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SE Exam New format April 2024 34
- Thread starter Sam1993
- Start date
I guess that is possible....but when I was going through the SE I & II, I had a BS & MS (under the "old" system), and I had a hard time passing the SE I. In fact, the pass rates then are comparable to what they are now. So I don't know that I buy the education theory.
If they gave me a closed book reference test, I'd probably fail it too. (And I have been a SE for 15 years.) It is the equivalent of taking Tiger Woods out to a gold course and telling him: if you don't make this hole-in-one, you aren't really a golfer.
Right. Current curricula might be a small part of it, but I'd bet the test is the explanation.
When I took the old Strl I and Strl II in the early 2000s, the Strl II was a crapshoot. They would ask seismic questions that required that you had used that exact seismic force resisting system. There were too many SFRSs to be ready for all of them. There wasn't enough time to figure out an unfamiliar SFRS during the test. I didn't see any way to study for it.
The first time I tried the Strl II, I failed miserably as did two other guys from our office. The pass rate was 15%. We took it again the following semester. They asked about a system I had used in the last couple of years, so I passed fairly easily. I don't know what the pass rate was.
From that, the name of the game seemed to be "take the Strl II until they give you something in your wheelhouse." LOL
Also, the stories about the computer based exam are very discouraging. There was an article in STRUCTURE magazine recently about this. The bottom line was "Screw you guys. There's no plan to make it any better."
When I took the old Strl I and Strl II in the early 2000s, the Strl II was a crapshoot. They would ask seismic questions that required that you had used that exact seismic force resisting system. There were too many SFRSs to be ready for all of them. There wasn't enough time to figure out an unfamiliar SFRS during the test. I didn't see any way to study for it.
The first time I tried the Strl II, I failed miserably as did two other guys from our office. The pass rate was 15%. We took it again the following semester. They asked about a system I had used in the last couple of years, so I passed fairly easily. I don't know what the pass rate was.
From that, the name of the game seemed to be "take the Strl II until they give you something in your wheelhouse." LOL
Also, the stories about the computer based exam are very discouraging. There was an article in STRUCTURE magazine recently about this. The bottom line was "Screw you guys. There's no plan to make it any better."
Closed book works for pilots in emergency situation testing: do you have the essentials committed to memory and can you instantly recall them under some stress.
Engineering is a paced application of knowledge interwoven with creativity. Many examples only barely mimic real life situtions, but fundamentals apply, and making judgment calls in order to apply fundamentals and codes can sometimes be a little grey. But, fundamentals are testable.
Thus, a test that consistently has pass rates in the 70th percentile is a decent test of the level of qualification in question. A test with rates consistently in the teens is arguably not testing appropriately. It would be tantamount to putting marginally trained pilots into a nighttime spin and seeing if they can pull out successfully. Not a good outcome in most cases. So, to test those students, one has to train then up. The question then becomes "are you ready for this test?". You ought to be able to check for readiness.
If you were a sponsor for a test candidate, and you pay for the exam cost and the paid labor hours for sitting the exam, would you sponsor 100 test takers knowing that 15 may succeed? Ha! Not. So, you would screen yout candidates and only sponsor those who cleared a check hurdle that predicts exams success.
SO, what is that check? And, why is the gatekeeper not offering or enforcing it?
Engineering is a paced application of knowledge interwoven with creativity. Many examples only barely mimic real life situtions, but fundamentals apply, and making judgment calls in order to apply fundamentals and codes can sometimes be a little grey. But, fundamentals are testable.
Thus, a test that consistently has pass rates in the 70th percentile is a decent test of the level of qualification in question. A test with rates consistently in the teens is arguably not testing appropriately. It would be tantamount to putting marginally trained pilots into a nighttime spin and seeing if they can pull out successfully. Not a good outcome in most cases. So, to test those students, one has to train then up. The question then becomes "are you ready for this test?". You ought to be able to check for readiness.
