Black SpectaclesReviews of blackspectacles.com

I have officially completed all my ARE exams and honestly It was mostly do to the several books I had to purchase NOT the Black Spectacles lectures/ materials. I would say the practice exams where most helpful, but I was very disappointed with the quality of the exam prep material especially for the PA, PPD, and PDD exams. I did not feel like the technical material in the videos was in-depth enough to prepare me for either exam. The only reason I maintained my subscription was for the practice exams, as they provided information on where to find the raw material. I had to buy several hundreds of dollars worth of books to attain the exam material to pass the PPD, PDD, and PA exams. This service overall provides a framework for the exams, but does not prepare you for the more complex exam questions and scenarios. I do not think I would refer this service to anyone else trying to pass these exams especially considering the substantial price for access to the material. Services like this that require extra and tiered payment to help with the ARE is another aspect of the process of become a licensed architect that is very gatekeeping. I am glad I wont have to pay for this subscription again and with this experience from the ARE I will find my exam material to pass the CSE elsewhere, especially because OVER $200 a month for ONE exam is a full scam as is the rest of the testing martial.

Black Spectacles initially comes across as a well produced, and professional ARE prep. Unfortunately, my experience went downhill quick. I failed my first exam after extensive studying and I recall being so frustrated during the exam solely due to much of the exam content seeming so foreign to me. And good luck getting ahold of their customer service department; that should tell you everything you need to know. So, thank you Black Spectacles for your professionally shot and edited videos... super slick, just wish it hadn't cost me $1k and a failed exam.

Black Spectacles is by FAR THE WORST test prep material for these exams. I would venture to say that 80%of the positive feedback on this site is BlackSpectacles manufactured. They monitor their reviews obsessively and love to either respond with passive aggressive lies or outright ban someone from the sites of review sighting falsehoods. Their customer service is highly disrespectful, and derogatory with their feedback. You MADE A BAD PRODUCT. IT HELPS NO ONE! Stop stealing people's money. The only thing they are genius at is marketing. There will be feedback underneath this comment. It will not address that the content of the exams does not align with their materials. It will not say that the CEO is a bully who cares more about his image at the AIA than actually helping his consumers. It will say NOTHING! Because that is what this TRASH is worth. Literally none of the content aligns with the exams. None of it. I only used BS for my exams and failed all of them 4 times before I realized that it wasn't me. I can quote every inch of every study material they have- its all garbage! The staff pretends they're doing you a favor by taking your money to fail. The "constant updates to materials" happens every decade, not as constant as is necessary. The staff on their team are getting fat and lazy off of your money! Please do not buy!

The study guide included with the subscription advises that all you need to do is watch the videos and take the practice exams. This literally is not possible, as much of the information contained in the exam is covered only superficially or not at all in the videos, which leaves one to their own devices to bridge the gap between the provided information and the information on the exam. The practice tests are helpful but limited. You only get 3, and an option to randomize the questions (at which point you already know the answers). I found the questions to be poorly worded and confusing as well, with different terms for things than those that had been used in the videos and some pretty slippery justifications for correct answers at times. The source of the questions are also poorly referenced/cited, often referencing an entire 100+ page chapter or even a whole book as the "source" of the question. There is no option to pause the exam, which makes it difficult to practice if you have kids or other things that also might need attention. I don't care if you can't pause the exam in real life, if I want to simulate this aspect of the test I can handle not hitting an otherwise extremely useful "pause" button. That's basically it, you get some really non-specific, boring videos that are basically like someone in your office giving their general remarks about a topic covered in the exam, 3 practice tests that mimic the format of the exam, and a few flashcards that I found pretty useless. For $200 a month. I did not feel prepared for the exam and didn't feel like I really started studying until I had wasted weeks watching the videos, took the practice exam, and realized that the information in the exam was not covered in the videos. At this point all I could do was to buy the source material referenced in the practice exams, and it was on me figure out from the practice exams what I needed to know, find where it was covered in the books, then learn that before my exam (which was already scheduled at that point). I was basically doing it all on my own, which is not a good feature of test prep program. In summation, the only thing I found useful was the practice exams, and even those were not great quality. Not only were the videos worthless, they actually cost me a lot of time that could have been spent actually learning the material and caused me to schedule my exam before I was ready to take it because I trusted their marketing claims. It's worth nowhere near $200 a month, and in the final analysis I probably would have been better off using no test prep at all than to go with this. I absolutely will not be using Black Spectacles for my next exam.

My company pays for the expert subscription which is supposed to give you access to the virtual workshops, which sounds like the most useful thing about Black Spectacles, but they let you RSVP for it, and once the time comes, you can't log into the zoom meeting...There just isn't an option to launch the course?? I've tried all the different browsers, and customer service just tells me I don't have access to it because of my subscription level. Honestly one of the most useless subscription services out there. If I pass this division it won't be because of Black Spectacles, I can tell you that.