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Shaltoof

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Hi everybody,

I've registered for the Structural P.E. ( October ) and I have about 10 days left. I'm currently in the last semester in my masters degree in Structural Engineering and I don't have experience. I wanted to take the exam early before I forget what I've studied.

My question: I prepared well for the second session ( Structural ) but didn't study at all for the first session. I have CERM and I thought I could use it without preparing for the first session since they are easy questions and I used my time to prepare for the structural part ( which is more fun for me ). I feel I'm doing a wrong approach !! what can I do in 10 days ?

Thank you

 
Are you asking about the Civil PE Exam with Structural Depth?  Or the Structural Engineering Exam (SE)?  What does "first session" / "second session" mean?  Do you mean AM (breadth) and PM (depth)?  If you are taking the Civil PE Exam and you did not study at all for the AM portion because you thought the AM questions were "easy", then the truth is you will likely fail.  Sorry, just being honest.  There is no magic solution for you to learn 50% of the exam in 10 days.  Unless you can study 10-15 hours per day, I'm afraid your chances of passing are slim.  Make sure you study all of the material for Spring 2017.     

 
I'm going to disagree with the others.  I think it's better to overprepare than underprepare... but I actually think Shaltoof isn't far off the mark.  If you turn off your brain and mindlessly lookup reference equations in the CERM, you should be able to do fine on the AM portion of the exam.  

When I took the PE Civil/Structural exam in october 2014, I think I answered about 34 of the 40 morning questions by looking up an equation in the CERM and plugging in the values.  I think 2 of the other questions were unit cancellation... no equation lookup needed and the other 4 were some combination of questions I either knew or didn't and had to guess... 

Assuming I didn't fat finger something that means I should have gotten around an 85% on the AM portion of the Civil exam by simply having the CERM and using it.  I'm sure I did worse on the PM portion, but lets just assume I did the 34 CERM related questions right, and missed all the other 6 meaning I had an 85% in the AM, if the passing score is something around a 75 that means I could have gotten around a 60% on the PM portion and passed.  By no means a shoe in, but I don't think its unreasonable to think someone with a little studying can do that fine.  I'd definitely focus on the PM portion of the exam if you're going to spend limited study time, as I really agree with the OP that the AM isn't overly hard and the PM I thought was considerably harder.

I think its great that if people have the time and desire to spend hundreds of hours studying as everyone has to find what works for them, and I think it's better to over prepare than under prepare.  I personally spent around 40hrs total of PE study time and felt massively over prepared (I finished the AM portion of the exam in 1hr, worked through the entire AM portion of the exam a second time in another hour... before calling it good and leaving for lunch 2hrs early). For the record I'm decidedly NOT a genius, I'd argue I'm pretty average in terms of engineer intelligence.

I don't want to recommend people spend limited time studying, as I don't want to encourage someone to under study, but I don't think it's necessarily doom and gloom if someone spends a limited amount of time studying.  For what its worth several engineers in my office spent ZERO study time and passed.  Again, not sure I'd encourage that, but I also don't think that is totally unreasonable.

 
If you registered for the School of PE then you could go through the breadth videos one per day.   Flag their notes on where to find equations, solutions, tables, etc.  

If you are comfortable with the your depth, spend all the rest of your time on the breadth.   

 
I'd run through at least the NCEES practice exam.  That'll give you some exposure to both AM and PM, and then depending on how you do show where you need to spend the last few days studying.

 
smahurin said:
I'm going to disagree with the others.  I think it's better to overprepare than underprepare... but I actually think Shaltoof isn't far off the mark.  If you turn off your brain and mindlessly lookup reference equations in the CERM, you should be able to do fine on the AM portion of the exam.  

When I took the PE Civil/Structural exam in october 2014, I think I answered about 34 of the 40 morning questions by looking up an equation in the CERM and plugging in the values.  I think 2 of the other questions were unit cancellation... no equation lookup needed and the other 4 were some combination of questions I either knew or didn't and had to guess... 