If you were a sponsor for a test candidate, and you pay for the exam cost and the paid labor hours for sitting the exam, would you sponsor 100 test takers knowing that 15 may succeed? Ha! Not. So, you would screen yout candidates and only sponsor those who cleared a check hurdle that predicts exams success.
SO, what is that check? And, why is the gatekeeper not offering or enforcing it?
I remember that! The funny thing about that was (around that time): the gears switched on that. (IIRC around 2002-2004.) All the sudden the SE I & II pass rates switched. I.e. prior to that point, the SE I had high pass rate and the SE II had a low one. But that switched right around the time (unfortunately for me) that I started taking it. I've got a lot of that data on a old computer of mine.
I actually went (something like) 4 years after passing the SE I before I tried the SE II. (The state I live in was qualifying engineers (as PEs) at the time based on passing the SE I.) It took a zillion attempts on the SE I for me.....the SE II? Got it the first time (IIRC).
For people discussing test format, I'm personally a much bigger fan of the IStructE style of exam. Get a bunch of options, pick the one you actually know things about because it's what your practice is based on, and then do a series of conceptual and design questions about that project. You can 100% target this type of exam for something more specific like seismic lateral if that's the goal. The problem being that, since its fairly free form you need reasonably qualified people to actually mark the thing.
The format is pretty good though. An experienced engineer can go in semi-cold with maybe some light practice on how to present scheme design and some practice for time. An inexperienced engineer can't study their way though on brute force calculation knowledge. You can pick a question, so it recognizes that experience is different. The solutions are semi-open ended, so you're free to solve the problem how you'd like. It's testing if you can apply engineering principles to a problem in a reasonable way.
Here's a couple of past papers for people who haven't looked at them before. They also publish the examiners reports for completed exams with explanations of what they had been looking for, what types of reasonable approaches people took, what typical problems people had and the pass rates for each question.
Feb 2023 Exam
Feb 2023 Examiner's Report
Feb 2023 Example Solution
www.istructe.org
The pass rates are 30-40% but I can kind of respect this as a measure of being able to do engineering so that seems less ridiculous.
The format is pretty good though. An experienced engineer can go in semi-cold with maybe some light practice on how to present scheme design and some practice for time. An inexperienced engineer can't study their way though on brute force calculation knowledge. You can pick a question, so it recognizes that experience is different. The solutions are semi-open ended, so you're free to solve the problem how you'd like. It's testing if you can apply engineering principles to a problem in a reasonable way.
Here's a couple of past papers for people who haven't looked at them before. They also publish the examiners reports for completed exams with explanations of what they had been looking for, what types of reasonable approaches people took, what typical problems people had and the pass rates for each question.
Feb 2023 Exam
Feb 2023 Examiner's Report
Feb 2023 Example Solution
Critiqued exam answer script - February 2023 - The Institution of Structural Engineers
A new piece of preparation material from the Examinations Panel, designed to help candidates understand how to structure their answers using a real example.
www.istructe.org
The pass rates are 30-40% but I can kind of respect this as a measure of being able to do engineering so that seems less ridiculous.
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David Deck Guy
Structural
These codes are written in such a legalese, I couldn't imagine referencing them in a timely fashion without my ungodly mess of notes, highlights, and tabs.WARose said:
Overstrength
Structural
- Nov 19, 2024
- 2
Getting back to the original question of this thread, are there any recent test takers who care to share their experience?
I'm planning to take it sometime next year.
I'm planning to take it sometime next year.
canwesteng
Structural
The breadth was not very hard. Practice with one screen and digital codes. Be familiar with design aids. Not writing depth til April, but I've heard the time crunch on that one is very real.
Resurrecting the thread to share this: Link (attached pdf also)
SEA Illinois is quite peeved with NCEES. I've heard that SEA Colorado is planning to write a similar open letter to NCEES.
The SEAOI letter describes the various deficiencies with the design of the exam. May God have mercy on the souls who had to suffer through this.
Here's an excerpt that pretty much sums up their sentiment:
SEA Illinois is quite peeved with NCEES. I've heard that SEA Colorado is planning to write a similar open letter to NCEES.
