# PE Civil , First Session



## Shaltoof (Oct 19, 2016)

Hi everybody,

I've registered for the Structural P.E. ( October ) and I have about 10 days left. I'm currently in the last semester in my masters degree in Structural Engineering and I don't have experience. I wanted to take the exam early before I forget what I've studied.

*My question:* I prepared well for the second session ( Structural ) but *didn't study at all for the first session*. I have CERM and I thought I could use it without preparing for the first session since they are easy questions and I used my time to prepare for the structural part ( which is more fun for me ). I feel I'm doing a wrong approach !! what can I do in 10 days ?

Thank you


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## ptatohed (Oct 19, 2016)

Are you asking about the Civil PE Exam with Structural Depth?  Or the Structural Engineering Exam (SE)?  What does "first session" / "second session" mean?  Do you mean AM (breadth) and PM (depth)?  If you are taking the Civil PE Exam and you did not study at all for the AM portion because you thought the AM questions were "easy", then the truth is you will likely fail.  Sorry, just being honest.  There is no magic solution for you to learn 50% of the exam in 10 days.  Unless you can study 10-15 hours per day, I'm afraid your chances of passing are slim.  Make sure you study all of the material for Spring 2017.


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## JGipe1 (Oct 19, 2016)

Pull an all-nighter every night, it's your only hope now.


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## smahurin (Oct 19, 2016)

I'm going to disagree with the others.  I think it's better to overprepare than underprepare... but I actually think Shaltoof isn't far off the mark.  If you turn off your brain and mindlessly lookup reference equations in the CERM, you should be able to do fine on the AM portion of the exam.  

When I took the PE Civil/Structural exam in october 2014, I think I answered about 34 of the 40 morning questions by looking up an equation in the CERM and plugging in the values.  I think 2 of the other questions were unit cancellation... no equation lookup needed and the other 4 were some combination of questions I either knew or didn't and had to guess... 

Assuming I didn't fat finger something that means I should have gotten around an 85% on the AM portion of the Civil exam by simply having the CERM and using it.  I'm sure I did worse on the PM portion, but lets just assume I did the 34 CERM related questions right, and missed all the other 6 meaning I had an 85% in the AM, if the passing score is something around a 75 that means I could have gotten around a 60% on the PM portion and passed.  By no means a shoe in, but I don't think its unreasonable to think someone with a little studying can do that fine.  I'd definitely focus on the PM portion of the exam if you're going to spend limited study time, as I really agree with the OP that the AM isn't overly hard and the PM I thought was considerably harder.

I think its great that if people have the time and desire to spend hundreds of hours studying as everyone has to find what works for them, and I think it's better to over prepare than under prepare.  I personally spent around 40hrs total of PE study time and felt massively over prepared (I finished the AM portion of the exam in 1hr, worked through the entire AM portion of the exam a second time in another hour... before calling it good and leaving for lunch 2hrs early). For the record I'm decidedly NOT a genius, I'd argue I'm pretty average in terms of engineer intelligence.

I don't want to recommend people spend limited time studying, as I don't want to encourage someone to under study, but I don't think it's necessarily doom and gloom if someone spends a limited amount of time studying.  For what its worth several engineers in my office spent ZERO study time and passed.  Again, not sure I'd encourage that, but I also don't think that is totally unreasonable.


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## smahurin (Oct 19, 2016)

* I meant 65% on the PM and passed


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## ruggercsc (Oct 19, 2016)

If you registered for the School of PE then you could go through the breadth videos one per day.   Flag their notes on where to find equations, solutions, tables, etc.  

If you are comfortable with the your depth, spend all the rest of your time on the breadth.


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## smahurin (Oct 19, 2016)

I'd run through at least the NCEES practice exam.  That'll give you some exposure to both AM and PM, and then depending on how you do show where you need to spend the last few days studying.


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## ptatohed (Oct 19, 2016)

smahurin said:


> I'm going to disagree with the others.  I think it's better to overprepare than underprepare... but I actually think Shaltoof isn't far off the mark.  If you turn off your brain and mindlessly lookup reference equations in the CERM, you should be able to do fine on the AM portion of the exam.
> 
> When I took the PE Civil/Structural exam in october 2014, I think I answered about 34 of the 40 morning questions by looking up an equation in the CERM and plugging in the values.  I think 2 of the other questions were unit cancellation... no equation lookup needed and the other 4 were some combination of questions I either knew or didn't and had to guess...
> 
> ...


Are you saying that you did not study (or studied very little) for the AM?


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## smahurin (Oct 19, 2016)

ptatohed said:


> Are you saying that you did not study (or studied very little) for the AM?


