me it is not (and the product is being sold through a third party). I don’t think the book is worth $200+ so I’ve crossed out the product on this page and will look for alternatives. I’ll also keep an eye out for copies that are reasonably priced to give away. Thanks again.

  11. Alicia Deschamps March 17, 2014 at 12:35 am #

    Im not sure where you got your pricing for the leafvisual green book cause its listed at $200 on amazon, not $20 as mentioned! :(

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