The SEAOI letter describes the various deficiencies with the design of the exam. May God have mercy on the souls who had to suffer through this.
Here's an excerpt that pretty much sums up their sentiment:
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- #93
I've wanted to reply to threads like this for a long time and, until now, I've successfully resisted. Today, my resistance is low. The following is my two cents and not intended to offer any career advice to anyone. I took the SE exam in California in August, 1983 and got the results 7 months later (!). The exam was held in a high school gymnasium. In August. No air conditioning. Yes, it was in Long Beach, but it was still hot (to me). We sat on stools designed for 15 year old butts intended for a maximum duration of 45 minutes. Two days, eight hours each day. Pencil and paper.
Suffering through that, I have felt that, for most of the years since passing the exam was the greatest achievements of my career. I took the fewest reference books than anyone else in the room (about 80-100) and left each day about an hour and a half early. A lot of my ex-colleagues went back to work the following Monday telling everyone that I had "bombed the exam". I did not. However, the pass rate that year was 17%.
No, I'm not brilliant. I was, however, well prepared. I put in a LOT of hours prepping for the exam for a year prior to the exam. One person I knew, whose father put on prep seminars for the exam, once stated that it takes about 600 hours to properly prepare for the exam. I cannot refute that.
But, 40 years later, I sometimes ask myself "Was it worth it?"
My original mentor told me the reason to take (and pass) the exam is that it would put me with the "cream of the crop". I now have learned doing anything for the sake of feeding an ego is not healthy or truly of any value. My justification was that I would be able to design any structure in California. Currently, California restricts the design of structural systems of schools (due to the LB EQ in 1933), hospitals (due to the EQ in Simi Valley in 1972) and buildings over 160 feet tall. Anecdotally, I've been told the 160 foot criteria was originally to keep buildings shorter than L.A. City Hall, an iconic building.
Back then, I wanted to be able to design anything. I started my career with Douglas Aircraft which, from a technical aspect, was the most analytically challenging job I would ever have. However, the culture stunk and I left. I then went to work at a large firm designing petrochem facilities. I really enjoyed the culture there as I was able to broaden my vision by working with engineers from all over the world. However, the work was just tedious. The light went on while I was designing a footing for a vertical vessel. It was quite tall, 110 feet I think. It would be fabricated in Houston and shipped to Calgary. Just to get the transportation permit, two bridges along the way needed to be reinforced. At that point I realized "What difference does it make if the footing is 24" thick or 10 feet thick?"
I left and finally found my "dream job" at a firm that designed bridges. However, I soon realized there aren't that many Golden Gate bridges, or Coronado bridges, or Vincent Thomas bridges. The typical bridge that we designed there was the typical freeway overcrossing with 2-4 spans. My boss at the time told me that the columns had to be a certain size (diameter) because the contractors rent the forms from the state and, if I specified something other than what they had in stock, it would drive up the cost of the bridge and the company would no longer get another CalTrans project. He also said that I needed to use the CalTrans Standard Plans for detailing as much as I could for the aforementioned reason. Three bridges later, I was done.
I left there frustrated after 4-1/2 years, opening my own practice. I started small, doing residential remodeling. After about a year, I had built up a good clientele and started to grow a staff. I still had my "eye on the prize" and tried to focus on medical work, which was somewhat successful, but mainly the office worked on commercial and industrial bridges. I worked night and day trying to build a practice, but I eventually burned out. In hindsight, I enjoy figuring out the puzzle more than the pleasure I would receive by making a profit. It was my experience that the goal shifted from doing my best work to creating a work flow that would take the least time (more profit) and fewest errors (trending towards the lowest common denominator).
I went back to being a one man shop, doing my own engineering, my own drawings, going to the job sites, etc. No two days were the same. I finally found out who I am. It's a shame it took so long. If an SE in California isn't working on schools, hospitals or buildings over 160 feet tall, then they are competing with CEs (in California it only takes 2 years of experience to sit for the exam) and even Architects are allowed to do structural engineering, although few do these days.