Yes.  My studying for the AM constituted taking an NCEES practice exam once and working through the solutions on what I got wrong.  That was it.


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## matt267 PE (Oct 19, 2016)

smahurin said:


> Yes.  My studying for the AM constituted taking an NCEES practice exam once and working through the solutions on what I got wrong.  That was it.


and how many did you get wrong?


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## Shaltoof (Oct 19, 2016)

ptatohed said:


> Are you asking about the Civil PE Exam with Structural Depth?  Or the Structural Engineering Exam (SE)?  What does "first session" / "second session" mean?  Do you mean AM (breadth) and PM (depth)?  If you are taking the Civil PE Exam and you did not study at all for the AM portion because you thought the AM questions were "easy", then the truth is you will likely fail.  Sorry, just being honest.  There is no magic solution for you to learn 50% of the exam in 10 days.  Unless you can study 10-15 hours per day, I'm afraid your chances of passing are slim.  Make sure you study all of the material for Spring 2017.


It's the civil/structural PE exam. Actually I didn't follow my schedule and thought I could answer the AM portion by just looking from the CERM since I've finished my undergraduate last year. I have the NCEES practice exam and I found that the PM is harder than the AM breadth portion.


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## geomane (Oct 19, 2016)

Just take it. The AM should be somewhat fresh on your mind from undergrad (that's assuming you were a good student). The worst thing that happens is you fail, but you know what to expect next time.


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## Shaltoof (Oct 19, 2016)

smahurin said:


> I'm going to disagree with the others.  I think it's better to overprepare than underprepare... but I actually think Shaltoof isn't far off the mark.  If you turn off your brain and mindlessly lookup reference equations in the CERM, you should be able to do fine on the AM portion of the exam.
> 
> When I took the PE Civil/Structural exam in october 2014, I think I answered about 34 of the 40 morning questions by looking up an equation in the CERM and plugging in the values.  I think 2 of the other questions were unit cancellation... no equation lookup needed and the other 4 were some combination of questions I either knew or didn't and had to guess...
> 
> ...


Thank you for the reply. I solved some questions from the NCEES practice exam and I found that the AM questions are not hard and if I have enough time in the exam I can find the required equation from the CERM so it's just a matter of time. I have all the material required and I'm going to spend this week for the AM portion just to be in the safe side.

Structural portion is large and I had many topics to prepare for the first time.


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## Spaghetti_PE (Oct 19, 2016)

I can't believe people would come on here to post to tell you are going to fail. Shame on them. You'll be fine, just study with your remaining time. I took the NCEES practice exam blind the first time (without studying) and got an 85%. I'm not a genius or anything. There is a lot of common sense required and a lot of unit conversions. Work through some practice exams with the remainder of your time and you'll pass. Plenty of people pass the exam without studying much more than a couple weekends. The morning breadth portion is very straightforward plug and chug. 

The pass rate for first-time structural PE takers was 67% last exam cycle. You probably know if you are in the top 6-7 out of ten people when it comes to test taking. If you are, then you'll do fine with a little preparation.

Don't listen to these people that think you need to slave away for 300 hours to pass the professional engineering exam. Just because it is what they chose to do doesn't mean it is what everybody has to do to pass. This isn't the bar exam, its really not _that_ hard. You have a masters degree for goodness sake.


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## ptatohed (Oct 20, 2016)

Shaltoof said:


> It's the civil/structural PE exam. Actually I didn't follow my schedule and thought I could answer the AM portion by just looking from the CERM since I've finished my undergraduate last year. I have the NCEES practice exam and I found that the PM is harder than the AM breadth portion.


Shal,

It's my opinion that the AM should not be taken for granted as easy and studying for it should not be dismissed, fresh degree or not.  I found the AM and PM to be equal in difficulty.  What is your plan for the next week?   



Spaghetti_PE said:


> I can't believe people would come on here to post to tell you are going to fail. Shame on them. You'll be fine, just study with your remaining time. I took the NCEES practice exam blind the first time (without studying) and got an 85%. I'm not a genius or anything. There is a lot of common sense required and a lot of unit conversions. Work through some practice exams with the remainder of your time and you'll pass. Plenty of people pass the exam without studying much more than a couple weekends. The morning breadth portion is very straightforward plug and chug.
> 
> The pass rate for first-time structural PE takers was 67% last exam cycle. You probably know if you are in the top 6-7 out of ten people when it comes to test taking. If you are, then you'll do fine with a little preparation.
> 
> Don't listen to these people that think you need to slave away for 300 hours to pass the professional engineering exam. Just because it is what they chose to do doesn't mean it is what everybody has to do to pass. This isn't the bar exam, its really not _that_ hard. You have a masters degree for goodness sake.


