Please recommend a Civil/Construction review course

[smcintee]

I had good luck with Dr. Goswami's Review Course. It is an online course, which reviews all AM topics as well as all of the PM topics. He is the author of the All-in-one, but I did not use that book, and didn't need to. He gives lecture notes prior to the first lecture, as well as questions and a practice exam.

All of the lectures are given by Dr. Goswami so questions could be asked on topics other than the lecture for that day. Since it was the same instructor there was no conflicting information.

This course prepared me for the AM very well. It also helped me with the PM. I asked a lot of questions during the lecture and through email and he was very responsive. He took the time to make sure we understood the concept. I found the PM exam had some odd questions, that nobody could have predicted.

This is the only review course I took, but I would recommend it to everyone taking the Civil exam. The review course was great, but you still have to study a lot on your own. It was best to study the topic before the lecture so you could ask questions that were unclear.

Hope this helps and good luck.

 

[todddodd]

They really get you to understand the fundamentals and work out problems slightly more complex than what's on the exam, which is a good thing when the test gives you information that you previously had to solve for when studying for the exam.

Not sure what you mean by "understand the fundamentals", but I'm a Testmasters fan because they take the opposite approach: if you want to learn someone, take a college course; if you want to pass an exam; apply these strategies. Rather than explain theory, they focused on approach.

Thanks for the recommendation. I'll check them out. I like the approach.

Spot on. I knew 2 people who could of passed it, but didn't. They had no test strategy.

There are easy questions, but you need to read the question well. You need to manage your time, pass hard question or ones that gave you problems in the past.

This is a test of some fundamental topics, not every nook and cranny in the business.

I'm sure the exam makers put some questions in to suck your time down.

Going back to the fail guys. They were a bit iffy on the subject matter. However, they just plowed through the test, 1 then 2 then 3 then....... times up.

Instread of struggling with those last few hard questions, go back and check your work on the easy ones. Not redo the problems. Figure out a method that assures a quality answer in another way than basically solving it. Is the answer in PSI, yes. Does the equations you used match up to the original question asked?

You have to correctly answer 70% of the questions. Focus on the 70% you know well. The other 30% are buffer questions.

The breadth questions I studied were close to the afternoon questions. So, don't sweat the oddball questions. Knock down the ones the reoccur in practice exams.

Do live tests. 4 hours of straight concentration. I never did so much math work in one day before studying or taking this test. Just like real world. Focus on what you know, then work on what you don't know. And like in the real world, you can't do it all yourself. You however can do a big chunk. Proficiency is not perfection.

School of PE worked well for me...the bonus course had several problems in the afternoon module. Couple that with the NCEES practice exam. OSHA manual was a must... I think the best thing the school of PE taught was on the last day the instructor taught how to take the test. He instructed to go through the test in 4 iterations. on the first pass read every question and mark 1 - 4 - (1 being the easiest, 4 being the hardest) on the first pass, do all the questions that require no calculations and are only theory based. On pass 2 do questions that you know the formula without having to look anything up. On pass 3 do the questions where you know where to pull the formula from. and Pass 4 are the ones where if you have time to search for a formula or similar problem do them then....if you get stuck on a problem skip and come back...i took the test April14 and was finished with all but 15 questions in the morning an hour in. i spent the next 3 hours on the remaining questions. Similar in the afternoon i did 70% in the first hour and spent the next 3 hrs on the more involved questions. Again, like other people said you only need a 70 - focus your time on getting the ones you know right...most people who struggle get stuck on a question and then are forced to rush through other questions that given time they would have gotten right

 

[billyluv]

They really get you to understand the fundamentals and work out problems slightly more complex than what's on the exam, which is a good thing when the test gives you information that you previously had to solve for when studying for the exam.

Not sure what you mean by "understand the fundamentals", but I'm a Testmasters fan because they take the opposite approach: if you want to learn someone, take a college course; if you want to pass an exam; apply these strategies. Rather than explain theory, they focused on approach.

Thanks for the recommendation. I'll check them out. I like the approach.

Spot on. I knew 2 people who could of passed it, but didn't. They had no test strategy.

There are easy questions, but you need to read the question well. You need to manage your time, pass hard question or ones that gave you problems in the past.

This is a test of some fundamental topics, not every nook and cranny in the business.

I'm sure the exam makers put some questions in to suck your time down.

Going back to the fail guys. They were a bit iffy on the subject matter. However, they just plowed through the test, 1 then 2 then 3 then....... times up.

Instread of struggling with those last few hard questions, go back and check your work on the easy ones. Not redo the problems. Figure out a method that assures a quality answer in another way than basically solving it. Is the answer in PSI, yes. Does the equations you used match up to the original question asked?

You have to correctly answer 70% of the questions. Focus on the 70% you know well. The other 30% are buffer questions.

The breadth questions I studied were close to the afternoon questions. So, don't sweat the oddball questions. Knock down the ones the reoccur in practice exams.

