LEEDuser's Study Guide to the LEED v4 Green Associate Exam

If you’re a professional who wants to demonstrate your green building expertise, the LEED Green Associate exam is your starting point. Our LEED Green Associate study guide will help you pass on the first try.

Pass the exam and you’ll have a credential that tells people that you have key insights into sustainable design, construction, and operations. You’ll have a basis for diving into the field and learning much more, even earning your LEED AP credential and beyond.

Why it’s challenging—817 reasons

The exam is very doable, but it can be challenging to study for. Why? There is not a single central resource on which all the exam questions are based.

Many of the questions are very specific and are unrelated to general industry knowledge. Making matters more difficult, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) recommends that you review over a dozen resources to prepare. Some of these are quite lengthy (just one, the LEED Reference Guide, is 817 pages).

It can take months to review all of this information, when only a fraction of it is actually relevant to the exam.

What should you expect from a study guide?

Here at LEEDuser, our mission since 2009 has been to support LEED professionals in achieving LEED certification for their projects.

Our resource, the most respected in the industry, is founded on these three principles:

Your time and money are valuable. Let’s not waste either of them.
Results matter. We provide a clear process to get them.
Mistakes cost you time and credibility. We map out pitfalls so you can avoid them.

There are lots of study guides and practice exams on the market. To understand what separates LEEDuser’s study guide from the dozens of others out there, we recommend you consider 1) who’s behind it, and 2) does it target what you need?

1) Is it produced by an experienced third party?

LEEDuser has been the most trusted LEED support website since its launch in 2009. The company behind LEEDuser, BuildingGreen, has followed the development of LEED since well before LEED v1.0.

We chose to partner with GreenStep Education in providing this study guide because of GreenStep’s track record as a trusted educator for green building professionals. Alex Spilger of GreenStep has helped thousands of professionals prepare to pass the LEED exams. He knows the material backwards and forwards.

2) Is it targeted to what you need to know?

In 2014, a new version of the LEED Green Associate exam was launched to go with the new LEED v4 version. Has the guide you’re looking at incorporated this key update? If not, it’s wasting your time.

Our guide is not only up to date—it’s down to a science. Rather than give you hundreds of pages of reading and tons of questions to go through that may or may not represent what you’ll actually see on the test, the guide we’re offering in partnership with GreenStep Education is designed to give you exactly what you need.

How the GreenStep LEED Green Associate study guide is different

Many of the exam prep resources currently on the market are borne from the idea that quantity is king. Their selling point is that if you simply take 700 practice questions, memorize 1,000 flash cards, install the latest iPhone app, and read through the “condensed” 250-page study guide, you will eventually pass the exam.

The large majority of people that we work with are working professionals or students, or professionals seeking work. If you are like them, you have a limited amount of time, energy, and brainpower to devote to studying. You can’t afford to sort through and memorize information that will never be covered on the test, and that may never even be used in your job.

We believe that quality is much more important than quantity. In developing this study guide, the GreenStep team scoured every possible resource for potential exam questions, passed the most recent version of the exam, and incorporated feedback from dozens of industry professionals.

The result is a comprehensive and concise study guide that covers everything you need to know to pass the LEED Green Associate exam. Feedback from the many individuals who passed the exam on their first try tells us that this approach works.

What you’ll get in this guide

The GreenStep guide and practice exam offered by LEEDuser includes:

An 84-page study guide covering all the key info you need to pass
4 practice exams, totaling 350 questions, covering all the question types you’ll deal with, with a focus on difficult questions that will show you how to use your study materials. (You can pause the exams as needed to research questions, and take them as many times as you need.)
The exact LEED info that the people who wrote the exam are pulling from for questions
Expert studying and test-taking strategies from someone who’s mastered LEED exams
A breakdown of each credit category and credit—optimized to help you with studying and memorizing
The handful of standards and definitions you'll definitely need to know on test day
The only list we've seen of hard-to-find “random facts” that are included on the Green Associate exam—facts many people miss!

What customers are saying

Here’s what GreenStep customers have said about Alex’s study guide:

“I absolutely swear by my GreenStep guide. It helped me pass my LEED Green Associate last spring! I have been referring colleagues to this guide—everything from overarching concepts to minute details were covered perfectly. I would have spent precious time and energy studying the wrong materials had I not purchased the GreenStep guide.”

Aminah McNulty, Brown, Richardson & Rowe

“I just took the exam and passed with a score of 181! As an architect and attorney, I'm a veteran of many licensing exams and associated prep materials. I must tell you, your materials are some of the very best I've used. It was very concise and well focused, with great exam-specific content. I was able to prepare effectively solely from the materials you provided. I would heartily recommend your Study Guide and practice exams to anyone hoping to obtain a passing score. Many thanks.”

R. Reiss, esq. AIA NCARB LEED AP

“Alex, I wanted to say thank you for your super helpful LEED GA study guide and practice exams. I took the LEED GA exam this morning and passed! I used your training guide and practice tests as my sole study materials and found that was all I needed. Plenty of information in them, but more importantly, plenty of the right information. Thanks again for your efforts!”

Marissa Tucci, Interface Engineering

“I recently took the LEED Green Associate exam and I passed the test on the first try. GreenStep’s study guide and practice exams reflect what you can expect to see on the actual exam. If you follow GreenStep’s study guide and study tips you will pass the exam. ”

Michael R. Bowen, Strategic Account Manager, Waste Management

“I just passed the LEED GA exam Tuesday with a 191/200. I used the GreenStep study materials exclusively. Thank you for putting together such a great LEED GA test preparation program.”

Nicole Nowacki, University of California at Irvine

We guarantee you’ll pass

We’re so certain that this is the only LEED Green Associate resource you’ll need that we’re backing it up with a 100% money-back guarantee.

In the unlikely event that you use our study materials and fail to pass within 180 days, simply contact us with your exam details and we’ll issue a full refund, no questions asked.

Not only that, but because we value your time we will work with you to dissect exactly what went wrong in your exam experience and provide customized followup to address any weak points. We are always seeking to learn more about the LEED exams and improve our study materials.

Buy LEEDuser's Study Guide to the LEED v4 Green Associate Exam for $149 »