Advice from those who Passed Civil

[KOKOMO777]

I took the PE Civil Transportation in October for the first time and passed the exam. EET was a great to help me be prepared in such a short time of two months. Special thanks to Samir who was always available to answer my questions!

I will definitely  take the EET transportation depth.

 

[ads0221]

The answers I've gotten so far have been extremely helpful and thanks to everyone for the recommendations.

I'm going to sign up for EET in the next week or two.

 

[Schoolofmines]

EET's water resources depth is the absolute best!  

I have three kids (3 and under) and decided to take the course to help prepare in the midst of a crazy life.  I am so thankful for Nazrul and the course. I just did the on-demand course as my goal was to study without my kids even knowing I was studying (yes, that means early morning and late nights).

Just heard that I passed first time and seriously think anyone on the fence about a course should sign up for EET.

Ryan

 

[Ricson]

I signed up for EET -Geotech Depth. Anyone taken that one before and passed? 

 

[StructuralCat]

I took the Civil Structural this past April and failed with ~42 or 43 and passed this exam. Now, before I state what I am about to say I am only stating what worked for me. Don’t sign up to take the review courses. The structural pe exam is long... I used every second, both exam cycles, and still wish I had more time. Not that that questions were ‘too hard’ but more of the questions just take time.

I had a friend that had the EET binder and I gave it a look over after I failed in April and it seemed to be a GREAT resource for the breadth portion of the exam. Problem was, I felt good about the breadth section in April by only using the CERM. To me, the more material you have as a crutch, the more time you waste.

For the morning I was CERM only with some other practice exam books. I familiarized myself throughly with them just so I knew where to find some of the ‘similar’ topic questions that could have been asked on the exam. Excess time is key in the am.

Now, for what helped me tremendously. The exam schedule states the last 6 questions on the exam are code questions. Have all code books. As soon as the evening section started, I flipped to the end and did the last 6 questions. To me, if you have the material they are gimme questions. In April, I got the 5 minute warning and still hadn’t made it this far in the exam- thus nit having time to look them up. After receiving my diagnostic, that section I got 0-6 questions. To me, that was killer. So, I went into this cycle wanting to give myself he best opportunity to succeed so I wanted to make sure to get the last 6 correct. I am positive I got 5 out of the 6 correct (I did not have the AASHTO). After I found and answered all these code question, I went to the beginning of the evening section and started working problems like normal.

so, what worked for me was HOW I took the exam, not necessarily the prep work. I will also say that after I took and failed the exam the first time, I better understood how I needed to study and know the code books better. I truly felt I knew the code books better after taking the exam than before (which was a good and bad feeling at the same time).

keep your head up and keep expanding your understanding. Anyone who has failed the exam WILL pass if it’s something you truly want and realize how to better themselves and exam scores.  

 

[Tokka]

I took EET. I would have not passed without them. Samir and his notes are great. 85% of the material is covered in their binders.

 

[cadoubleu]

I signed up for EET -Geotech Depth. Anyone taken that one before and passed? 

Yes! Like a lot of people have stated in this thread, I took Civil-Geotech in April 2018 and failed with a 53/80. I used only School of PE on demand and live lectures on weekends. I loved their morning / breadth prep, but got absolutely worked in the PM. So this time around I attended my free re-take of School of PE on demand classes for the breadth topics and then took EET depth. It was definitely the best of both programs. I know it’s a ton of money to shell out, but I highly, highly recommend. If you did poor in the AM School of PE is the way to go. If you need help in the Depth, highly recommend EET! 

 

[thcaesar]

I took the EET Civil - Construction Depth only. This was my second time taking the PE Construction exam....I would say EET's class overall was excellent in my opinion. The materials provided were organized in a manner that I really only needed CERM, OSHA, and Samir's binder to pass. 

I'm currently taking a CA-Specific Surveying review course, hosted by another company, and the guy literally drives me up a wall .... going off on tangents (no pun intended) and wasting 40% of class time providing weird facts and stories of his career in the Navy, just wow. I felt like EET's class with Samir was much more engaging... again I only took the Construction Depth but the level of organization and attention to detail was definitely there...and my money is on that same level of detail translating to the other review courses he offers... 

Here's an attachment of a different, "unnamed" review course I took before I failed the PE the first time...

These would be the "supplemental homework notes" I downloaded, trying to study after the fact :\     *key music of when you don't win on Price is Right*

Best,

thcaesar

 

[MNgineer]

Here's an attachment of a different, "unnamed" review course I took before I failed the PE the first time...

I would be furious if I had paid for that. I mean, looks like decent info is there, but that's so unorganized and cluttered that it would be horribly inefficient to try and parse through all of that to study. If I were you I would definitely put the name out there to warn people of what they're getting into.

