CE Quiz Break 11 is located in Objective 4.1. It consists of 3 questions, one of which asks to identify the 4 phases of the commissioning process. Commissioning is not covered until the next “lecture” video where this very information is discussed. This is inconsistent with Black Spectacles’ stated purpose of the quizzes:
By quizzing yourself as you study, you’ll be teaching your mind how to recall the information you’ve just learned.
As this information hasn’t been covered yet, it doesn’t make sense to locate this quiz in this sequence.
Hi @bmurphy, thanks for writing in about this!
We sprinkle quizzes throughout the video sequence for a number of reasons - the primary being that it is a great way to train your mind to recall information that you’ve just learned. However, it can also be used to identify your strengths/weaknesses, think critically about and beyond the topics you just learned, and introduce you to new/adjacent topics. The ARE is so tricky because the objectives for each division/content area are so closely related. While commissioning is not explicitly discussed in the previous videos, it is tied to the topics that had been presented.
For this question in particular, you could look at it as a pre-test for the next topics to come. By using the information you’ve already learned about substantial and final completion, you can begin to infer the phases of commissioning. If you get the question wrong, don’t worry because you will dive deeper into the specifics in the next video series. If you get the question right, you can feel confident that you’re going into the next lesson with prerequisite knowledge.
I also like to think of quiz questions as additional study points to dive deeper into topics. We cover the foundational knowledge and key information in lecture videos, but can’t go into every fine detail of every topic (otherwise, the videos would be very long!). Therefore, the quizzes and practice exams are way to simulate the randomness of the ARE - you’ll see questions on topics that you are familiar with, but you may also see unfamiliar topics and will need to apply strategies to derive an educated guess for your answer(s).
Kiara Galicinao, AIA, NCARB
Product Coordinator
Black Spectacles