# Civil morning format



## ARLORD (Jan 10, 2009)

Simple question: Are the morning questions grouped by discipline, geotech, structural, water, etc;

or are they in random order.


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## MonteBiker (Jan 12, 2009)

ARLORD said:


> Simple question: Are the morning questions grouped by discipline, geotech, structural, water, etc;or are they in random order.


Simple answer... Not really. You will have to switch around between materials or try to answer questions in groups (but I don't think I would take the time to do that). You can pretty much just work out the the CERM in the morning and just consult a reference if you need a little something extra. The morning is not really code based so the CERM covers the general topics pretty well.


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## IlliniASU (Jan 12, 2009)

I found that they were pretty much in order. All the structures questions were together, the construction questions were together. There might have been one or two questions 'out of order', but for the most part, you won't be jumping back and forth.


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## BPCW (Jan 12, 2009)

IlliniASU said:


> I found that they were pretty much in order. All the structures questions were together, the construction questions were together. There might have been one or two questions 'out of order', but for the most part, you won't be jumping back and forth.


Right. In fact, I don't remember any questions that were out of order. They were in 8 question blocks sorted by discipline.


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## dastuff (Jan 12, 2009)

Same, I only remember that the environmental question was mixed in with water. Which makes sense.

Other than that everything was in order for me.


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## Jtiger (Jan 29, 2009)

I remember them being pretty much grouped together. There were a few that were out of place but the majority of them were grouped together. You won't have to worry much about jumping around in your resources, which will save time in the morning.


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## ARLORD (Jan 29, 2009)

Jtiger said:


> I remember them being pretty much grouped together. There were a few that were out of place but the majority of them were grouped together. You won't have to worry much about jumping around in your resources, which will save time in the morning.



Yes, I plan to go in order from most familiar (structural :wub: ) to least (water stuff :suicide1: ).


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## Jtiger (Jan 30, 2009)

ARLORD said:


> Yes, I plan to go in order from most familiar (structural :wub: ) to least (water stuff :suicide1: ).


I approached from a confidence viewpoint. Start both AM and PM by reading over ALL questions and ranking them from 1 to 4

1 = I know how to do this in my sleep

2 = I know how to do this but I need my resources

3 = I think I can figure this out

4 = I have no clue

Do the 1's first, then the 2's and so on. That way each 1 you complete you feel more confident and don't leave any 1 or 2 on the table if you run out of time trying to figure out 4's if you were to go in order. Don't forget that this test is a test of your nerve as well, if you stumble on some 4's it can shake your nerves.

Good luck.


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## Dexman1349 (Jan 30, 2009)

Jtiger said:


> I approached from a confidence viewpoint. Start both AM and PM by reading over ALL questions and ranking them from 1 to 4
> 1 = I know how to do this in my sleep
> 
> 2 = I know how to do this but I need my resources
> ...


I have heard several people approached the exam this way. I started along this path as well, but was finding I was chewing up a ton of time without getting much done, so I started doing a hybrid version. I would read the question and if it was in category 1-3 as listed above, I got started. I found several that were initially considered a 3 ended up being a 1 and vice-versa. As I worked through the question, I would keep an eye on my watch and if I didn't think I was within striking distance of the answer within 4 minutes I would jot down a few notes as to what I was thinking (including references and chapter #'s) and move onto the next one. Each of the questions I started and came back to later I found to become easier when I approached them the 2nd times and could get a reasonable answer.

In the grand scheme of things I think I put a pure guess on 3-4 questions on each side of the lunch break.


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## IlPadrino (Jan 30, 2009)

From PE Notes - Exam Strategies:



> # Do read the entire problem and write in big letters the required units for the solution. You'd be surprised how easy it is to solve the problem for the wrong units and (hopefully) spend extra minutes figuring out why your solution isn't listed. Some people believe if you don't make any errors in units, you are almost certain to pass the exam.# Do spend some time making sure you have ALL of the information necessary to solve the problem. Quickly eliminate any distractors that may be present in the problem statement as well as identifying any parameters that are missing from the problem statement. Determine if there is enough information in the problem statement to look-up or calculate any missing parameters or if you can use best engineering judgement to make an educated guess.
> 
> # Do spend up to a minute (some suggest just 30 seconds) on each problem before deciding to, either
> 
> ...


There's very little to find wrong with this method... just adjust the the timings to suit your style. For example, maybe you only want to spend 15 seconds on the first pass (which is really just reading the problem) - but I don't recommend this. If the cut score was around 50% it might make sense, but it's pretty certain you'll have to answer most of the questions right to pass (say 70%) so unless you're a great guesser you'll need to actually come up with a correct answer on at least 60% of the questions.


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## Jtiger (Jan 30, 2009)

Dexman1349 said:


> I have heard several people approached the exam this way. I started along this path as well, but was finding I was chewing up a ton of time without getting much done, so I started doing a hybrid version. I would read the question and if it was in category 1-3 as listed above, I got started. I found several that were initially considered a 3 ended up being a 1 and vice-versa. As I worked through the question, I would keep an eye on my watch and if I didn't think I was within striking distance of the answer within 4 minutes I would jot down a few notes as to what I was thinking (including references and chapter #'s) and move onto the next one. Each of the questions I started and came back to later I found to become easier when I approached them the 2nd times and could get a reasonable answer.
> In the grand scheme of things I think I put a pure guess on 3-4 questions on each side of the lunch break.


That's not a bad idea. The way I described worked for me. It's a little unnerving to spend around 20 minutes just reading questions but it worked out on the second go around. Really there are several ways to get it done and whatever works for you is the hard to process to find without taking it to many times.


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