Do live tests. 4 hours of straight concentration. I never did so much math work in one day before studying or taking this test. Just like real world. Focus on what you know, then work on what you don't know. And like in the real world, you can't do it all yourself. You however can do a big chunk. Proficiency is not perfection.

School of PE worked well for me...the bonus course had several problems in the afternoon module. Couple that with the NCEES practice exam. OSHA manual was a must... I think the best thing the school of PE taught was on the last day the instructor taught how to take the test. He instructed to go through the test in 4 iterations. on the first pass read every question and mark 1 - 4 - (1 being the easiest, 4 being the hardest) on the first pass, do all the questions that require no calculations and are only theory based. On pass 2 do questions that you know the formula without having to look anything up. On pass 3 do the questions where you know where to pull the formula from. and Pass 4 are the ones where if you have time to search for a formula or similar problem do them then....if you get stuck on a problem skip and come back...i took the test April14 and was finished with all but 15 questions in the morning an hour in. i spent the next 3 hours on the remaining questions. Similar in the afternoon i did 70% in the first hour and spent the next 3 hrs on the more involved questions. Again, like other people said you only need a 70 - focus your time on getting the ones you know right...most people who struggle get stuck on a question and then are forced to rush through other questions that given time they would have gotten right

Thanks Todddod. Time management is defiantly one area I need to improve. I got hooked on a few questions and really burnt up some valuable time. I gotta learn when to throw the towel in and move on. Classifying questions 1-4 is a great idea. Thanks

 

[Nio796]

@ Billy, which state are you in?

 

[ahill84]

I took the Civil/Construction this April and I passed (whew!).

I took the School of PE review course. Overall I thought the course was great. However, I have to disagree with almost everyone here about the quality of the Construction portion instructor. The material he covered was fine, but his actual teaching abilities were pretty bad compared to the other instructors. I actually wrote SoPE and gave some timeframes of the videos that display how poorly he taught. Maybe it's an unfair criticism, but the other instructors were leagues above him in terms of relating to the student / answering questions / understanding what students were asking. Juxtaposing him with the Geo instructor for example, and you'll see a WORLD of difference.

He seemed to be uncomfortable deviating from his scripted teaching methods and I found that he had trouble keeping up with student's questions. Quite frequently he didn't even understand what they were asking. Multiple times I would almost yell into the monitor "She's not asking that, she's asking about THIS!".

That being said, I can't imagine a better review course out there. I did the "Mansour" book course, which was a bit more helpful on the conceptual stuff. I thought Goswami All-in-One was a waste of time, although his example tests were GREAT! I took all the sample exams I could find, and when the test came it was harder than expected.

But ... to each his own, people I know who have passed have only used the Goswami book and CERM, no review course.

Just my two cents!

Andrew

 

[emo4488]

I took the Civil/Construction this April and I passed (whew!).

I took the School of PE review course. Overall I thought the course was great. However, I have to disagree with almost everyone here about the quality of the Construction portion instructor. The material he covered was fine, but his actual teaching abilities were pretty bad compared to the other instructors. I actually wrote SoPE and gave some timeframes of the videos that display how poorly he taught. Maybe it's an unfair criticism, but the other instructors were leagues above him in terms of relating to the student / answering questions / understanding what students were asking. Juxtaposing him with the Geo instructor for example, and you'll see a WORLD of difference.

He seemed to be uncomfortable deviating from his scripted teaching methods and I found that he had trouble keeping up with student's questions. Quite frequently he didn't even understand what they were asking. Multiple times I would almost yell into the monitor "She's not asking that, she's asking about THIS!".

That being said, I can't imagine a better review course out there. I did the "Mansour" book course, which was a bit more helpful on the conceptual stuff. I thought Goswami All-in-One was a waste of time, although his example tests were GREAT! I took all the sample exams I could find, and when the test came it was harder than expected.

But ... to each his own, people I know who have passed have only used the Goswami book and CERM, no review course.

Just my two cents!

Andrew

I agree with this but he was easy to understand. I got a little annoyed with the "There you have it!" commentary but still thought it was a very thorough (actually too thorough review). My construction review material was thicker than any other course.

 

[matt267 PE]

I actually wrote SoPE and gave some timeframes of the videos that display how poorly he taught. Maybe it's an unfair criticism,

I don't think that's unfair at all. It's the only way for him and SoPE to improve.

 

[ahill84]

I agree with this but he was easy to understand. I got a little annoyed with the "There you have it!" commentary but still thought it was a very thorough (actually too thorough review). My construction review material was thicker than any other course.

HAHA! Yes, I totally forgot about the "there you have it" and how frustrating that was. Maybe I was trying to repress that memory ...

 

[E2R41L]

School of PE was very good. Do the NCEES practice exams a week to two weeks prior to the test. Just like everyone else here stated, 6 MS are very difficult. Passed first time this April.

 

[E2R41L]

Oh, I was water/environmental PM, however, the material for construction was very good for the AM, I am sure it is outstanding for the PM as well. Highly recommend SOPE.

 

[ptatohed]

http://engineerboards.com/index.php?showforum=22