As long as you can find things in your references under near-panic conditions. Maybe practice finding some strange sampling technique or contaminant first - using the indexes.
Of course it helps if you know your references, but even after 16 years in the business (at the time) and a lot of studying, I still found myself lost on a few of them, digging through the indexes...
But I don't want to scare you. Generally, the oddball questions are not terribly deep. As long as you have the right references, as you say, you can find them. Whether you will find them is a different matter....
That breakdown sounds about right for the October exam. I also had the NC State DVDs, and found that they pushed me over the top (3rd time was a charm for me). I agree with Dleg on the looking stuff up part...indexes are helpful, but it really does help to be somewhat familiar with your references. However, I put a couple references in my cart for the exam that I had not looked through at all, that helped me get 2 or 3 questions. After listening to the DVDs on the drive, I would recommend spending the time you have left doing problems and reading up, then during the week before the exam, actually sit down and WATCH the DVDs.As I recall, maybe 60% of the exam was quantitative, and 40% qualitative. Or at least, that's how it seemed!
I think the only way to prepare for the qualitative questions is to just read as much as you can. But your only chance of passing rests with how well you can do on the quantitative questions, so you need to be practicing those as much as you can so you can get fast at finding what's asked and rule out stupid mistakes. So you need to find some balance.
When it comes to reading, focus on the subjects you don't know as much, and on scenarios which those references might be used for - for example, the emergency response handbook. What would you do if xxxx [insert emergency] happened?
Good luck, Bacon! Feel free to ask lots of questions. I passed the 100 question monster in October.Thanks for the tips everybody. I'm taking the Env test for the first time in April '09, and trying to best prioritize my time. The advice is appreciated.
I've seen some suggestions to study and/or bring the RCRA or CERCLA orientation manuals.The envl law handbook is a necessity. I relied on it heavily!
Enter your email address to join: