Third time is a charm?

Hey all, 

I'm taking the Civil exam with Water Resources/Environmental focus. I did not pass in October 2018, or April 2018 and I'm starting to think I have test anxiety (I can't recall specifics of the exam, even shortly after leaving the exam, dream about the exam a lot (leading up to the exam and post-exam), etc. ). I'm trying to do things differently this round and was wondering if there was any advice out there from folks who have had similar experiences. I want the third time to be the last time (but, I always wanted the 1st and 2nd times to be the last time). Any advice is appreciated! 

ThisTestisKillingMe said:

Hey all, 

I'm taking the Civil exam with Water Resources/Environmental focus. I did not pass in October 2018, or April 2018 and I'm starting to think I have test anxiety (I can't recall specifics of the exam, even shortly after leaving the exam, dream about the exam a lot (leading up to the exam and post-exam), etc. ). I'm trying to do things differently this round and was wondering if there was any advice out there from folks who have had similar experiences. I want the third time to be the last time (but, I always wanted the 1st and 2nd times to be the last time). Any advice is appreciated! 

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Hello there!  I'm a third timer who finally passed in October 2018.  It can be done!

What helped me was first, focusing the majority of my studies on what I was weakest in from my diagnostic reports.  The second thing was identifying what study habits needed to be corrected. The first two tries, I was pretty lazy about studying.  I studied on the couch, and read the texts without doing as many problem sets as I should have.  Third, were you studying during any major life events that took your focus away from studying?  I was planning a wedding during my first two attempts, and while there are some people out there who are awesome and can multi-task like that, I was not one of them.  Acknowledging my weaknesses and figuring out how many hours *I* felt comfortable with really helped me. 

There are some people on here who passed without having to study much. That's great! But again, I'm not one of those people. I had to put in 200 hours before I felt comfortable about my chances of passing.  For the third round, I made sure I only studied at my kitchen table, away from distractions. I worked as many problem sets as I could.  While work was still keeping me busy, I didn't have other life events to distract me. So all I had to do was come home, cook dinner, then study.  The month leading up to the test, I'd study about an hour before work, then another 2 hours or so afterward.  I finally put in the quality time I needed to on my third attempt, and that helped me pass.

Are you doing any review courses? I took EET because I was so weak in water, and can't recommend them enough.

Best of luck! You got this!

Thanks for this advice!!

Yeah, I got engaged and planned a wedding in those first two attempts, so things were a bit chaotic for sure. A parent has also recently passed, which makes me a bit hesitant to strike while the iron is hot, but I think if I can focus...I put in a LOT of time the previous two attempts, but I was distracted by life events, so maybe I need to shorten the time studying (I was studying in 5-8 hour blocks) and make sure that the time i do spend is HIGH QUALITY (i.e., no distractions). I used School of PE, but found their water resources depth (Civil) not super helpful. I am going to try them again as a refresher, only if the professor for the depth section is of a higher caliber. 

ThisTestisKillingMe said:

Thanks for this advice!!

Yeah, I got engaged and planned a wedding in those first two attempts, so things were a bit chaotic for sure. A parent has also recently passed, which makes me a bit hesitant to strike while the iron is hot, but I think if I can focus...I put in a LOT of time the previous two attempts, but I was distracted by life events, so maybe I need to shorten the time studying (I was studying in 5-8 hour blocks) and make sure that the time i do spend is HIGH QUALITY (i.e., no distractions). I used School of PE, but found their water resources depth (Civil) not super helpful. I am going to try them again as a refresher, only if the professor for the depth section is of a higher caliber. 

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I'm so sorry to hear about your parent   

Yeah, quality studying was definitely lacking my previous attempts.  The second time, I think I put in 145 hours...but most of that was just watching SoPE or *reading* texts without actively working a ton of problems.  I definitely noticed a huge difference the third time around. Wow, I don't think I was able to sit at my table for longer than 2-2.5 hours.  I think my brain would have exploded

So I failed the April 2017 and October 2017 exams, and honestly, taking a break in between really helped me. I started studying late April 2018 and was pretty casual with it at first, and then increased intensity as time went on. Taking that mental break really helped me, I think I would have burned out otherwise.

Regardless of what you end up deciding, best of luck! You've got this

My first attempt at the Civil PE was way back when the exam was still done long-hand (not multiple choice, so you can't just guess if you don't know the answer) and you had to who and turn in all your calculations.  This was before the change to breadth/depth format of the early 2000's.  I passed Seismic &  Survey on the first try (these two parts were multiple choice) but the 8-hour took two more tries and the third time that I passed, the exam had already switched formats.  I really would have liked to pass the exam under the old (and more difficult) format. 

For me, I realized the reason I wasn't passing the 8-hour the first two times was because of how I was studying.  All I was doing was reading/reviewing the Lindbergh manuals, highlighting things in there and making notes.  Very, very little time was spent actually solving problems.  I had decided that I was only going to take the exam one more/last time and if I didn't pass I'd switch carriers.  So for that third time I spent much of my studying time doing drills, that is, solving problems over and over again, getting to the point where I was working on both recognition and speed.  Like any performance, you are going to have anxiety when it's time to hit the stage.  By doing drills you become familiar with the type of problem and what the problem is asking.  If you intend to spend your test taking time looking up formulas and solutions in books then you're already in trouble.  I'm going to assume the the types of problems being asked haven't changed to drastically in the past 20 years, meaning, it's the same types of problems over and over again, just packaged differently.  One very popular problem on the exam back in my days was the "three reservoirs" problem (on the Water Resource option), where you had to calculate hydraulic head and/or output of each reservoir with a number of unknowns.