April 2017 Civil/Structural PE Diagnostic

I wanted to see if someone can take a look at my Diagnostic report from April 2017 for the Civil/Structural PE and recommend some study material for me in order to help me raise my score the next time around. In the attached Diagnostic report I put what I believe was the national passing score average next to my results. The items I show in green are the ones that I did better or equal to the national average. The items in Blue are the ones where I did slightly less than the national average but I have the material to better prepare myself for the next exam. The items in Red are ones where I did not do well and where I am a little lost on where to find sample exams problems for them so that I can better my score. Basically I scored a 45/80 and I believe that if I raise this score to a 56/80 I will pass the next time. I realize that this is going to be a difficult task because it is an approximately 20% increase. However, I just want to be able to see an improvement each time I take the test so that I do not get discouraged. I believe I was below the national average on Breadth by 3 problems and I believe I was below the national average on the Structural Depth by 8 problems.

To give you a little history on my background, I am an Electrical PE and I spent the last 5 months before the Structural PE Exam in April studying about 45hrs/week. I went through the following material: 1) CERM, 2) PPI Practice Problems for the Civil PE, 3) Goswmi two breadth exams, 3) Civil Engineering Academy breadth & structural Depth exams & Youtube videos, 4) Mike's Civil PE Exam Guide.

I am looking for practice problems in the following topics: 9) Analysis of Structures: Loads & load applications, 11) Design & Details of Structures: Material properties, 12) Design & Details of Structures: Component design & detailing.

I learn by doing practice problems. 

Thank you in advance for your support. 

Hey there, first off let me say you can and will nail this exam in October. My recommendations are as follows:

Morning session: You can easily score 35/40 in the morning without studying and utilizing the CERM. Every question must be ready carefully for to be sure you are fully understanding the question, the answer they are looking for and the units it should be in. Once you have all that information the equations and methodology is either in the CERM or it's logical arithmetic. The CERM index is your best friend for the AM civil portion. If you do want to prep for the AM I'd simply suggest tabbing the soil/geotechnical sections of the CERM since 30% of the AM session in on that and it seems to be where you lost some good points.

Afternoon session: I studied by reading through the structural section of the CERM twice highlighting important sentences and equations (but not going overboard here). Be very comfortable with using your 3 equations of equilibrium to find forces in members/reactions/etc. Understand how bending, shear, and axial forces are calculated using the members section properties. Certain questions are very likely to be on the exam like a steel beam moment question - utilize the unbraced length tables 3-10 in AISC, it's quick and easy to find the capacity. Pay attention to any lateral bracing points (for column questions too). There is going to be a few foundation/footing questions so understand how shear/bending strength/stresses are calculated for them. The questions in the afternoon have more 'trip-ups' than the morning session (which I believe to be pretty straight forward) i.e. information you don't need, a single word that changes the problem completely but could be overlooked, unusual material parameters, etc. If you're reading the questions really thoroughly and making no assumptions as to what they are asking for you will be in the best shape to arrive at the correct answer. Lastly, know the codes well. Particularly AISC, ASCE-7, and ACI-318. Be familiar with the layout of each and how each code directs you to make adjustments. By this I mean in AISC how minor axis bending is calculated differently than major axis, or slender elements vs compact/non compact. For ACI 318 there are provisions for steel ratios for temp/shrinkage, flexure, shear, compression. For ASCE-7 there are methods to calculate snow loads for picthed roofs but and adjustment must be made for unbalanced loads. The afternoon session will catch you utilizing the nearly correct method but missing one detail that completely changes the answer.

Also I don't know bridge/prestressed concrete well at all so I completely guessed at those and focused on the other 90% of the exam that I could get correct. 

I hope that wasn't all too confusing