How I Passed Civil PE, Construction on the first Try, April 2014 Exam, IL

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Nio796

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Someone told me that if you have your collected your study material, you are half way done in passing your exam. So it’s important to have your whole study material with you once you start preparing for your exam.

I passed my civil PE exam in construction on my first try, I graduated 12 years ago so I was rusted and on top of it I didn't go to any USA school so some of the things were new to me.

Anyway here is what I had for my study material which I am going to post in yard sale too. Good luck

Books and Material on hand, IIT (Illinois Institute of Technology), LCE (learn Civil Engineering)

1. General

a. NCEES FE Reference hand book

b. CERM, 12th Edition

c. NCEES Morning & Afternoon Sample Questions

d. Formula Cheat Sheet, Construction, Transportation, CERM Index

2. Soil & Foundation

a. IIT Review Course

b. LCE Notes

c. Test Masters Notes

d. Texas A&M Notes

3. Construction

a. IIT Review Course

b. LCE Notes

c. Test Masters Notes

d. False Work Guide

e. Temporary Structures

f. Standard practice for Bracing Masonry Walls

g. PE Exam Construction Module, 3rd Edition Ruwan Rajapakse

h. ASCE, Design Loads on Structures During Construction ASCE 37-02

i. Construction Depth Practice Exam, LCE

j. NDS, National Design Specification for Wood Construction 2005 Edition

k. Material Testing, Department of the Army

l. LCE Construction Sample Questions

m. Construction Module, Practice Problems, Ruwan Rajapakse

n. Earthmoving Operations

o. OSHA, Safety & Health Regulations 1926

p. Civil PE Sample Exam, 3rd Edition, Michael Lindeburg

4. Transportation Module,

a. Dr Shahin A. Mansour notes

b. Texas A&M notes

c. IIT Notes

5. Environmental

a. LCE Notes

b. Texas A&M Notes

c. Culverts & Design

d. IIT Guide

e. IIT review Course

f. Water Treatment, Test Masters

g. Water Treatment Problems & Solutions, Test Masters

h. Wastewater Treatment, Test Masters

6. Structures

a. IIT Course

b. LCE Notes

c. NDS formulas with Shear & Moment Diagram

  • I started with environmental and Texas A & M notes are very good
  • Read the topic, check the formula and do couple of questions which are very straight.
  • Read the NCEES topics list and see if you are missing anything.
  • These notes cover some evening topics too so you can glance through them if you have time but you can avoid them too in case you have less time.
  • Then I started construction module which was the main one for me.
  • I did the same thing, but read IIT, LCE, Ruwan books and anything which was not covered in the notes.
  • After going through the NCEES topics I found out that in mass diagram I was not clear with Avg haul and total Haul. I googles and found some examples. That helped me to calculate the haul distances. So sometimes you have to go out of these notes and books to find the solution.
  • Ruwan books are good but for practice purpose, I would suggest to start from IIT notes, then go over LCE notes, then test master notes. By then you will be solving the Ruwan book questions without any issue. Please note that all these different types of notes contain same topic so basically you are doing the quantity take off or any topic two or three times. It seems redundant but trust me it helps.
  • Temporary structures, False work and field testing notes are not that good but enough to make you understand the topic.
  • Transportation was very easy as Mansour notes are the best. Go through the whole thing and try to realize how they can ask the question.
  • Take out important formulas from the notes and make your own cheat sheet.
  • Once done, do some practice questions from Texas A&M and IIT notes. I won’t recommend to study from Texas A&M and IIT notes though. Mansour notes are enough.
  • Structures, IIT notes are the best. IIT notes have morning and evening section so don’t do the evening section because that’s only if you are taking the structures PE exam in the evening.
  • LCE notes were good but they are very simple. They are good if your structures basis are not good.
  • NDS formulas for shear and movement diagram is very good. Do lots of practice and that 1 or 2 questions from there confirmed.
  • For Soil & Foundation I studies the IIT notes first. (just the morning part, part 1)
  • Then I studies the LCE notes and they were easy.
  • Test master notes were little complicated but since I had to study them twice but in the end try to clear the concept. Like when they are asking you to calculate different sizes of footing or FOS (factor of safety) then depending upon conditions each question’s approach will be different. Some formulas are same but their application depends on different soil condition.
  • Texas A&M notes were good too much I didn’t spend too much time.
  • By now you should be confident, if you noticed we haven’t even touched the CERM or any other reference books. Honestly CREM was very confusing for me. First the construction part is not that great, then everything for other modules was too much and confusing.
  • In the end the exam questions will be from NCEES given topics so you can prepare them from anywhere. But I did read CERM here and there for some topics and see how they have cover it. In the end it was confusing and complicated.
  • Also I made a formula binder for all the modules. If there was a transportation question asking certain thing, I had its formula in front of me in 15 sec. that helped me a lot in the exam.
  • Also I printed the CERM index pages and added them in my formula binder. That way if I had CERM covered too incase I don’t have any formula in my own cheat sheet.
  • A week before the exam I spend an hour on each of the references mentioned on NCEES website. You can’t memorize the whole thing but you should know the layout and in case you have to find something then where to go.
  • Spend extra time on OSHA reference since it’s very important.
  • Week before the exam was practice, practice and more practice day. In ideal condition you should be able to solve any question with the help of your formula binder.
  • LCE has some practice questions and tests and they are really good.
  • I didn’t do any Michael Lindeburg practice tests or questions.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
wholly crap that's a lot of book to read!! Do you know about how much time you prepared for this exam? And how much money did you spend in total??

 
Not so much, around $500 when you add some ref I rented and had to buy because they were not available.

Mostly its the same material (like calculating the forces on retaining wall) but good thing is that it covered from so many aspects that in exam I was able to identify some curved balls and it was easy to solve it within allocated time.

In the end best strategy is which works :)

 
I watched Barney and played with Legos the night before and that helped me with the PE.

Thanks for the advice!

 
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