# School of PE Construction, California Seismic and Survey



## TheyCallMeJohn (Jun 20, 2013)

Hello All,

After searching the forum I have been unable to find it previously answered so here it goes.

For past test takers:

1) Did School of PE prepare you for California seismic?

2) Did School of PE prepare you for California survey?

3) Did School of PE prepare you for construction?

My concerns are that the survey and seismic seem much shorter than other courses. Also the time they spend on breadth seem significantly less.

So do they prepare you well enough compared to for instance Hiner's class or Mansour's class?

Would anyone recommend Mansour's class for the extra money?

I contacted both organizations and haven't heard back.

John


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## Duke of PEarl (Jun 21, 2013)

In my experience, I took SoPE on my first attempt and chose Construction for my depth. Construction was just too much and the 5 weekends was not enough. I wasn't successful and failed on my first try. On my 2nd attempt, I decided to shake it up a bit and go with Geotechnical with my free retake sessions with SoPE. This time around, I passed. One thing I realized is that SoPE would a lot 5 weekends for the breadth session and only 6 hours for the depth. But the exam is 4 hours breadth and 4 hours depth meaning to say that the same amount of studying should be done for both. I hope this helps.


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## TheyCallMeJohn (Jun 21, 2013)

Duke of PEarl,

Thanks for the insight. I kind of figured something along those lines. Devoting 50hrs to AM and only 8hrs to PM seems a little bit lopsided. I know per there website they say the majority of this of the info is covered in the AM. (See below).

Duke, if you were to do it over again would you go with School of PE again?



> Although our regular classes cover the majority of the breadth and the depth topics that are needed for you to pass the exam, we want to provide you additional review in your depth area to further improve your chances of passing the exam. [\QUOTE]
> 
> I am interested to hear what others have to say about there experience with construction as well as about seismic and survey.
> 
> On a side note, I sent of follow up email to School of PE and they did get back to promptly me and answered my questions. My first message must have not gone thru.


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## Duke of PEarl (Jun 21, 2013)

John, in my opinion they do cover most of the general topics for both breadth and depth but not enough depth for the afternoon part. If I were to do this again, yes I would take School of PE without a doubt but I don't think I'd go with Construction. Of course its my personal preference, there has been thousands who have passed Construction even on their first try.

On my 2nd attempt, I focused on each and every topic of their afternoon review material and this way I believe helped me in "engineering" my answers for the difficult afternoon questions.


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