Books needed for PE civil Structural depth

Hi all, 

i am planning to buy all the references I need to study for my exam ( structural depth ) but I was wondering if I really need the concrete design for PE civil and SE exams book and the steel design for PE civil and we exam book offered by PPI website ? 

I already got the CERM 16th edition. And For now I am planning to buy  : 1) structural depth reference manual 2) structural depth practice exams. 

Please share any advice or recommendations  you have to offer. 

Thanks 

Rawan 

I will give my opinion but first know i have not passed my PE. I have every PPI  reference for structural depth and the CERM 15th edition. The SDRM is not worth the money in my opinion. I would instead get the SERM. Yes it has more material NOT likely to be in the PE exam but ultimately it is the better reference to habe as a structural engineer. The material for SE is very clear to find and you can just skip it. Regarding the Structural Depth Practice exams i would say try them after some preparation but with enough time to spare on reviewing the problems in it. I found my self working the problems as Homework problems, at least half of them. 

I want to say this. PPI is great material but in many instances they love to input equations that they resolve separately and choose not to show you how. This frustrated me and many time infound myself spending hours figuring out an equation, make sure u habe the will to just skip this or do the time. Assuming you run into this type of issue. I certainly did. 

I would recommend the Goswami All in One even though it is out dated a bit, simply because of the simplicity he explains some things. Its not terribly expensive. Dont try to do both it and the CERM, you will just be double dipping in many areas. 

Just MY opinion, i really like the PPI Concrete and Steel references. Inhabe the older editions and while they are tuff in some areas they are great references tl have. If you can spare the money get them, i dont feel you need them for the PE exam as an old text book can replace most of the info if you have the CERM 16th edition already. 

If you have any struggle with structural analysis, i recently got the Kindle Edition of Mccormac Structural Analysis Understanding Behaviour Ed. 1. It was 64 bucks and i find it very good in areas Hibbeller just complicates things . Any way, you may not need it. 

I found the goswami practice problems more similar to the actual test than anything from PPI, I also would say don't waste you time with six minute solutions, their problems are way too in depth and too many steps as compared to the exam. Yes it does test the skills you will need on the exam, but ultimately I found the whole book frustrating as you are better off checking you solution in stages to make sure you are proceeding in the right direction rather than waste all that time only to realize you made a mistake in the first step. 

I too EET's breadth and depth course  and passed my first try, they had in my opinion the most similar practice examples of anything I used and they provide a ton of practice problems, took me lots of time to get through them all and most people I know couldn't even find the time to get all the practice problems in. I highly recommend them.

EET guys are awesome. For some reason i couldnt get it done with their training. Im going at it solo now. Se how that goes. 

It really depends what your background and understanding of the material is. I got all of the books and barely opened most of them, aside from the CERM and a couple practice exams. I am planning on taking the EET review courses for vertical and lateral when it gets to be SE time.

bsimms89 said:

I found the goswami practice problems more similar to the actual test than anything from PPI, I also would say don't waste you time with six minute solutions, their problems are way too in depth and too many steps as compared to the exam. Yes it does test the skills you will need on the exam, but ultimately I found the whole book frustrating as you are better off checking you solution in stages to make sure you are proceeding in the right direction rather than waste all that time only to realize you made a mistake in the first step. 

I too EET's breadth and depth course  and passed my first try, they had in my opinion the most similar practice examples of anything I used and they provide a ton of practice problems, took me lots of time to get through them all and most people I know couldn't even find the time to get all the practice problems in. I highly recommend them.

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I am currently taking the EET on demand course.Currently I am done with the breadth once with all practice problems and quarter of the way through the depth. Wanted to plan out the schedule till the exam. Any pointers/suggestions on how to study with that. How many times did you cover the material etc. Thanks

I did the live webinars so if you keep to your schedule it's a good pace. I did all of the breadth problems during the course after one class before the next, the depth I did most of the practice problems as they were doing the course but couldn't find the time to get them all in. After all the classes in the last couple weeks before the test I went back through the binders and highlighted  tabbed everything and color coded it by section. Then after doing their binders I went through all the codes the tests references and found the applicable section of code for every topic in the binders and highlighted and tabbed tabbed them using the same color coding system so that if I had a question on a topic in the test and it wasn't covered in their binder I could quickly find that section in the code. I then went back through the remaining practice problems and worked on the goswami and other practice books. I did take about a week and a half off from work before the test and worked full time at home doing all the color coding/highlighting and studying for the exam.