A few years ago, I was making a building department submittal and the person (engineer) who was doing the intake noticed my low SE number. He said he was planning on taking the exam and if I had any advice. I told him emphatically "Yes" and said "Take the time you would spend preparing for the exam and learn a foreign language. Take that knowledge and travel."
I do wish all of you well as you go through the exam process. I truly hope you achieve your goals.
Suffering through that, I have felt that, for most of the years since passing the exam was the greatest achievements of my career. I took the fewest reference books than anyone else in the room (about 80-100) and left each day about an hour and a half early. A lot of my ex-colleagues went back to work the following Monday telling everyone that I had "bombed the exam". I did not. However, the pass rate that year was 17%.
No, I'm not brilliant. I was, however, well prepared. I put in a LOT of hours prepping for the exam for a year prior to the exam. One person I knew, whose father put on prep seminars for the exam, once stated that it takes about 600 hours to properly prepare for the exam. I cannot refute that.
But, 40 years later, I sometimes ask myself "Was it worth it?"
My original mentor told me the reason to take (and pass) the exam is that it would put me with the "cream of the crop". I now have learned doing anything for the sake of feeding an ego is not healthy or truly of any value. My justification was that I would be able to design any structure in California. Currently, California restricts the design of structural systems of schools (due to the LB EQ in 1933), hospitals (due to the EQ in Simi Valley in 1972) and buildings over 160 feet tall. Anecdotally, I've been told the 160 foot criteria was originally to keep buildings shorter than L.A. City Hall, an iconic building.
Back then, I wanted to be able to design anything. I started my career with Douglas Aircraft which, from a technical aspect, was the most analytically challenging job I would ever have. However, the culture stunk and I left. I then went to work at a large firm designing petrochem facilities. I really enjoyed the culture there as I was able to broaden my vision by working with engineers from all over the world. However, the work was just tedious. The light went on while I was designing a footing for a vertical vessel. It was quite tall, 110 feet I think. It would be fabricated in Houston and shipped to Calgary. Just to get the transportation permit, two bridges along the way needed to be reinforced. At that point I realized "What difference does it make if the footing is 24" thick or 10 feet thick?"
I left and finally found my "dream job" at a firm that designed bridges. However, I soon realized there aren't that many Golden Gate bridges, or Coronado bridges, or Vincent Thomas bridges. The typical bridge that we designed there was the typical freeway overcrossing with 2-4 spans. My boss at the time told me that the columns had to be a certain size (diameter) because the contractors rent the forms from the state and, if I specified something other than what they had in stock, it would drive up the cost of the bridge and the company would no longer get another CalTrans project. He also said that I needed to use the CalTrans Standard Plans for detailing as much as I could for the aforementioned reason. Three bridges later, I was done.
I left there frustrated after 4-1/2 years, opening my own practice. I started small, doing residential remodeling. After about a year, I had built up a good clientele and started to grow a staff. I still had my "eye on the prize" and tried to focus on medical work, which was somewhat successful, but mainly the office worked on commercial and industrial bridges. I worked night and day trying to build a practice, but I eventually burned out. In hindsight, I enjoy figuring out the puzzle more than the pleasure I would receive by making a profit. It was my experience that the goal shifted from doing my best work to creating a work flow that would take the least time (more profit) and fewest errors (trending towards the lowest common denominator).
I went back to being a one man shop, doing my own engineering, my own drawings, going to the job sites, etc. No two days were the same. I finally found out who I am. It's a shame it took so long. If an SE in California isn't working on schools, hospitals or buildings over 160 feet tall, then they are competing with CEs (in California it only takes 2 years of experience to sit for the exam) and even Architects are allowed to do structural engineering, although few do these days.
A few years ago, I was making a building department submittal and the person (engineer) who was doing the intake noticed my low SE number. He said he was planning on taking the exam and if I had any advice. I told him emphatically "Yes" and said "Take the time you would spend preparing for the exam and learn a foreign language. Take that knowledge and travel."
I do wish all of you well as you go through the exam process. I truly hope you achieve your goals.
