Advice for PE Civil Exam

[yakyeti]

Dear friends,

First of all, I like to share my joy that I passed the FE in one-go though I graduated with a BS in Civil some 20+ years ago.

With my experience, the State Board allows me to take PE on Oct 07. I have only about 3 months and 3 weeks left for the Oct exam.

I practice in geotech area. I glanced at the Lindeburg's Civil Eng Review Manual (CERM of PPI) and its companion - practice problems books. I felt the questions are hard expecially in environ and transport's traffic part as these are totally outside my area. I did not studied much in these two couses in my BS either. Questions in structure and water appeared hard too, but with good reveiw I may be able to make it.

With the limited time, I am in confusion whether I should work hard and take the test or try for April 08.

If I take this time at least I would have experience of exam questions. But, are there any limitations that one can not appear more than this many times ?

Also would any refresher course be helpful ? (I did not take any refresher course for FE though>)

I would greatly appreciate any advice.

Best regards
YY

 

[jdonville]

yakyeti,

Take an hour or two at least 2-3 times per week and work through Lindeburg's sample examination in all the areas. You have enough time before the exam to do this wthout cramming. Try to understand/remember the principles used in answering the questions (look at the solutions after attempting without), and the locations of the equations in the Reference Manual or your own texts. Work on accuracy/correctness rather than speed. You will soon learn enough about the areas outside your normal practice or training to do better on the actual exam.

Jeff

 

[wannabeSE]

Concerning the question: "are there any limitations that one can not appear more than this many times ?"

Each State is different. It would be best for you to check with the board for your state. But, NCEES has a summary online.

http://www.ncees.org/licensure/licensing_requirements_2005/survey_e.pdf#11

 

[francesca]

First of all, you will no doubt take the Geotech concentration in the PM, so look at what content (specifically) you will need to cover for that exam. If you feel that you can master that in the time available, then it is worth taking the exam in October. Get the Lindeburg Reference Manual off the ppi2pass.com website and get Exam Cafe at the same time.

The Exam Cafe practice questions cover the material covered in the exam, but are more difficult than the exam questions. You will learn more from the worked solutions of Exam Cafe than you will learn in any review course or by reading the manual. I still recommend reading the manual, though, as you need to know where to find the stuff you need. Most states will let you take solved problems into the exam; though this didn't help me during the exam working all the problems for my subject areas definitely prepared me more than anything else for passing the exam. I studied for 2 months (8 years after graduating) and completed the AM session in 2 hours, giving me a long lunch break to refresh for the PM session, which I completed in 3 hours.

 

[Horaz]

My opinions: 1) The practice problems book questions are very detailed and very long compared to the exam questions. 2) The lindeburg Sample examination book is more realistic but unlike that sample exam, I think (thankfully its been a few years since I took it!) each question is an entirely new question. 3) Use the PPI forum page and look at the suggested study and test taking techniques, part of the battle is being prepared with the right books, indexes, etc. 4) I agree with 1-3 hours, 3-4 times a week as long as it is focused, uninterrupted and you could be ready.

Your recent triumph over the FE is actually probably pretty beneficial for the AM, most people have the 4-6 year wait in between.

 

[HgTX]

the ppi2pass CD-ROM worked well for me a few years ago for all the subjects except structural.

Hg

Eng-Tips policies: faq731-376

 

[BelspringKen]

I found the Six Minute Solutions books very helpful. If you buy them and the Exam Cafe, you will notice that sections of Exam Cafe are a rehash of the Six Minute Solutions books.
Be sure to check the errata for the Six Minute books.
I did not think the Exam Cafe was all that great - there are other courses out there, and the Six Minute books cover much of the same things.

The NCEES sample exam is good practice as well. I recommend working it, and working Lindebergs exam ( or Kaplan if you get that one) for a good review.

As noted before, recently passing FE is good experience for the PE!

 

[TDAA]

A review course does help offer structure. Concentrate on the topics you know better. These are the ones you have a better chance to get right. Look at the other, but don't expect you will learn a lot of new concepts from now to the test (sure some, but donn't waste time hitting the things you have no chance of).

 

[Spartan5]

You'll find a wealth of knowledge on the subject here:

http://engineerboards.com/index.php?s=23aad2fc4f30e97c41fc9995d4aecce7&showforum=15

 

[fattdad]

Relax, take a deep breath and take the exam. If you passed the FE exam, you've done the hard part. When I took the PE exam, you had the option of selecting the test questions that were suited to your area of expertice. With your background and practical experience you will likely have no problem finding questions that seem "easy". I also had lots of experience before I took the exam. I made one mistake in the exam: I thought it would be easy to do an engineering economics question. Well, I was wrong - ha. It was one of those 10 part questions and I got through the first three parts. At that time, I just figured that I'd done good enough and just left the rest of the question unanswered. I got a 93 on the exam. Yeah, I may sound like I'm boasting, but really it's not my intent. The other problems that I did I really just solved using my experience.

Here is a true story from my exam. The question was to determine the area of a closed traverse. They gave six or seven legs of a survey and I tried to solve it using cross products. Got something like 20 acres. So as a check, I just drafted the traverse on graph paper and by counting squares (for my map scale) determined that the answer was more like 10 acres. I just but a big "X" through my cross-product solution and gave the answer based on my graphical method. Got the whole problem correct! This is a test that will let you use various methods to get the answer - just recheck and more on. . .

Good luck.

f-d

¡papá gordo ain’t no madre flaca!

 

[HgTX]

Civil PE exam is now 100% multiple choice, no essay, no choosing which questions you want.

That said, I believe multiple-choice questions are inherently easier.

Hg

Eng-Tips policies: faq731-376

 

[yakyeti]

Dear all,

Many thanks to all of you who responded to my question. I truly appreciate your encouraging advices. I will prepare and take the October PE test.

Thank you again for all the helpfull advices.

Best regards
YakYeti

 

[MTPipeliner]

I just took and passed the PE in April. I took the Geotech PM section. My strategy was to know the Geotech section as well as possible so that I felt pretty confident I could answer all the problems in that section. I just skimmed the other sections so that I had a good idea of where to look for the answers. I didn't work hardly any problems from the sections other than geotech, but tried to read the chapters that corresponded to the outline of subjects on the test.

I studied about 15 hours per week for about 2 months. I took lots of reference books to the test with me, but only used about a half dozen, too bad you can't know which half dozen you'll need.

Overall I thought the test was easier than the FE. I had time to spare in both the morning and afternoon sections.

Good luck