Club of people who failed April 2015

[John QPE 198]

No idea about MGI, but EET is top notch.

[GusM 7]

I failed Geotech 2nd go-round. 48/80 or 60%! Do it again. With so much invested, I can't see going to another discipline.

I know I got antsy (1 step below rattled) in the PM and began the flip from boot-to-book. Losing time and confidence.

Edited May 26, 2015 by GusM

[KatyLied P.E. 114]

I am on the fence between the EET review course and the MGI Civil Engineering PE Review Course. Has anyone had success with MGI? it has a pass garuantee and is one of the cheaper options.

I am EE Power but I am not a fan of MGI. I ordered it because it was the least expensive and found you get what you pay for. I ended uping GA Tech's EE course for Power. Not sure if they have one for Civil but I have heard good things about School of PE.

[IlliniWood 6]

This is my second time failing the Civil/Construction exam, both times I have studied more than 3 months prior to the exam. First time I bought some of the resources required plus practice exams. Second time I bought ALL the required resources plus I logged over 100 hours of studying and did 580 practice problems from various sources ( I kept tabs on how much I studied each area). I put in the effort and still fell short. Guess the next stop will be to invest in SoPE or something...

Only 100 hours of studying? I realize everyone is different, but that doesn't sound like enough (especially over 3 months). Most I spoke with were in the 300-400 hour range.

[khusaibi_PE 2]

Failed Civil Structural

Studied Feb-April including the SoPE which I highly recommend

Will shoot for Oct '15

[JerusalemPE. 2]

For people who can't exactly decide to which one is better to take in civil. I recommend transportation it's easy but you need the green book and use its index and do a lot of tabbing. The key is to find all things in short time. Tabbing is the key that I found. I even tabbed the problems (not only the notes). So it was very handy and quick. I passed first time.

I studied beginning of January to April including also CA seismic and surveying exams. So 3 months are enough to learn new topic.

[Swimfastalex PE 25]

I failed, Civil Structural. 52/80. Thought I did better than that.

[NakedOrangie 46]

For people who can't exactly decide to which one is better to take in civil. I recommend transportation it's easy but you need the green book and use its index and do a lot of tabbing. The key is to find all things in short time. Tabbing is the key that I found. I even tabbed the problems (not only the notes). So it was very handy and quick. I passed first time.

I studied beginning of January to April including also CA seismic and surveying exams. So 3 months are enough to learn new topic.

I take offense to saying my discipline is "easy". What may be easy to you is not necessarily easy to others.

[iwire 88]

For those who failed, don't take a break from it. March on...if you take a break for a cycle, you will forget a lot of shit you learned a few months prior

[Swimfastalex PE 25]

I wish I could see the questions that I missed. I think it would be easier to know what I need to study more on, not just the topics.

[FeederFault 8]

For those who failed, don't take a break from it. March on...if you take a break for a cycle, you will forget a lot of shit you learned a few months prior

Have to agree with you on this. I failed the October '13 exam and felt worn out, so I stupidly decided to skip April and take it again in October '14. I ended up doing 4 points worse the second time... But that finally motivated me to lay down the cash for SoPE, study my ass off, and devote myself to this test. It worked - I passed April '15.

[khusaibi_PE 2]

PM me if you wanna partner up to study for the Oct '15 retake of civil-structural

[Bart 1]

I am on the fence between the EET review course and the MGI Civil Engineering PE Review Course. Has anyone had success with MGI? it has a pass garuantee and is one of the cheaper options.

DEFINITELY go for EET over MGI. I took both.

See my full review here:

http://engineerboards.com/index.php?showtopic=23601&p=7281781

[gb25 5]

This is my second time failing the Civil/Construction exam, both times I have studied more than 3 months prior to the exam. First time I bought some of the resources required plus practice exams. Second time I bought ALL the required resources plus I logged over 100 hours of studying and did 580 practice problems from various sources ( I kept tabs on how much I studied each area). I put in the effort and still fell short. Guess the next stop will be to invest in SoPE or something...

Only 100 hours of studying? I realize everyone is different, but that doesn't sound like enough (especially over 3 months). Most I spoke with were in the 300-400 hour range.

My first round at the exam (Oct. '14) I had 250 hours and started in June doing practice problems along with building notebooks for each discipline. When I got my failure notice I decided to wait until after the holidays to pick it back up (I was pretty burned out).

I then got hit with alot of problems at my house (frozen pipe bust and septic tank backflowed) I had to address which slowed my studying progress for my second attempt. However when I finally got to knuckle down I cranked out practice test after practice test and I went through the review manual from learncivilengineering for construction (I highly reccomend it even though I failed).

Yes I did not study as much the second round but overall I have put in a significant amount of time studying for this exam and will continue to do so until I pass this beast. Hence the reason for taking a class this time, it's one of the few avenues I haven't tried.

