civilized_naah
Well-known member
The second edition of the Civil Engineering PE All-in-One Exam Guide comes out approximately 3 years after its initial publication. During these 3 years, I have received a lot of feedback from engineers who have used the book in their preparation for the PE Civil examination. Most of the feedback has been very useful to me. I have been gratified by the fact that a vast majority of readers has found the book useful, and humbled by the fact that a pretty comprehensive process of copy editing and proofreading can still leave a good number of typos/errors/ambiguities in a manuscript. Those have been corrected in this new edition. I will never again pass comment about a technical book having a long list of errata.
The moniker “all-in-one” has not sat well with some readers of the first edition. In its defense, the name arose simply out of an editorial decision to incorporate the book into an existing series of study guides, called the All-in-One series. It is a little naïve to expect a 900-page book to truly be “all-in-one” in a field as diverse as civil engineering. It is imperative for readers to create a suite of references to support their exam preparation. In particular, those attempting the construction, structural, or transportation depth areas of the PE Civil exam should become intimately familiar with all current references and codes.
The purpose of writing this book was to write a book that discusses “PE-like” topics in a coherent manner. In planning a chapter, or a sequence of chapters, I have tried to create a flow between the topics discussed. Wherever appropriate, cross-references to different subjects have been made, while preserving the flow of the subject at hand. While it would be wonderful to do this in about 3000 pages, covering civil engineering in about 1000 pages means that there will be topics that are left out. One would hope that a candidate would supplement this book with other sources, as deemed appropriate by the official (NCEES) syllabus of the PE exam. I would recommend that readers create a “map” from the current NCEES syllabus to specific pages in this book, thereby familiarizing themselves with both.
There have been notable changes/additions made to the first edition of this book. First, typos, errors, and omissions have been corrected. Second, an entirely new
chapter on highway pavements has been added. In addition, nearly 60 pages of new material have been added, including new equations, tables, and examples as appropriate. Third, in response to comments by some readers, about 150 end-of-chapter practice problems (and detailed solutions) have been added. However, not all of the problems have been formatted like actual PE questions. Rather, the intent of these problems is to provide review of the subject matter covered in the corresponding chapter. For questions formatted like the PE exam, the reader is encouraged to seek out a PE practice problems book, one whose primary intent is to present multiple-choice problems similar in content and formatting to the PE Civil examination.
Finally, in response to readers’ comments, this edition has a significantly expanded alphabetical index.
To all who choose to use this book, I wish the very best.
The moniker “all-in-one” has not sat well with some readers of the first edition. In its defense, the name arose simply out of an editorial decision to incorporate the book into an existing series of study guides, called the All-in-One series. It is a little naïve to expect a 900-page book to truly be “all-in-one” in a field as diverse as civil engineering. It is imperative for readers to create a suite of references to support their exam preparation. In particular, those attempting the construction, structural, or transportation depth areas of the PE Civil exam should become intimately familiar with all current references and codes.
The purpose of writing this book was to write a book that discusses “PE-like” topics in a coherent manner. In planning a chapter, or a sequence of chapters, I have tried to create a flow between the topics discussed. Wherever appropriate, cross-references to different subjects have been made, while preserving the flow of the subject at hand. While it would be wonderful to do this in about 3000 pages, covering civil engineering in about 1000 pages means that there will be topics that are left out. One would hope that a candidate would supplement this book with other sources, as deemed appropriate by the official (NCEES) syllabus of the PE exam. I would recommend that readers create a “map” from the current NCEES syllabus to specific pages in this book, thereby familiarizing themselves with both.
There have been notable changes/additions made to the first edition of this book. First, typos, errors, and omissions have been corrected. Second, an entirely new
chapter on highway pavements has been added. In addition, nearly 60 pages of new material have been added, including new equations, tables, and examples as appropriate. Third, in response to comments by some readers, about 150 end-of-chapter practice problems (and detailed solutions) have been added. However, not all of the problems have been formatted like actual PE questions. Rather, the intent of these problems is to provide review of the subject matter covered in the corresponding chapter. For questions formatted like the PE exam, the reader is encouraged to seek out a PE practice problems book, one whose primary intent is to present multiple-choice problems similar in content and formatting to the PE Civil examination.
Finally, in response to readers’ comments, this edition has a significantly expanded alphabetical index.
To all who choose to use this book, I wish the very best.