Spag,

No one told him he'd fail.  Personally, I used the word "likely" fail.  And I still stand by that.  Just telling him he'll pass won't make him pass if he requires a decent amount of review/problem solving time like the majority of us.  I would not recommend to anyone that a good strategy to pass the exam would be to take for granted the AM questions as easy and that a recent degree is a substitute for studying.  Yeah, you might hear those stories about people who passed with little to no studying but, even if the story is true, there are another 24 people who won't pass without proper preparation.  So might he pass?  Maybe.  Do I hope he passes?  Sure.  But if I had to bet whether he'd pass with little to no studying of the AM material?  My money would not be on Shaltoof, sorry.


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## matt267 PE (Oct 20, 2016)

Spaghetti_PE said:


> the bar exam


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## NJmike PE (Oct 20, 2016)




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## Road Guy (Oct 20, 2016)

What do you call 10,000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?


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## snickerd3 (Oct 20, 2016)

fish food


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## Maji (Oct 20, 2016)

I am too old to even remember what my PE exam was like!!! Now I am trying to study for the California special exams, so I am reliving those "student" days.

Anyway, success usually sides with the one who is prepared. Some people may have studied very hard in their college days and that accumulated knowledge can help them to be successful in passing the PE exam without putting in too much effort. If you consider yourself in this category, then go ahead and get some practice tests and work on them. That should tell you where you need to concentrate and also tell you where your strengths are. 

Good luck.


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## Road Guy (Oct 20, 2016)

snickerd3 said:


> fish food


A good start!


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## Ken PE 3.1 (Oct 25, 2016)

I have seen many people who were confident going into the exam but never have I seen someone who thiught they will pass the AM section just because they went to college.

That test is the FE, not the PE.


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## ptatohed (Oct 25, 2016)

Ken PE 3.0 said:


> I have seen many people who were confident going into the exam but never have I seen someone who thiught they will pass the AM section just because they went to college.
> 
> That test is the FE, not the PE.


To this day, I still don't know how I passed the FE.  I signed up for it and took the exam (and passed) basically after doing my general education classes (Jr. College) and before most of my engineering classes (University).


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## Ken PE 3.1 (Oct 25, 2016)

ptatohed said:


> > 2 hours ago, Ken PE 3.0 said: I have seen many people who were confident going into the exam but never have I seen someone who thiught they will pass the AM section just because they went to college. That test is the FE, not the PE.
> 
> 
> To this day, I still don't know how I passed the FE.  I signed up for it and took the exam (and passed) basically after doing my general education classes (Jr. College) and before most of my engineering classes (University).


Passing the FE out of school and thinking the PE is a cake walk in the morning are completely different animals. At least it was to me. Maybe civil is different for the AM.


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## smahurin (Oct 27, 2016)

Ken PE 3.0 said:


> I have seen many people who were confident going into the exam but never have I seen someone who thiught they will pass the AM section just because they went to college.
> 
> That test is the FE, not the PE.


The AM portion of the Civil PE is the FE... just with less topics.


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## smahurin (Oct 27, 2016)

My intent isn't to undersell the test difficulty, I genuinely want people to be overprepared for the PE and breeze through it, but I've made this argument in other threads.  Just the way the Civil PE exam is set up, there are 5 different "areas" structural, geotech, water resource, construction, transportation that have essentially no correlation between them.  In general, any practicing Civil only does one of those areas or at most 1.5, meaning the other 4 are untouched and our only knowledge/exposure was 1 or maybe 2 college classes.  The test makers understand this... sort of, and so they tailor the Civil AM difficulty to somewhat represent a test in which you have no experience or exposure with 80% of the AM questions...

The result is exactly what you think it would be:  An exam whose intent is to test things you know nothing about, has its difficulty skewed so that you can answer questions that you know nothing about.


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## smahurin (Oct 27, 2016)

For the record, I did think the afternoon portion was relatively difficult.  I'm sure I underprepared for that aspect of the exam (even though I spent essentially all of my limited studying on that portion).  I passed so that's all that matters, but I'm guessing my AM grade helped offset a more mediocre PM grade in my case.  

But that's why I think the OP is on the right track.  I'd recommend taking a practice exam to make sure you are relatively fluent in the layout of the CERM, but otherwise focus your studying time on the PM portion of the exam.  In the AM, the test makers expect you to know virtually nothing about the material.  However, for the PM portion of the civil, the test makers (presumably) expect you to have some understanding and exposure to the material... and the questions reflect that I think.  