Assuming I didn't fat finger something that means I should have gotten around an 85% on the AM portion of the Civil exam by simply having the CERM and using it.  I'm sure I did worse on the PM portion, but lets just assume I did the 34 CERM related questions right, and missed all the other 6 meaning I had an 85% in the AM, if the passing score is something around a 75 that means I could have gotten around a 60% on the PM portion and passed.  By no means a shoe in, but I don't think its unreasonable to think someone with a little studying can do that fine.  I'd definitely focus on the PM portion of the exam if you're going to spend limited study time, as I really agree with the OP that the AM isn't overly hard and the PM I thought was considerably harder.

I think its great that if people have the time and desire to spend hundreds of hours studying as everyone has to find what works for them, and I think it's better to over prepare than under prepare.  I personally spent around 40hrs total of PE study time and felt massively over prepared (I finished the AM portion of the exam in 1hr, worked through the entire AM portion of the exam a second time in another hour... before calling it good and leaving for lunch 2hrs early). For the record I'm decidedly NOT a genius, I'd argue I'm pretty average in terms of engineer intelligence.

I don't want to recommend people spend limited time studying, as I don't want to encourage someone to under study, but I don't think it's necessarily doom and gloom if someone spends a limited amount of time studying.  For what its worth several engineers in my office spent ZERO study time and passed.  Again, not sure I'd encourage that, but I also don't think that is totally unreasonable.
Click to expand...
Are you saying that you did not study (or studied very little) for the AM? 

 
ptatohed said:
Are you saying that you did not study (or studied very little) for the AM? 
Click to expand...
Yes.  My studying for the AM constituted taking an NCEES practice exam once and working through the solutions on what I got wrong.  That was it.

 
smahurin said:
Yes.  My studying for the AM constituted taking an NCEES practice exam once and working through the solutions on what I got wrong.  That was it.
Click to expand...
and how many did you get wrong?

 
ptatohed said:
Are you asking about the Civil PE Exam with Structural Depth?  Or the Structural Engineering Exam (SE)?  What does "first session" / "second session" mean?  Do you mean AM (breadth) and PM (depth)?  If you are taking the Civil PE Exam and you did not study at all for the AM portion because you thought the AM questions were "easy", then the truth is you will likely fail.  Sorry, just being honest.  There is no magic solution for you to learn 50% of the exam in 10 days.  Unless you can study 10-15 hours per day, I'm afraid your chances of passing are slim.  Make sure you study all of the material for Spring 2017.     
Click to expand...
It's the civil/structural PE exam. Actually I didn't follow my schedule and thought I could answer the AM portion by just looking from the CERM since I've finished my undergraduate last year. I have the NCEES practice exam and I found that the PM is harder than the AM breadth portion. 

 
Just take it. The AM should be somewhat fresh on your mind from undergrad (that's assuming you were a good student). The worst thing that happens is you fail, but you know what to expect next time.

 
smahurin said:
I'm going to disagree with the others.  I think it's better to overprepare than underprepare... but I actually think Shaltoof isn't far off the mark.  If you turn off your brain and mindlessly lookup reference equations in the CERM, you should be able to do fine on the AM portion of the exam.  

When I took the PE Civil/Structural exam in october 2014, I think I answered about 34 of the 40 morning questions by looking up an equation in the CERM and plugging in the values.  I think 2 of the other questions were unit cancellation... no equation lookup needed and the other 4 were some combination of questions I either knew or didn't and had to guess... 

Assuming I didn't fat finger something that means I should have gotten around an 85% on the AM portion of the Civil exam by simply having the CERM and using it.  I'm sure I did worse on the PM portion, but lets just assume I did the 34 CERM related questions right, and missed all the other 6 meaning I had an 85% in the AM, if the passing score is something around a 75 that means I could have gotten around a 60% on the PM portion and passed.  By no means a shoe in, but I don't think its unreasonable to think someone with a little studying can do that fine.  I'd definitely focus on the PM portion of the exam if you're going to spend limited study time, as I really agree with the OP that the AM isn't overly hard and the PM I thought was considerably harder.

I think its great that if people have the time and desire to spend hundreds of hours studying as everyone has to find what works for them, and I think it's better to over prepare than under prepare.  I personally spent around 40hrs total of PE study time and felt massively over prepared (I finished the AM portion of the exam in 1hr, worked through the entire AM portion of the exam a second time in another hour... before calling it good and leaving for lunch 2hrs early). For the record I'm decidedly NOT a genius, I'd argue I'm pretty average in terms of engineer intelligence.

