LARE Section 2 common mistakes
LARE Section 2 · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Collecting inventory items without recording source, date, scale, or datum, then mixing measurements from a recent aerial, an old survey, and a schematic contour map.
Exam scenarios compress several data types into a short prompt, and candidates treat every number as equally reliable because the units look familiar.
What to do instead
Annotate each data item with source, date, units, and datum; convert units before calculating; reject derived measurements unless scale and datum agree.
Treating an aerial photo or site visit as a complete inventory and omitting easements, floodplain limits, utilities, soils, adjacent land use, and regulatory overlays.
Visual data dominates attention, so invisible or off-site constraints get missed under time pressure.
What to do instead
Use a fixed inventory checklist: physical, biological, cultural, infrastructure, and regulatory; mark every unknown as a data gap rather than assuming it is absent.
Writing an analysis that restates inventory facts - “there is a 10-foot slope” - instead of interpreting them - “the slope limits accessible routing and directs drainage toward the street.”
Candidates know the facts are important and repeat them, but the exam rewards the implication for design and program decisions.
What to do instead
Force every inventory fact into a “so what” statement tied to an opportunity, constraint, or program element; delete facts that do not change a decision.
Analyzing only inside the property line and ignoring adjacent uses, access points, noise sources, views, and drainage entering or leaving the site.
The base map boundary visually frames the problem, so candidates treat it as the analysis boundary.
What to do instead
Draw a context ring around the site and record adjacent land use, circulation, viewshed, noise, and off-site drainage before synthesizing on-site conditions.
Misreading contours by reversing high and low ground, assuming uniform slope, or ignoring the contour interval when computing slope.
Contour interpretation is easy to rush, and a single reversed interval propagates into grading, drainage, and accessibility conclusions.
What to do instead
Mark uphill and downhill directions and flow arrows; compute slope as contour interval divided by horizontal run; check the result against spot elevations and drainage patterns.
Developing a program as a room or use list without area, occupancy, adjacency, service, phasing, or budget checks.
Design ideas arrive quickly, and candidates treat the program as a wish list rather than a tested set of requirements.
What to do instead
Build an area schedule and adjacency matrix; test peak occupancy, service access, phasing, and rough cost before fixing locations on the plan.
Placing uses by visual preference without testing conflicts such as noise, odor, delivery traffic, security, night use, and maintenance access.
Composition and aesthetics dominate early layout decisions, while operational conflicts are invisible in a simple bubble diagram.
What to do instead
Map compatible and incompatible pairs, then locate buffers, service routes, and screening before refining form; recheck each program element against the constraints map.
Omitting an accessibility and life-safety overlay - accessible routes, running slopes, clearances, emergency access, and sightlines - until after the layout is fixed.
Candidates focus on spatial form and treat code compliance as a later documentation task.
What to do instead
Overlay accessible routes, grades, clearances, and emergency access at the start of site planning; reject layouts that cannot meet them before development.
Producing a graphic with no scale, north arrow, legend, or labels, or choosing a perspective when the decision requires a plan, section, or diagram.
Candidates try to make the drawing look polished instead of matching the graphic type to the message and audience.
What to do instead
Choose the graphic by decision type; include title, scale, north, legend, and key labels; keep one clear message per graphic and remove decorative content that does not support it.
Not tailoring communication to the audience or decision - using technical jargon with the public, or presenting data without a recommendation and next step.
Candidates demonstrate accumulated analysis rather than translating it into a decision the reader can act on.
What to do instead
State purpose, audience, and recommended action first; use callouts, before/after comparisons, and plain-language summaries; end with the next step or approval requested.