Civil PE Geo Passers/Test Taking Wizzards

To those of you that passed the Civil/Geo depth,

What was your saving grace study method for the afternoon? Anyone take School of PE? I used it to prepare and felt that it fell far short for the PM portion. I had a study buddy that took it with me and did pass, but he agreed that at lest half of the PM was unrecognizable based on the School of PE notes. I received a final score of 52 out 80 based on my score report. Pretty crushed to say the least. The afternoon is what did me in. Looking forward, I need a more reliable method to study for the PM portion to get this thing passed the second go around. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

What do you do at work? 

How many practice tests and problems did you do? The most successful people usually do ~300 problems on top of classes and reviewing notes.

I used School of PE last October and did not pass. I used EET this time and passed. Both courses have their merits, but I feel EET did a better job of representing the material that was on the exam through their notes and problems, especially for the morning portion. I finished the morning portion this time and after rechecking my answers left the morning session an hour early. The afternoon session for EET is ok but doesn't force you to work as many problems which would have left me unprepared had I not worked through a couple problem books on my own. I recommend EET. 

Jmcc06 said:

What do you do at work? 

Click to expand...

I primarily specialize in Forensics and residential/commercial building analysis.  We primarily inspect buildings that have undergone settlement or a range of other issues and provide repair recommendations and causes/origin of damage for insurance companies. We do not do a lot of design work, which I get doesn't necessarily help my case,  but I put in a lot of effort and worked a lot of example problems. 

ISpitHotFire PE said:

How many practice tests and problems did you do? The most successful people usually do ~300 problems on top of classes and reviewing notes.

Click to expand...

I would say I did close to that, at a minimum...  I bought the most recent practice exam and worked a couple of the older ones, although they didn't seem to vary by more than five or six questions over the course of the past couple of years.  I treated that as if it was a real exam one week before the real exam, I gave myself four hours for each portion and I ultimately passed it without any sort of curve or drop questions.  I work hard the last week improving on what I was weak on from the practice exam, but ultimately fell short on the real thing. I felt like the p.m. portion for Geotech was extremely tricky and I was seeing a lot of foreign stuff  that I hadn't  really come across throughout the school PE notes, practice test and six minute solution type problems.  Just trying to figure out where to go from here and if there's a better resource to prepare with for Geotech p.m. 

Ezhammer said:

I used School of PE last October and did not pass. I used EET this time and passed. Both courses have their merits, but I feel EET did a better job of representing the material that was on the exam through their notes and problems, especially for the morning portion. I finished the morning portion this time and after rechecking my answers left the morning session an hour early. The afternoon session for EET is ok but doesn't force you to work as many problems which would have left me unprepared had I not worked through a couple problem books on my own. I recommend EET. 

Click to expand...

 Thank you for the advice,  I may give EET a try. What other problem books did you find helpful for the Geotechnical p.m. portion. Six minutes solutions? 

Hey RL2017, I agree quite a few of the afternoon geotech problems caught me off guard. I remember thumbing through each of the questions at the beginning, and feeling a wave of panic when I couldn't come up with the method right away for a lot of them.

That said, when I calmed down and looked at the problems more closely I realized a lot of the problems were 'wearing disguises.' What I mean by that is the problem statements or diagrams could easily lead you astray, either with extra info. or unnecessary equations, diagrams, etc. Not sure if that is very helpful, but in general they cannot ask you too complex of questions with only 6 minutes to solve each one!!

The NCEES practice exam can help put you in the right mindset in this regard. Look at the solutions in the back...usually they are just a few lines long.

Here's a few more things I thought served me well for content to study:

1) go through all your old undergrad soil mechanics stuff. Your program is accredited for a reason and your class probably had lots of good stuff like soil classification, compaction, seepage, retaining walls, shallow foundations, and induced stresses. At least half the afternoon problems seemed to be dressed up morning type questions basically.

2) I would recommend solving the very easiest problems from each topic in 6 minute solutions for geotech by Bruce Wolle.

3) Thumb through NAVFAC DM7 manuals. My boss is always telling me to look up something in these things and we use a lot of those really handy graphical solutions in there.