Overstrength
Structural
- Nov 19, 2024
- 2
Thank you so much for sharing. I’m really glad your resistance fell today, because your point regarding the true relevance of the licenses is well received and confirming something that I’ve been considering, which is not to sit for the exam. I too started my own one man shop recently after working for a consulting firm for 10 years where we did a fair amount of hospital work, but the bulk of my efforts we’re in low/mid-rise seismic retrofit and industrial structures. The main reason I want the license is so that I’m not limited in the work I pursue, especially now that I’m on my own and don’t have an SE in the office to stamp projects for me. But, to your point, I’m going to have a long hard think about whether it’s necessary to pursue the license. Truthfully, I’ll still probably sit for the exam at some point. But in its current state, I don’t know how well I’d thrive given the fact that the test taking conditions appear to be working against examinees. All the same, I’m going to let the dust settle to see if NCEES makes any improvements. And in the meantime, take your retrospection into serious consideration. Thank you for taking the time to share your experience and thoughts. Your opinion is one less spoken, but certainly relevant to many of us prospective SE licensees.
RattlinBog
Structural
It's nice to hear from folks with experience! I have not attempted the SE and don't plan to in the foreseeable future.
I did have to take the civil PE when it first switched to CBT. Never got to try pencil and paper. While the PE exam wasn't bad at all, I had some frustrations with the CBT logistics. I can only imagine how much they're compounded for the SE. Not that anyone asked, below is my "wishlist" of what I personally think would help if CBT is here to stay for good. I fully agree and respect that the content of the exam should be challenging, and one absolutely should study their butts off to prepare. But the exam logistics / technology should not be so limiting, in my opinion.
1. Be allowed to bring your own references. Or at the very bare minimum, improve the current computer references by increasing the speed of scrolling, allowing bookmarks and highlights, and allowing multiple references/sections to be open at the same time.
2. Minimum two, decent sized computer monitors.
3. Be provided as much blank paper and pencils for quick hand calculations and chicken scratch notes as you want. They can just be thrown away at the end of the exam. Get rid of the limited quantity whiteboards/dry erase.
4. Allow 8 hour days for each SE exam. 5 mins/question on the new CBT depth seems crazy to me, and that doesn't allow much time to first review and digest the question and givens. These kinds of time limits don't exist in real life. You paid a lot of money to take this exam. Why do they kick you out early?
I did have to take the civil PE when it first switched to CBT. Never got to try pencil and paper. While the PE exam wasn't bad at all, I had some frustrations with the CBT logistics. I can only imagine how much they're compounded for the SE. Not that anyone asked, below is my "wishlist" of what I personally think would help if CBT is here to stay for good. I fully agree and respect that the content of the exam should be challenging, and one absolutely should study their butts off to prepare. But the exam logistics / technology should not be so limiting, in my opinion.
1. Be allowed to bring your own references. Or at the very bare minimum, improve the current computer references by increasing the speed of scrolling, allowing bookmarks and highlights, and allowing multiple references/sections to be open at the same time.
2. Minimum two, decent sized computer monitors.
3. Be provided as much blank paper and pencils for quick hand calculations and chicken scratch notes as you want. They can just be thrown away at the end of the exam. Get rid of the limited quantity whiteboards/dry erase.
4. Allow 8 hour days for each SE exam. 5 mins/question on the new CBT depth seems crazy to me, and that doesn't allow much time to first review and digest the question and givens. These kinds of time limits don't exist in real life. You paid a lot of money to take this exam. Why do they kick you out early?
I passed the CBT PE Civil: Structural this year and the thing that bothered me the most was that, during studying and blasting practice problems, I thought I was clever by focusing on memorizing page numbers in the reference material, since I found just knowing and entering frequently used page numbers in my PDF viewer was much faster than going to a chapter bookmark and scrolling (which I had heard was a huge slowdown).
You can imagine my cold sweat when I sat down for the exam and found out the exam's PDF viewer HAD NO WAY TO ENTER A SPECIFIC PAGE. I concede that most virtual pdf page numbers rarely coincide with the actual number at the bottom of the page sheet (which added to the challenge of memorizing page numbers) so maybe that's why they didn't include it?