Anyways, good luck to those taking it tomorrow.


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## ptatohed (Nov 7, 2016)

Shaltoof said:


> Hi everybody,
> 
> I've registered for the Structural P.E. ( October ) and I have about 10 days left. I'm currently in the last semester in my masters degree in Structural Engineering and I don't have experience. I wanted to take the exam early before I forget what I've studied.
> 
> ...


Shalt, how do you feel you did?


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## Shaltoof (Nov 13, 2016)

ptatohed said:


> Shalt, how do you feel you did?


I think the level of the exam was very close to the NCEES practice exam. Actually I didn't do bad in the exam, I was able to solve most of the questions in the morning section except questions related to hydraulics and hydrology since I wasn't good at these topics in undergrad. Afternoon questions were easy, but some of them took more than 6 min. so at the end I ran out of time.


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## Spaghetti_PE (Nov 16, 2016)

I'll mark that in my win column.


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## ptatohed (Nov 17, 2016)

Spaghetti_PE said:


> I'll mark that in my win column.


Why?  That wouldn't make sense unless Shaltoof passes.  If he passes, I'll be happy to say that you were right and I was wrong.  If he doesn't pass, I won't say "I told you so" (but I'll think it   )


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## SeminolePE (Nov 22, 2016)

Road Guy said:


> What do you call 10,000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?



lobsters :blink:


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## Shaltoof (Dec 8, 2016)

Guys my result is out and I PASSED   . I was worried thinking about doing it again but thankfully I passed from first try. :thankyou:  Thank you all guys, this website was really helpful for my preparation and I enjoyed the trolling while waiting for the results.


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## Spaghetti_PE (Dec 11, 2016)

Congratulations Shaltoof. I hope Shaltoof's experience helps out other people in the future that are wondering how much time/effort they have to put into preparing for the civil PE exam. Yes it should be taken seriously and one should study in earnest. No, its not exceedingly difficult if you put some effort into preparing. No, not EVERYBODY needs a thousand dollar review course and a box full of books and 300+ hours of studying. If that is what YOU need then more power to you, but don't try to scare other people off or build yourself up by exaggeration. There is a tendency in this forum to upsell the difficulty and I think that is unfortunate. I knew this kid would pass, because he sounded at least half-intelligent and at least somewhat academically-inclined. People like that are probably qualified to be engineers and aren't likely to be weeded out by NCEES.


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## ptatohed (Dec 12, 2016)

Very nice.  Congrats.


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## Maji (Dec 12, 2016)

Congratulations Shaltoof... best of luck for your future endeavors.


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## Arjay (Dec 14, 2016)

Congrats!

This thread is a great read btw


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## smahurin (Dec 15, 2016)

Congrats kid!


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## Shaltoof (Dec 20, 2016)

Thank you guys


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## gpoli111 (Apr 12, 2017)

I'm bumping this thread to agree that you can get by with no studying and the CERM alone in the AM. I didn't study for the AM at all, used only the CERM as a reference and scored a 32/40. We'll see how the actual test goes in a week of course. But I found the PM to be much more complex (28/40 here) and chose to study harder on the structural PM topics.


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## ptatohed (Apr 12, 2017)

gpoli111 said:


> I'm bumping this thread to agree that you can get by with no studying and the CERM alone in the AM. I didn't study for the AM at all, used only the CERM as a reference and scored a 32/40. We'll see how the actual test goes in a week of course. But I found the PM to be much more complex (28/40 here) and chose to study harder on the structural PM topics.


There are always those people you hear about who pass with little/no studying but, in general, I think it is a poor strategy to rely on and poor advice to give.  But I guess each examinee can decide for themselves.


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## leggo PE (Apr 12, 2017)

gpoli111 said:


> I'm bumping this thread to agree that you can get by with no studying and the CERM alone in the AM. I didn't study for the AM at all, used only the CERM as a reference and scored a 32/40. We'll see how the actual test goes in a week of course. But I found the PM to be much more complex (28/40 here) and chose to study harder on the structural PM topics.


You didn't pass with a 60/80? Or are you referring to a practice test...


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## gpoli111 (Apr 12, 2017)

ptatohed said:


> There are always those people you hear about who pass with little/no studying but, in general, I think it is a poor strategy to rely on and poor advice to give.  But I guess each examinee can decide for themselves.


To be fair I said you could get by and not specifically recommending it. I was explaining my experience to add this thread. I guess my real advice would be to take the NCEES practice exam as if it were exam day and see where you stand.


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