4) One thing it sounds like you don't get to do in your job is a typical site investigation. Front end of any project we do is usually getting on a drill rig, bringing back soil/rock samples, and testing in the lab. If you look at the depth exam specs. from NCEES there are 13 questions for these topics (sections I, II, and III)! So focusing on that could help as well. You can even youtube this stuff, a couple of my co-workers showed me this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGk1HI1NGug&feature=player_detailpage

I managed to pass, but thought it was a surprising, kind of off-balance afternoon session so hopefully this helps!

RL2017 said:

I primarily specialize in Forensics and residential/commercial building analysis.  We primarily inspect buildings that have undergone settlement or a range of other issues and provide repair recommendations and causes/origin of damage for insurance companies. We do not do a lot of design work, which I get doesn't necessarily help my case,  but I put in a lot of effort and worked a lot of example problems. 

Click to expand...

Well I don't think the test has a lot to do with design. I don't design anything at work; we provide "design recommendations", as that is what most consulting geotechnical engineers do. 

You need to focus on soil investigations since you do not do that at work. That is the basis of geotechnical engineering, and a large portion of the test. It also encompasses most of the conceptual questions. For this, you will just have to read your references. I recommend reading the "Soils and Foundations" Vol 1 and 2 and "Subsurface Investigation - Geotechnical Site Characterization" FHWA Manuals. Yes they are lengthy; however, you will learn a lot and it will make you a better engineer.

The Das textbooks have basically everything you need for all of the other topics. I would also recommend bringing the "Geotechnical Engineers Portable Handbook". The index it contains will aid you in looking up any oddball questions. I liked the USS Sheet Pile Design Manual for the lateral earth pressure topics.

I ran through the 6 min solutions book 3 times. Some of the questions are longer than what you will see on the exam, but they will help you learn all of the concepts. You should work more than 1 practice exam, simulating exam conditions. Get the 2 most recent Goswami exams. Also get the Geotechnical depth exams from PPI. The NCEES practice exam should then be a joke. 

As stated above, the questions on the exam do not usually require more than 2 lines of work. And they are not trying to trick you, as everyone claims.

Try EET. I took EET and also had SofPE and Testmasters notes. EET binders more WAY better. 

And lastly, don't sike yourself out. Half the battle is believing you can pass the test.

I took the April 2017 Geotech and passed this round. I did self-study with no official classes.  I second the advice on having the NavFac 7.1, 7.2 and though I didn't print it out... 7.3 since there was a seismic problem this time. I also made it a point to bring some older geotech books which proved to be very helpful, and affordable on Amazon, like the Engineers Portable Handbook (Amazon Older Edition $35), Roy Hunts Geotechnical Engineering Investigation Manual (Amazon Older edition $10), and an older Robert Koerner 'Construction and Geotechnical Methods in Foundation Engineering' (Amazon $3) was helpful. I didn't bring Das book, didn't miss it. To be honest, the CERM book was useless in the geotech afternoon, though the NCEES practice test was good to have. Hope this helps, good luck. 

Thank you for the advice everyone. I'll definitely be sure to pick up some of the additional reference material, take the EET course, review all of my School of PE notes, and try to work through all of the 6 minute solutions problems in preparing for the October exam. Its going to be challenging to go through this again, but I'll slowly accept it as my reality and get refocussed on the goal. Thanks again! 

I'm going to give you one of those answers that sound like a riddle but it's true.

I have the give credit to NCEES, they make a test like none other. The only way you pass the PM portion is by becoming a super versed in the subject. Abstractly versed. 

You also need some great books to look things up, this is key for Geotech, people that say all they used is the Ref Manual weren't taking Geotech.

Get a few Das books. 

You can study all you want but if you don't have the "vibe" of how to do things you won't get it.

They do all sorts of tricky wording and little things to throw you off, you have to be solid. 

I studied super hard the first time and failed (like over 400 hours)........, the second time I didn't study anything at all and just thought about all the concepts, over and over again, what if this, what if that, and passed the second time after not opening a book for 6 months. 

I'm not saying do this but now you have seen the battlefield so remember the style when you study.

It is definitely a journey, as it is intended to be, so try to enjoy it. It will feel great when you complete the mission. 

Also selling all my books, so take a look...

http://www.ebay.com/usr/101001011

Also, I never have taken a Geotech class in college, so If I can do it, you can do it. 

Good luck mate, go crush. 

One last thing, after reading a ton on this site I would swear that people are taking totally different tests.

Don't listen to other people, lots of contradicting opinions that get in your head.

Everyone is different, try hard, hard as hell.