 

[JayGer]

I took the civil construction test in October and passed, after failing the Structural exam in April.  I'm one of many who's career doesn't fall well into a category and made the decision to refocus and went with EET.  I thought EET's breadth section was okay; I took that one as the on-demand.  The binder was useful, but I did find myself going back and forth between that and the CERM for my morning session.  I had plenty of experience with my breadth study from the previous go-around and scored well on it for the first test. 

The afternoon binder from EET was invaluable and the course was great.  It covered material that the CERM doesn't even mention.  I took those classes in the webinar because I had the time (single/no kids) and because I am the type who needs to ask questions to make sure I actually understand what I'm doing.  Sometimes I fall victim to being able to follow along well, but not replicate.  Something to consider is the time of the course.  I'm on the east coast and the classes started at 8pm for me, but that meant 5pm start time for west coast.  Bearing the schedule in mind might help you make a decision depending on where you're located and what time your specific courses start.

 

[Jessica]

I took School of PE refresher course. Before the class started, a month before i started studying, I reviewed school of PE notes and did as much as practice exams I could find subject to subject.

School of PE was a wonderful review and instructors answered so many of my questions, and I learned fundamentals in structural and water which was my weakness in my first attempt (I failed April exam, it was my first time). During school of pe class they teach you so many tricks and traps not to fall in, because I studied a month before the class, I was very ready when the instructor was teaching and I could ask all questions that I had.

I bought Goswami, Mike's civil, NCEES, and ASCE tests and did some of the CERM questions, basically did as much as practice tests I could find. last week I got off from work and did practice exams each day like the real exam for 4 hours each time and found some new areas in CERM based on practice exams. Its interesting that 3 questions were in exam from my last week study of new practice exams!

I passed Civil Construction!

 

[AquaVelveteenRabbit]

I passed the Civil Structural, first shot, having taken a group version (read:  much cheaper price) of the ASCE live course with on-demand recordings afterward.  I attended only two sessions live, and asked no questions during the sessions, but did ask questions afterward by email.  Very good material for the civil breadth material, most of which I hadn't known since my schooling was heavy on structural stuff but pretty thin everywhere else.  The ASCE course had only two sessions for structural depth and they were not terribly comprehensive. 

I feel like I nailed the civil breadth, due to the ASCE review course notes and recordings, plus most of a year spent doing sample problems from all kinds of sources, 10 hours weekly.  Fun times.  :/

Also nailed the structural depth, due to great coursework in school, and a job that has me doing a huge variety of real design.  

Hope some of this is helpful to you...  brutal process to get through

 

[Lore]

I have to say thanks to you all that contribute their experiences with the PE exam in this forum as it helped me make the decision of enrolling in EET. I’m happy to say that I passed the Civil/Structural PE exam on my third attempt after taking the EET ondemand breadth and depth courses and studying my but off!! 

I’ll now share my experience to future test takers to come....

On my first attempt at the PE I did self study and only used CERM, practiced the 6 min solns practice problems and NCeES practice exam but that wasn’t enough study also the 6 mins was too complicated so I ended up reading the solutions (not the right choice). Also since it had been awhile since I’ve taken construction, transportation, etc. courses I didn’t study it enough I guess so that’s probably y I failed the first time. 

On my 2nd attempt I did self study again and I felt I focused more on prepping for the breadth that I didn’t put in enough time to prepare for the depth , another reason I think I failed (I did better on breadth the depth on my 2nd attempt). Also  I have a full time job and other expectations that there just wasn’t a lot of time to study.

on my third attempt I decided I had to switch it up and take a course. I decided initially to just take a depth course and since I felt I had enough study material for the breadth I did it that way. But I thought to myself many times I have to pass this third time so ended up enrolling in EET breadth as well. For the most part I noticed the practice problems I EET breadth were very inline with problems in the exa I previously took. I really liked the professors that taught the geotech, water and construction lectures. It could’ve been a bit better fir the analysis but was ok since my background is in structural and I’m comfortable with analysis.  I have to say this time around I put in a lot of study hours. I literally sat down to study every day after work for at least 2 hours. Sometimes I did 4 hours and was really tired at work the next morning but at least that paid off. I also studied weekends and took a whole week off that week of the exam.

i liked EET on demand because I was able to pause the videos and work on the quizzes or practice problems the instructor gave and then hit play to check if I did it correctly and at the sane time get that explanation from the instructor. The professors were also very responsive when I emailed them to ask questions. 

I aldo purchased sets of practice exams and timed myself fir preparation. And once again attempted to practice the 6 min solutions. All of that hard work paid off. Now I’m halfway on becoming a PE ( time to focus on seismic and surveying)