“Professionally Tabbed and Highlighted Books”
Contractor license applicants are continuously preyed upon by schools with false or misleading advertising. After construction applicants take an exam, there are several schools that send out emails and flyers offering to buy an applicant’s used books for $400 or $500. They turn around and advertise those same books as “Professionally Tabbed and Highlighted…” What’s wrong with saying they are used books? Why hide behind clever marketing? I guess they can justify the “professionally tabbed and highlighted” part because construction professionals with little or no prior testing knowledge highlighted heavens-knows-what….
If you rent a set of books for a Pool Service Contractor and your code book has a ton of code pertaining to concrete and rebar highlighted, do you really think that a license that DOES NOT allow you to set rebar and concrete is going to test on those subjects? Nope…
The State of Florida DBPR has a wealth of information pertaining to testing on their website: http://www.myfloridalicense.com/dbpr/servop/testing/constructionexaminformation.html
On this site, you can see the books lists, find the examination content information that pertains to your particular exam, and also get the rules of testing, highlighting, & tabbing to review for yourself to make sure you are getting what you pay for. Unfortunately, watching exam scores tank in this world of “Online exam prep”, “Self-Study” and cheap books is strengthening the negative aspect of the old saying “you get what you pay for…”
At the test center site, the proctors will briefly go through your books. If you have a Contractor’s Manual that was previously written in by another student and the proctor takes it away from you because it didn’t conform, or, if the school you rented your books from photocopied the AIA’s, then guess what? You are spending an additional $215 plus the cost of replacing that book in addition to the money you’ve already spent so you can retest…And if you are on a time crunch to get your license, think about how much more $$$ you are losing.
I’m not against used books, but, if you rent or use used books, make sure the books were used for the same exam you were taking. Use a different color highlighter for new highlighting.
Buyer Beware.
