SE Bridge Exaam

I am taking the SE bridge exam in a few weeks and I am a little worried about the afternoon portion. I feel confident for the Steel/Concrete superstructure questions but am worried about the "other bridge design topic" question.

How other is "other"? I see on the NCEES practice exam, the other question was about loads. Has anyone been caught off guard by something random like a culvert design or something of that sort?

Chillhaus,

I did the buildings exam so I'm by no means an expert on what the bridge afternoon section will have. But the short answer would be anything that AASHTO covers, so yes, you may have a culvert, barrier, something with wood, etc. Given the shear volume of the AASHTO code (and all of the codes really) there is almost no way to study and do practice problems for every possible question that could be asked. However, knowing the layout of the code and being familiar with the subjects that are covered is paramount.

Also, on the multiple choice portion of the test, don't be surprised if there are a few problems that you will need to answer "on the fly."  Meaning, it is something you didn't necessarily study and you will need to figure out how to solve it by finding the correct part of the code and figuring out how to apply it, right then and there.  

Good Luck!

Also, FYI, per the NCEES exam guidelines anyone who takes the test is not supposed to "ever" talk about what was on the test, so you probably won't have someone reply with specifics on what they saw in the past. 

Culverts are fair game, and so are retaining walls / abutments I studied both.  Look at WISDOT bridge manual for good examples 

The other has been fair game over the year. I know when i took Vertical, i saw the same type of abutment / retaining wall problem twice (without going into too much detail for NCEES watch dogs), almost identical, but asking 2 very different things. I have heard people seeing culverts, but only one person mentioned that type of problem to me. All i can say about these types, is simplify them as much as you can. My problems were very reasonable and involved something that appeared complicated, but once you broke it down, it was a simple reinforced concrete problem. 

Thanks guys!

Agree on the not making a specific comment regarding the exam per NCEES, but in general it will follow the test syllabus pretty closely.  Don't be surprised if they try to complicate things slightly or catch you on a minimum or general provision governing.  The loads one was the most difficult/time consuming for me because they can add complications and just keeping track of numbers and variables in a limited time can be tough.

OHBridgeGuy said:

Agree on the not making a specific comment regarding the exam per NCEES, but in general it will follow the test syllabus pretty closely.  Don't be surprised if they try to complicate things slightly or catch you on a minimum or general provision governing.  The loads one was the most difficult/time consuming for me because they can add complications and just keeping track of numbers and variables in a limited time can be tough.

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OHBridgeGuy, by loads question do you mean like the second  question on the NCEES practice exam?

Probably more like the problem 903, in the syllabus they refer to it as General Analysis