I don't want to recommend people spend limited time studying, as I don't want to encourage someone to under study, but I don't think it's necessarily doom and gloom if someone spends a limited amount of time studying.  For what its worth several engineers in my office spent ZERO study time and passed.  Again, not sure I'd encourage that, but I also don't think that is totally unreasonable.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the reply. I solved some questions from the NCEES practice exam and I found that the AM questions are not hard and if I have enough time in the exam I can find the required equation from the CERM so it's just a matter of time. I have all the material required and I'm going to spend this week for the AM portion just to be in the safe side.

Structural portion is large and I had many topics to prepare for the first time.

 
I can't believe people would come on here to post to tell you are going to fail. Shame on them. You'll be fine, just study with your remaining time. I took the NCEES practice exam blind the first time (without studying) and got an 85%. I'm not a genius or anything. There is a lot of common sense required and a lot of unit conversions. Work through some practice exams with the remainder of your time and you'll pass. Plenty of people pass the exam without studying much more than a couple weekends. The morning breadth portion is very straightforward plug and chug. 

The pass rate for first-time structural PE takers was 67% last exam cycle. You probably know if you are in the top 6-7 out of ten people when it comes to test taking. If you are, then you'll do fine with a little preparation.

Don't listen to these people that think you need to slave away for 300 hours to pass the professional engineering exam. Just because it is what they chose to do doesn't mean it is what everybody has to do to pass. This isn't the bar exam, its really not that hard. You have a masters degree for goodness sake.

 
Shaltoof said:
It's the civil/structural PE exam. Actually I didn't follow my schedule and thought I could answer the AM portion by just looking from the CERM since I've finished my undergraduate last year. I have the NCEES practice exam and I found that the PM is harder than the AM breadth portion. 
Click to expand...
Shal,

It's my opinion that the AM should not be taken for granted as easy and studying for it should not be dismissed, fresh degree or not.  I found the AM and PM to be equal in difficulty.  What is your plan for the next week?   

Spaghetti_PE said:
I can't believe people would come on here to post to tell you are going to fail. Shame on them. You'll be fine, just study with your remaining time. I took the NCEES practice exam blind the first time (without studying) and got an 85%. I'm not a genius or anything. There is a lot of common sense required and a lot of unit conversions. Work through some practice exams with the remainder of your time and you'll pass. Plenty of people pass the exam without studying much more than a couple weekends. The morning breadth portion is very straightforward plug and chug. 

The pass rate for first-time structural PE takers was 67% last exam cycle. You probably know if you are in the top 6-7 out of ten people when it comes to test taking. If you are, then you'll do fine with a little preparation.

Don't listen to these people that think you need to slave away for 300 hours to pass the professional engineering exam. Just because it is what they chose to do doesn't mean it is what everybody has to do to pass. This isn't the bar exam, its really not that hard. You have a masters degree for goodness sake.
Click to expand...
Spag,

No one told him he'd fail.  Personally, I used the word "likely" fail.  And I still stand by that.  Just telling him he'll pass won't make him pass if he requires a decent amount of review/problem solving time like the majority of us.  I would not recommend to anyone that a good strategy to pass the exam would be to take for granted the AM questions as easy and that a recent degree is a substitute for studying.  Yeah, you might hear those stories about people who passed with little to no studying but, even if the story is true, there are another 24 people who won't pass without proper preparation.  So might he pass?  Maybe.  Do I hope he passes?  Sure.  But if I had to bet whether he'd pass with little to no studying of the AM material?  My money would not be on Shaltoof, sorry.     

 
Boy-That-Escalated-Quickly-Anchorman.gif


 
I am too old to even remember what my PE exam was like!!! Now I am trying to study for the California special exams, so I am reliving those "student" days.

Anyway, success usually sides with the one who is prepared. Some people may have studied very hard in their college days and that accumulated knowledge can help them to be successful in passing the PE exam without putting in too much effort. If you consider yourself in this category, then go ahead and get some practice tests and work on them. That should tell you where you need to concentrate and also tell you where your strengths are. 

Good luck.

 

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