16 hour structural exam afternoon

I recently failed the gravity portion of the structural exam. I believe I misunderstood as to what one portion of one of the afternoon problems was asking and thus missed a "critical" design check. However, I was wondering, does anyone have theories as to what the bread and butter of the afternoon exam is? I'm assuming that bending AND shear will be asked on each problem - thus if for some reason you didn't calculate shear on a particular problem you'd know to double check your answers on the problems? 

Also, in general does anyone have advice for second time takers of the exam?