# SE II Practice Problems



## Hromis1 (Dec 7, 2009)

Guys and Gals,

those of you who have taken the SE II, which book or books had the best problems that closely matched the difficulty and character of the problems you had on the SE II?

I admit my head is spinning going through all the Seismic design category D and up problems.

However, I could easily see NCEES slipping in a few E&amp;F problems in preporation for "Normalizing" the new 16 hour exam next year.

any advice here? or are you all still on vacation from the last exam.

Hromis1


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## RM-270 (Dec 7, 2009)

How "close" an example is to the real thing is entirely subjective. But I thought NCEES's sample exam was pretty good. (They sell it on their web site.)


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## parthurvt (Dec 8, 2009)

Well I'm not sure if I passed yet or not, but I used the structural review books from Kaplan a lot both while studying and during the exam. Good luck!


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## RM-270 (Dec 8, 2009)

parthurvt said:


> Well I'm not sure if I passed yet or not, but I used the structural review books from Kaplan a lot both while studying and during the exam. Good luck!


hey Parthurvt, did you answer building or brodges questions? (I just took it this past October myself.)


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## Casey (Dec 8, 2009)

RM-270 said:


> I thought NCEES's sample exam was pretty good. (They sell it on their web site.)


I second the NCEES sample exam. It is a great example of the questions' format and difficulty.

From what I've seen, I would expect all seismic design questions to be SDC D and nothing higher... If they do give you an SDC E or F they won't give you a question that involves a lot of detail. Probably something like "spot the irregularity and determine the force increases."


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## Hromis1 (Dec 10, 2009)

Thanks all for the input. I have both the Kaplan and PPI Series. I have done most the PPI and am now working through parts of the Kaplan.

The NCEES example exam had me a little worried. When I went through the SE I practice exam, there were so many errors that it made the book nearly useless (except to time myself). I have yet to go through the NCEES SE II example exam.

Books I would recommend so far are:

"Six Minute Solutions". Crazy hard problems. Most far harder than exam questions. However, the problems force you to look at odd sections of the code. I learned a lot of tricks from this book. It is an example of being "over prepared" to make sure you suceed.

PPI's Siesmic design of building structures (9th ed). The Intro and background material gets an A+. Some of the more detailed sections need to be "flushed" out with more examples. Particularly on steel connections. The book starts a discussion of them, but doesn't give many design examples. The Intro also helped an old-timer like me understand all the code changes.

PPI's Concerete. Generally very good. A far better and clearer reference than than anything I have from ACI. Wish I had this book in school, rather than my text book.

I have yet to go through the Kaplan series, or PPI's Timber. Wish I had a good reference for masonry. I am not yet impressed with the Masonry designers quide.

Hromis1


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## parthurvt (Dec 11, 2009)

RM-270 said:


> parthurvt said:
> 
> 
> > Well I'm not sure if I passed yet or not, but I used the structural review books from Kaplan a lot both while studying and during the exam. Good luck!
> ...


I answered the building questions, I'm pretty sure if I had actually studied like I did for the SE I it would have been a breeze.


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## parthurvt (Dec 11, 2009)

One other thing, check out S.K. Ghosh's design guides, they are a great help.


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## Hromis1 (Dec 11, 2009)

parthurvt said:


> One other thing, check out S.K. Ghosh's design guides, they are a great help.


That was a good tip. I looked at thier site and saw they also have guides to wind loads etc. I only had some of the Masonry and EQ guides. They are a huge help.

The biggest thing is the time they save. The second best thing is that they help to organize my mind.


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## parthurvt (Dec 11, 2009)

Hromis1 said:


> parthurvt said:
> 
> 
> > One other thing, check out S.K. Ghosh's design guides, they are a great help.
> ...


Those design guides do a great job of boiling down the code into exactly what is needed for design, I used the seismic quite a bit on the exam. So now we just sit and wait for the results, hopefully they'll be here soon!


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## McEngr (Dec 11, 2009)

parthurvt said:


> Hromis1 said:
> 
> 
> > parthurvt said:
> ...


Hey parthurvt, if you passed the SE I, you should be in good shape for the SE II. It's much easier. I didn't study (much - 8 hours?) for the SE II, and somehow I passed. Good luck! The SK Ghosh stuff is very, very good.


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## RM-270 (Dec 12, 2009)

parthurvt said:


> RM-270 said:
> 
> 
> > parthurvt said:
> ...


Yeah, I did buildings too. I just barley finished the morning.........and in the afternoon [remember don't discuss specifics here] did you get something weird for part of that second problem? I don't know if I did something wrong or just misinterpreted something.

Overall, I think I did ok on it. Just depends on where the cutoff point is.


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## Hromis1 (Dec 19, 2009)

Just a follow up to anyone that may read this post in the future.

Let me give one "BAD" book review. PPI's Timber Design book, seventh edition. I am 50+ pages into. So far multiple errors in important formulas. Very badly worded questions. Difficult to understand the problem statements. I suspect the last person who updated or edited this book was not a fluent English speaker. Maybe not even an engineer. It is never good when you have to look at the solution to figure out what the question is trying to ask.

And this is 7th edition? It makes me wonder how bad the other editions are.

Hromis1


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## Hromis1 (Dec 29, 2009)

Just a follow up on my personal review of this Timber book after being 200 pages into it.

While I am encountering fewer out-right mistakes in the pages 50 through 200, I still cannot give this book a thumbs up.

It is ok on going over the use of the timber code in a vacum by itself, but it not a good example book to use on a daily basis. For example, it is okay at showing the proper use of the NDS for connection and diaphragm strengths, but is lacking in the proper develpment of the design loads.

I just went through a diaphragm problem. The mathmatics of the problem and use of the NDS tables are correct. However the problem neglected the horizontal component of the wind load on the roof. I think the loads the "book" answer gives are much lower than the actual design loads.

Again, not a great book, use with caution.

Some of the narrative is ok.

This is my personal opinion, you are free to form your own!


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## Genuine_Opinion (Feb 7, 2010)

Hromis1 said:


> Thanks all for the input. I have both the Kaplan and PPI Series. I have done most the PPI and am now working through parts of the Kaplan.
> The NCEES example exam had me a little worried. When I went through the SE I practice exam, there were so many errors that it made the book nearly useless (except to time myself). I have yet to go through the NCEES SE II example exam.
> 
> Books I would recommend so far are:
> ...


Hromis1,

I did have the same book and don't find it much useful from the exam perspective. Do you get any recommendation for a reference book on Masonry Design? If so, please let me know.

Thanks,

G. O.


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## Hromis1 (Feb 8, 2010)

G.O.

I have not found anything that has thrilled me on Masonry, yet.

However, the SK Ghosh Code masters series has been the best so far. Even the Masonry Designers Guide is not well laid out.


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## Genuine_Opinion (Feb 9, 2010)

Hromis1 said:


> G.O.
> I have not found anything that has thrilled me on Masonry, yet.
> 
> However, the SK Ghosh Code masters series has been the best so far. Even the Masonry Designers Guide is not well laid out.


Hromis1,

I do agree with you about Masonry Design Guide. I did buy some of the SK Ghosh code masters today.

BTW, what do you think about masonry coverage in SERM? Is it enough or not for SE-I? What to refer to for masonry portion in SE-II?

Thanks,

G. O.


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