All-in-One Civil PE Exam Guide by Indranil Goswami

[ptatohed]

Well, I studied from and used the All-In-One on test day and I passed (Transpo depth module). It's a good book but it certainly is not “all in one depth and breadth”. That makes no sense. Of course other resources will be needed for the afternoon/depth modules if you take transpo, structures, construction, etc. But it's a good book.

I do not believe the All-In-One is a substitute for the CERM though. The All-In-One has some good points and helps explain certain topics clearly and even touches on some topics the CERM omits. But, the CERM with its front cover conversion formulas, its helpful index (I thought the All In One had a very weak index), helpful appendixes, additional graphics/charts, etc. is still a must-have.

If you can only afford one, go with the CERM but the All-In-One makes an excellent additional reference. The way I studied was to read the topic in the CERM and then the same topic in the All-In-One. It really helped things click for me. In the CERM, I would jot down the page number of the equivalent topic in the All-In-One and vice versa. I even put a note in the book I preferred better for that topic. This helped me out on test day.

I recommend the All-In-One, especially for the price, just don't think it is a CERM replacement, because it is not.

Good luck.

 

[jenni179]

Civil Trans here. I've been holding back my comments until I knew I passed. But I am going to contradict the going census here and state that I don't think Goswami's book is very useful. I bought the CERM and Goswami's both - and reviewed them both. During the exam I refered to the CERM a lot, but the few times I tried cracking Goswami's book it didn't help me at all.
I personally don't the layout at all of the book. Poorly organized and presented in my opinion.

The CERM isn't great either. It covers too much information. But, if you use the NCEES exam outline to focus your studying EXTENSIVELY and EXCLUSIVELY (as you should be), you will find yourself skipping most of the CERM chapters and sections anyways, you really only need to study maybe about 25% of it. But the parts you do study have enough detail to help you in the exam.

By contrast, the Goswami skips several topics on the NCEES outline - so unless you have a lot of other resources you're going to be SOL with this book.

Go in with the CERM, and I'd also recommend a copy of Das's geo book as well. I had a super old Das version from the 90's but it was enough to help me a lot on the morning exam. That and my transportation books were all I really needed.

I have to agree with Happy. The CERM is a must, the All-in-One has some useful material but I thought it didn't explain problems well at times and was not as user friendly. I will say that All-in-One explains the CPM problems much better than the CERM. Also it has some additional structure questions. Overall I wasn't impressed with it and I'm glad it wasn't that expensive. I also purchased practive exams from Goswami and I thought some of the solutions were explained very poorly and the exams were very difficult to complete (time-wise) compared to the actual exam. Looking at the practice exam solutions reminded of a professor that knows his material so well he doesn't explain half of the steps because it's so obvious to him.

 

[Jacob_PE]

I just got my copy of the All-in-one and I'm pretty psyched about having it. Today I tried creating a WR/ENV Depth index showing at what page to turn for every line item on the NCEES WR/ENV depth exam syllabus but there are several topics that don't have their own coverage subsection. Has anyone else created such an index for this depth? I'll end up filling the gaps in my index with where to turn in the CERM.

 

[Jacob_PE]

Passed on first sitting (water resources/environmental) using this book as my primary study resource. Also worked through the NCEES sample problems, but found myself getting stuck too often, with the solutions not providing the level of detail I needed. And that is really all I used to prepare, basically working through the All-In-One guide from start to finish, and then going back and working the NCEES sample problems.
I found myself completely overwhelmed and feeling hopeless with Lindeburg's CERM and study questions. The level of difficulty is *far* beyond the actual PE exam. If the theory is to be over-prepared, that is great, if you have the time. I neither had the time, nor was it such a high priority.

Same here, I passed the Civil/Water from the first attempt. I did not have enough time to study, did not even bother to buy Lindeburg's CERM. Used Goswami's All-in-One for familiarizing myself with topics I never took before, focusing on subjects that are mentioned in the NCEES syllabus; this helped me to skip a few chapters.

Not a lot of examples though to practice.

So, I Bought the Lindeburg's practice exam, could not even finish half of the questions in 8 hours, good thing I knew already that it is way harder than the actual exams from comments of people in this board.

