# Building Material in PA exam

**URL:** <https://community.blackspectacles.com/t/building-material-in-pa-exam/7437>\
**Category:** Programming & Analysis\
**Created:** [August 13, 2025, 7:14pm UTC](https://community.blackspectacles.com/t/building-material-in-pa-exam/7437 "2025-08-13T19:14:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![sh.khodabakhshi](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/community.blackspectacles.com/sh.khodabakhshi/32/1097_2.png) [@sh.khodabakhshi](https://community.blackspectacles.com/u/sh.khodabakhshi)\
**Post date:** [August 13, 2025, 7:14pm UTC](https://community.blackspectacles.com/t/building-material-in-pa-exam/7437/1 "2025-08-13T19:14:23Z")

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Hello @kiaragalicinao ,Regarding building materials, do we need to **memorize all** of them for the exam? It feels like **too much** , and as far as I know, NCARB doesn’t test us on rote memorization. How many questions will be based on building materials? I’m so scared after studying Material Properties 101 & 102. I’d really appreciate it if you could share your suggestions, since you’ve passed this exam.

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**Author:** ![kiaragalicinao](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/community.blackspectacles.com/kiaragalicinao/32/1607_2.png) [@kiaragalicinao](https://community.blackspectacles.com/u/kiaragalicinao)\
**Post date:** [August 22, 2025, 5:46pm UTC](https://community.blackspectacles.com/t/building-material-in-pa-exam/7437/2 "2025-08-22T17:46:09Z")

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Hi @sh.khodabakhshi, thanks for reaching out! You definitely don’t need to memorize building materials, as the ARE will not test you on memorization or simple recall (more about this on page 54 of the **[ARE 5.0 Guidelines](https://www.ncarb.org/sites/default/files/ARE-5-Guidelines.pdf)**). Instead, I’d focus on key concepts associated with each material (for example: steel properties and limitations, galvanic action and metal protection methods) and how to apply these concepts to real-life scenarios (for example: using galvanized steel fasteners with copper roofing, which are dissimilar metals, will result in corrosion due to galvanic action). Because there are so many building materials and scenarios that you could be presented with, I recommend focusing on the concepts presented in the lecture videos and using practice questions to enhance your understanding of them.

Hope this helps!

Kiara Galicinao, AIA, NCARB  
Product Coordinator  
**[Black Spectacles](https://www.blackspectacles.com/en-us/)**