[gb25 5]

I am on the fence between the EET review course and the MGI Civil Engineering PE Review Course. Has anyone had success with MGI? it has a pass garuantee and is one of the cheaper options.

DEFINITELY go for EET over MGI. I took both.

See my full review here:

http://engineerboards.com/index.php?showtopic=23601&p=7281781

Bart, thank you I will most likely go for EET after reading that review.

[JerusalemPE. 2]

I take offense to saying my discipline is "easy". What may be easy to you is not necessarily easy to others.

[Engineer222 3]

I have straight up Zeros in plant design and operations ...yes you can be bad at guessing ...oh well I will try again ..

[iwire 88]

For those who are taking power, I recommended Georgia Tech course. Overall I like the course except a few thing they need to work on it..

The fault/protection need more beef up on the subject even though the professor is great.

More on lighting stuffs as well.

[bellecory15 0]

This was my first shot at the exam and I failed miserably L

I felt like I studied a lot and don’t understand how I could have studied differently, more efficiently. I was hoping someone that has taken the exam more than once and passed could give me some advice on what do to differently….

This is what I did during the months leading up to the exam:

Civil Structural Exam

*End of November-January: I started by going through the Structural section of the CERM and I worked most of the problems found on these sections.

Week: 3-4 days, 2 hours each day. Weekend: 3-4 hours each day.

*February-March: did the on demand classes for the morning section from School of PE and the workshop problems.

Week: 3-4 days, 2-3 hours each day. Weekend: 6-8 hours each day

*March- 1^st week of April: did the on demand classes for the depth section from School of PE and workshop problems

Week: 3-4 days, 2-3 hours each day. Weekend: 6-8 hours each day

*2 weeks in April: worked on practice exams

Week: 3-4 days, 2 hours each day. Weekend: 6-7 hours each day

*April 16: studied economics

For the practice exams I used older versions of practice exams from NCEES and I also got the new version that came out for this exam. I also did the 6min solutions problems (morning only, I was told the afternoon problems were overkill).When I took the exams I did pretty well in the morning: ~85%, and ~65% for the afternoon. I thought the exam was much harder than the practice exams tho L

I’m pretty much burned out at this point, I do not how I can study differently or more efficiently…I’m pretty upset/down/disappointed that I have to take it again….I’m sure everybody that failed feels the same way…

I would appreciate any advice on how I can change my study strategy…all suggestions are welcome…

Thanks guys!

[Civil Dawg 15]

Bellecory a 85% morning and 65% afternoon is a score of 60/80. Did you score this high and not pass?!

[Mike in Gastonia 127]

Bellecory a 85% morning and 65% afternoon is a score of 60/80. Did you score this high and not pass?!

I think those scores were for the practice exams......

[Civil Dawg 15]

Also, I didn't see anything in your study plan about the codes. I'd recommend you become very familiar with IBC, ASCE 7, AISC Steel Construction Manual and NDS manual. There are many tables etc that turn a problem that you may not know how to solve into a quick 30 second lookup problem if you know where to find it

[Engineer222 3]

chemical open for advice

[scubasniper2009 0]

I ended up putting in about 800-900 hours of studying and passed the Mechanical: Thermal and Fluids in the April '15 exam (first try). Started in October reading through the MERM cover to cover and finished in February, working all the problems for every chapter except for some of the 1hr solution problems. Although this may have been unnecessary, I found that this really helped me become intimately familiar with where everything was at. I highlighted important things and made a few notes in the ledgers like "DON"T FORGET TO MULTIPLY BY #####" especially if I commonly made those mistakes in the practice problems. Took two older NCEES practice exams, and got about 80% of them right the first time. Retook them both 2 more times with scores at least 78/80. Then decided it would be a good idea to try the Lindeburg practice exam. Got 50% of the attempted problems right but was using too much time. Gave up half way through. Those problems were taking 30 minutes in some cases. Destroyed my confidence. Took the NCEES exams again to feel better. In the last week I made a 20 page formula book and tabbed the MERM neatly using the exceptional Shaggy Method. This was probably the single most helpful thing I did because it made finding things so much faster.

For the Mech T&F exam I would highly recommend working through metric problems, even for plant cycles and fluid systems even though we seldom use them in the real world. Also practice conversions!

[kmart30 2]

Failed for the first time with a 52/80 on the Florida civil geotech test. Studied for 2 months straight and took a review course for the AM section. Bought practice exams out the booty and did problems until I turned into a smurf. The afternoon chewed me up and spit me out sideways. As I was taking the afternoon section I became extremely disgruntled as I was realizing how these questions were for a different species of engineer that I was unaware of.

I actually do geotech for a living and this section made me feel like the last 4 years were a waste of time and I'm absolutely clueless about dirt (not really, and yes I just said dirt). Sorry just venting; I know I'm kinda close to the mark but still not there yet.

I'm going to have a different strategy this time around and hopefully I'll learn how to hit the curveball.