I Bought the NCEES practice exam finished the exam in 7 hours with 29/40 morning, 29/40 afternoon.

I think Goswami's All-in-One is a good book for studying, however, I think you need to bring with you more reference books in the exam, I brought 10 more books to the exam, I used only 2 of them for 4 questions that I would never find their answers in Goswami’s. Not sure if these 4 questions were crucial for me passing the exam.

I recently completed the morning section of the Limburg sample exam and had a tough time with a good number of them, especially the structures problems. I skimmed throught the WR/ENV depth exam and those problems all look overlly complex and time consuming. My current plan is to work all the example problems from all the water/env section of the Goswami book as if they were sample exam questions. For you guys that passed the WR/ENV exam with the Goswami book as a primary resource, how much tabbing did you do with your book, can you give me an idea of what pages you tabbed?

 

[AMiller]

I ordered the All In One book today after reading this thread. I already have the CERM but will use this to bolster my references. Like many people have said, for the price, it would be a shame to miss a couple problems that this book could answer for you. I will provide more comments when I receive the book and have a chance to review.

-Andrew Miller

 

[Jacob_PE]

Another plus about the all in one is it fits perfectly on the console of the exercise bikes at my gym. Working out and studying become one.

 

[JKG]

"For you guys that passed the WR/ENV exam with the Goswami book as a primary resource, how much tabbing did you do with your book, can you give me an idea of what pages you tabbed?"

I didn't do all that much tabbing, I just counted 12 tabs. I mostly tabbed the sections in All-In-One which I referenced when working the NCEES sample questions. Part of what helped me was that All-In-One was my primary study book, so I was already pretty familiar with it from preparing.

 

[Jacob_PE]

"For you guys that passed the WR/ENV exam with the Goswami book as a primary resource, how much tabbing did you do with your book, can you give me an idea of what pages you tabbed?"
I didn't do all that much tabbing, I just counted 12 tabs. I mostly tabbed the sections in All-In-One which I referenced when working the NCEES sample questions. Part of what helped me was that All-In-One was my primary study book, so I was already pretty familiar with it from preparing.

Yea, I've noticed that as I'm working problems now a days I go straight to my All-in-one first, and usually find exactly what I need, but sometimes when I want to be 100% sure, I open up my CERM again.

 

[AMiller]

After using the book for a couple weeks now I find that it is good at somethings that the CERM is not and not so good at things the CERM is great at. I think I would be fine in the AM section using one or the other, but having both will be a nice back up. My plan is to use the CERM as my main reference, but when i go through the problems and get stumped, I will use the All-In-One as my back up. The reason being, the CERM makes it much easier to pin point information through the use of the index. I have tabbed the All-In-One but didn't want to go too crazy to where I could see each tab without thumbing through the pages.

-Andrew Miller

 

[Ambrug20]

After using the book for a couple weeks now I find that it is good at somethings that the CERM is not and not so good at things the CERM is great at. I think I would be fine in the AM section using one or the other, but having both will be a nice back up. My plan is to use the CERM as my main reference, but when i go through the problems and get stumped, I will use the All-In-One as my back up. The reason being, the CERM makes it much easier to pin point information through the use of the index. I have tabbed the All-In-One but didn't want to go too crazy to where I could see each tab without thumbing through the pages.
-Andrew Miller

I am study by this book right now, and I could say that the book has lots of extra information CERM doesn’t have. It explain in some cases why use this formula, but not the other one (which I couldn’t understand for a long time in what case use what).

The book lay-out is very organized; in Transportations section (which I am more interested) has a lot of tables from Green Book and HCM, which could save time on the exam. Its very well organized and have simple and easy explanation of material. I would say it worth to spend money on this book.

 

[Chris Cat]

I have been studying with both books. I find that Goswami's book is more practical and more focused. However, if Goswami's book cover only 60% of the CERM, than I suggest you know where to locate the rest of the 40% in CERM.

I didn't have problems locating sections in the CERM. My problem was understanding the concept. What good is a formula if you can't apply it the correct way.

Bottom Line = Buy them, both.