Regardless, of all things, I did not expect that. Maybe it's something I could have found out beforehand, but NCEES and Pearson Test Centers are hardly forthcoming with what the actual exam environment is like. Almost everything I knew about the exam environment was from asking other's experiences and from foggy memories of taking the CBT FE exam a long time ago.
That said, even though I wasted a bunch of effort on directly memorizing page numbers as my strategy for best navigating the references, I did fine. The School of PE prep material I used was WAY harder than the exam. I guess that's why ~90% of School of PE users pass. I had enough time to do every problem twice and left 2 hours early.
You can imagine my cold sweat when I sat down for the exam and found out the exam's PDF viewer HAD NO WAY TO ENTER A SPECIFIC PAGE. I concede that most virtual pdf page numbers rarely coincide with the actual number at the bottom of the page sheet (which added to the challenge of memorizing page numbers) so maybe that's why they didn't include it?
Regardless, of all things, I did not expect that. Maybe it's something I could have found out beforehand, but NCEES and Pearson Test Centers are hardly forthcoming with what the actual exam environment is like. Almost everything I knew about the exam environment was from asking other's experiences and from foggy memories of taking the CBT FE exam a long time ago.
That said, even though I wasted a bunch of effort on directly memorizing page numbers as my strategy for best navigating the references, I did fine. The School of PE prep material I used was WAY harder than the exam. I guess that's why ~90% of School of PE users pass. I had enough time to do every problem twice and left 2 hours early.
canwesteng
Structural
Yeah the PE is a cakewalk now that it is structural only, no breadth. I don't think memorizing page numbers is ever advisable, try and remember clauses or chapters. You can always search for those
Out of curiosity what was the actual PDF viewer software like? Obviously they're not going to have Bluebeam loaded up. It sounds like some janky homebrew viewer only POS with maybe the ability to select bookmarks, if applicable. I get pissed when I have to use Acrobat, can't imagine being in a time crunch having to struggle with a viewer that you probably have to click a +/- button to zoom in and out 
Any idea what the driver is towards computer-based testing? Is it just logistics of grading?? Also, why the push away from bring-your-own references? This may have been discussed already, but I did not catch it. While purchasing all the references was a pain, the process of tabbing and prepping the references was a worthwhile process, and testing with these physical and tabbed references (along with notes, design aids etc) very closely mimics day-to-day work of an engineer, especially for the depth test.
On a bit of a side note.. We have had some issues with new hires who have spent much of their high school and college with computer-based testing of one sort of another. Teaching these (smart and capable) new engineers to document work in an easy-to follow way has been worse than pulling teeth. I blame CBT to some extent. In a profession where documentation of standard-of-care workflow is critical (both for initial review and for potentially having to defend your work down the road) testing that is computer-based and (I assume) hinges very heavily on final answers vs a correct and well thought out workflow seems like an odd choice.
I have been out of the testing game for a while now (tested 16 hour SE paper and pencil back when it first started), so have less of a dog in the hunt, but this trend towards computer-based everything may not be all it is cracked up to be.
On a bit of a side note.. We have had some issues with new hires who have spent much of their high school and college with computer-based testing of one sort of another. Teaching these (smart and capable) new engineers to document work in an easy-to follow way has been worse than pulling teeth. I blame CBT to some extent. In a profession where documentation of standard-of-care workflow is critical (both for initial review and for potentially having to defend your work down the road) testing that is computer-based and (I assume) hinges very heavily on final answers vs a correct and well thought out workflow seems like an odd choice.
I have been out of the testing game for a while now (tested 16 hour SE paper and pencil back when it first started), so have less of a dog in the hunt, but this trend towards computer-based everything may not be all it is cracked up to be.
Harbringer80
Structural
- Nov 15, 2024
- 81
I sat for both breadth sections mid-2024 and for both depth portions in October. The letter from SEAOI very accurately reflects my experience.
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