FE Civil Book - What is the best way to study?

[Malkas1985]

Hey guys! I bought a book from PPI. The book is great and the material is helping me a lot, but I don't have much time to study with the book. Anyone have a better idea to study.

Thanks

 

[wannabeSE]

Become familiar with NCEES's FE Reference Handbook. Remember the index at the back. Unless thing have changed, this is the only reference that can be used during the exam. It has been a while since I took the FE. But, I remember finding answers by looking in the index. Other than that, I don't remember a whole lot about the exam

 

[Malkas1985]

Thanks for the advice.

 

[JoelTXCive]

As a recent taker of the FE exam I can offer what worked for me. Lindburg's Civil Reference Manual was good for background info, but the serious studying came from working problems in Lindburg's "FE Civil Practice Problems (FECEPP)" I worked (or attempted) all 460 problems in the book.

WabbabeSE is correct about NCEES's FE Reference Handbook. You can download it for free from NCEES. I printed the reference handbook so as to become intimately familiar with how it was set up and where things were located. Remember on the exam you will only have access to a PDF version of it though so get used to searching with adobe.

When studying, don't worry about any problem that takes more than 2-3 minutes to solve (this makes life a lot easier). Due to the time constraints, its seriously not possible to work problems that long. Just guess and move on. You can always come back if you finish.

The bulk of that exam is recognizing the topic presented in the question, and then knowing where to go in the reference book to find an equation. I found myself doing very little multi-step calcs. For the most part, it was find an equation and then plug and chug. You don't even have to make many unit conversions.

Also, many people are surprised to find out that you will not get pencil and paper for the exam. They give you a dry erase marker and 2-3 re-usable plastic sheets. I hated this, but there is nothing you can do about it. I practiced at home with a dry erase marker just to prepare myself. (If you sit down for the exam and your dry erase marker is old or running out of ink, then immediately ask the proctor for a new one before the exam even starts.)

Good luck!

 

[msquared48]

Back in '70 when I took the exam with the rest of the cavemen here, we did have paper and pencils, but had to turn in whatever we used with the exam booklet.

Things change I guess...

Just know where the pertinent information is helps the most.

I had one general reference book that I used the most with all the subjects and equations contained in it. That was VERY helpful and time saving.




Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)

 

[JGard1985]

I agree with wannabeSE. With the NCEES's FE Reference Handbook, I answered questions I had never had classes on, just by looking up the equation, and plugging in values and keeping track of units. Its an easy reference

Jeff
Pipe Stress Analysis Engineer

http://www.xceed-eng.com

 

[Malkas1985]

Ok. I will try the book. Thanks for all this advices.

 

[JoelTXCive]

FYI = the chapter numbers in the practice problems match up to the chapter numbers in the reference handbook. If you get stuck on a question, just go to the same chapter in the reference handbook. Also, google and youtube are huge helps on finding worked example problems.

 

[Ingenuity]

They give you a dry erase marker and 2-3 re-usable plastic sheets.

So it is now a fully computer-administered exam and the "scratch" paper is dry-erase markers and plastic sheets. Opposing technologies! Well done NCEES.

 

[Milliontown]

I agree with wannabeSE. With the NCEES's FE Reference Handbook, I answered questions I had never had classes on, just by looking up the equation, and plugging in values and keeping track of units. Its an easy reference

I agree as well. With the searchable PDF available, it makes the exam a bit easier. But it is still good to go over the reference before the exam. Know the general layout.

I used the Lindberg review book, and one practice test from NCEES website. I found the practice test to be a bit more difficult than the exam, so if you can do that, you're probably good.