I tool the exam from Japan last week. My company pushed me to take the exam as several PE holders are going to retire.
First of all I want to thank folks for sharing their experience. This forum helped me a lot especially with selecting right reference. I feel good about geo exam(AM &PM).
Almost I can say that 40% of questions(mostly analytical) had easy and solutions (tough some of them was a bit tricky) and 20% was more and less difficult but manageable and for the last decisive 40% you need to think and search fast in your references. questions like a special detail about field test apparatus or philosophy of a design methodology. If you want to be on safe side you should bring right references to answer them. Those %40 questions were totally different from what you see in common exercise books (like 6 minutes or Lindenburg). I can say some problems in practice books are too difficult and NCEES emphasis is more about concepts and engineering judgment and they monitor those books continuously and avoid giving similar repetitive classic questions.
Part of exam is started before the exam and is about as an engineer what references you bring to the exam to answer spectrum of questions that a real engineer may face. I carried almost 12Kg books. I think may be some day in future we will bring our ipad or kindle as reference and find related subjects on them.
With advices of this forum I took following references and used them:
1-The New Penguin Dictionary of Civil Engineering-> it is good if you didn't get your degree at US. Highly recommended. 500 grams and $15, helped me to understand and answer 5 questions.
2-Standard Handbook for Civil Engineers,Jonathan Ricketts (Author), M. Loftin (Author), Frederick Merritt
2Kg and $105, useful for answering 5-7 difficult questions for AM&PM part. Even some questions had same wording with handbook text. The only difficulty with this handbook is it doesn't have a good index. I wish I had PDF of the handbook and indexed it with a software and print the index and took it to exam so I didn't have to read several pages to find my answer. This or similar handbook is a should.
3-Handbook of Foundation Engineering wiht Fang,1975. This is was also useful for answering 2-3 very dififcult qualitive or testing questions on PM.I used this handbook for the last ten years and I am familiar with the book.1.5Kg and I bought it second hand may be for 5$.It is old but it is geotechnical engineering, nothing has been chagned from 70's.
4-Principle of foundation engineering by DAS. answering one or two questions as most of charts and information were given on the exam sheet. Have it
5-Soil mechanics by Craig.I took this book as it was my text book for soil mechanics course and I know it by my heart. for one or two questions it was useful though I could find the answer on standard handbook.500gr
6-OHS,1924. Carry it if you want to answer a question.300gr
7-All in one by Goswami, much not in use. It can cover 40% of easy question if you don't know the fundamentals but I only looked at it for one PM question for PM. $50,1Kg
8-Geotechnical earthquake engineering by Kramer(1Kg).I borrowed it form library not useful as seismic questions were very conceptual. Even I am seismic engineer but for answering them I scratched my head for ten minutes.
9-DM 7.1,7.2 1.5 Kg.not used .
Regards
First of all I want to thank folks for sharing their experience. This forum helped me a lot especially with selecting right reference. I feel good about geo exam(AM &PM).
Almost I can say that 40% of questions(mostly analytical) had easy and solutions (tough some of them was a bit tricky) and 20% was more and less difficult but manageable and for the last decisive 40% you need to think and search fast in your references. questions like a special detail about field test apparatus or philosophy of a design methodology. If you want to be on safe side you should bring right references to answer them. Those %40 questions were totally different from what you see in common exercise books (like 6 minutes or Lindenburg). I can say some problems in practice books are too difficult and NCEES emphasis is more about concepts and engineering judgment and they monitor those books continuously and avoid giving similar repetitive classic questions.
Part of exam is started before the exam and is about as an engineer what references you bring to the exam to answer spectrum of questions that a real engineer may face. I carried almost 12Kg books. I think may be some day in future we will bring our ipad or kindle as reference and find related subjects on them.
With advices of this forum I took following references and used them:
1-The New Penguin Dictionary of Civil Engineering-> it is good if you didn't get your degree at US. Highly recommended. 500 grams and $15, helped me to understand and answer 5 questions.
2-Standard Handbook for Civil Engineers,Jonathan Ricketts (Author), M. Loftin (Author), Frederick Merritt
2Kg and $105, useful for answering 5-7 difficult questions for AM&PM part. Even some questions had same wording with handbook text. The only difficulty with this handbook is it doesn't have a good index. I wish I had PDF of the handbook and indexed it with a software and print the index and took it to exam so I didn't have to read several pages to find my answer. This or similar handbook is a should.
3-Handbook of Foundation Engineering wiht Fang,1975. This is was also useful for answering 2-3 very dififcult qualitive or testing questions on PM.I used this handbook for the last ten years and I am familiar with the book.1.5Kg and I bought it second hand may be for 5$.It is old but it is geotechnical engineering, nothing has been chagned from 70's.
4-Principle of foundation engineering by DAS. answering one or two questions as most of charts and information were given on the exam sheet. Have it
5-Soil mechanics by Craig.I took this book as it was my text book for soil mechanics course and I know it by my heart. for one or two questions it was useful though I could find the answer on standard handbook.500gr
6-OHS,1924. Carry it if you want to answer a question.300gr
7-All in one by Goswami, much not in use. It can cover 40% of easy question if you don't know the fundamentals but I only looked at it for one PM question for PM. $50,1Kg
8-Geotechnical earthquake engineering by Kramer(1Kg).I borrowed it form library not useful as seismic questions were very conceptual. Even I am seismic engineer but for answering them I scratched my head for ten minutes.
9-DM 7.1,7.2 1.5 Kg.not used .
Regards