# Civil PE Sample Exams Question & Advice Needed



## BPCW

For all of the people who have taken the exam, which did you find more realistic: NCEES Sample Exam Morning Questions or Lindberg's Sample Exam?

The reason I ask is that after about a month of general review, I did the NCEES Sample Exam Questions yesterday, got 16/20 and was feeling good about where I'm at with 2+ months to go before the real exam.

Today I took the Lindberg's Morning Sample Exam today, giving myself 4 hours to complete it and scored 22/40. Obviously, I felt pretty bad about that. I'm trying to judge where I'm at right now.

Lindberg Exam:

Construction: 6/8 correct

Geotech: 2/6

Structural: 5/8 (with 2 lucky guesses in there)

Transportation: 4/8

WR/Env: 5/8

NCEES Sample Questions:

Construction: 2/4

Geotech: 4/4

Structural: 2/4

Transportation: 4/4

WR/Env: 4/4

It's obvious I need to work on the structural stuff as well as some geotech. I guess I'm having a hard time gauging where I'm at. Any thoughts?

I'm starting a review course tomorrow and since I've been studying the general stuff for the last 5 weeks, I'll be using it to reinforce what I have already reviewed which will help a lot I think.

For now, I'm going to dive head first into the WR/Env depth stuff.

Any other suggestions/advice/tips? Thanks in advance!


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## Adrock

Most people have said NCEES is more like the actual exam. I'm taking the April 2009 exam for the first time so I wouldn't know.


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## Casey

I personally think that Lindberg's sample exam is a waste of time and money.

The NCEES practice exam is the best bang for your buck. The questions in it are pretty much the kind you can expect on the exam.


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## ktulu

Casey said:


> I personally think that Lindberg's sample exam is a waste of time and money.


I wouldn't say it was a waste of time and money. Without going into specifics, there was a question on the PE exam that was exactly like a question in the "the other board" Sample Exam. Now the questions that are 2 pages long in the solutions, with them using equations ans assumptions that come outta left field, then maybe is too much.

But I use it for extra problems to work through - I am old hat at taking the exam, so I do need any "real life situations". Taking the exam 4 times is real life enough.


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## bridge_guy

I wouldnt call Lindberg a waste, its good practice, but not very realistic IMO..the NCEES is more what you would see, if you can do Lindberg than you should have no problem.


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## Casey

Well, the book sits in my basement barely used...

Anyone want to buy it?

Also, I would say the 6 minute solutions are more helpful than the Lindberg exam... And there's enough questions in those you could put together several practice exams.

EDIT*

Thinking more of that, and although I never did that; I think that would be a better approach for the exam. Pick 40 random questions from the books and voila! You got yourself a practice exam.... Sure it doesn't have "practice exam" in the title, but it functions as one and the questions aren't as insane.


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## hrun

Be sure you do all the afternoon problems in the NCEES Sample book for civil, also!!

At least go thru the questions and see the solutions for them.



BPCW said:


> For all of the people who have taken the exam, which did you find more realistic: NCEES Sample Exam Morning Questions or Lindberg's Sample Exam?
> The reason I ask is that after about a month of general review, I did the NCEES Sample Exam Questions yesterday, got 16/20 and was feeling good about where I'm at with 2+ months to go before the real exam.
> 
> Today I took the Lindberg's Morning Sample Exam today, giving myself 4 hours to complete it and scored 22/40. Obviously, I felt pretty bad about that. I'm trying to judge where I'm at right now.
> 
> Lindberg Exam:
> 
> Construction: 6/8 correct
> 
> Geotech: 2/6
> 
> Structural: 5/8 (with 2 lucky guesses in there)
> 
> Transportation: 4/8
> 
> WR/Env: 5/8
> 
> NCEES Sample Questions:
> 
> Construction: 2/4
> 
> Geotech: 4/4
> 
> Structural: 2/4
> 
> Transportation: 4/4
> 
> WR/Env: 4/4
> 
> It's obvious I need to work on the structural stuff as well as some geotech. I guess I'm having a hard time gauging where I'm at. Any thoughts?
> 
> I'm starting a review course tomorrow and since I've been studying the general stuff for the last 5 weeks, I'll be using it to reinforce what I have already reviewed which will help a lot I think.
> 
> For now, I'm going to dive head first into the WR/Env depth stuff.
> 
> Any other suggestions/advice/tips? Thanks in advance!


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## squishles10

NCEES- I found Lindeburgs problems and exam to be ridiculous- others like it because it goes into way more depth than you need so youll obvously be prepared. I preferred to practice problems that would be similar to the exam questions. If you take the exam and divide the questions into parts, then maybe its similar but i didnt pay for it so i then had to do further work to make it realistic. Youll never get a question right off the NCEES on the exam bc they make the test- theyre not going to give you the exact same thing. Its kind of more what youre looking for. If it helps, I failed them both with ~40% on Lindeburg and ~50% on NCEES and got an 87 on the exam (is that a percent- im not sure actually... anyone?) so if that helps your correlation at all...


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## xzibitendo

I took the Lindeburg sample exam over the weekend (geotech depth afternoon) and man was I frustrated. The morning section did not seem to line up well with what NCEES published as a guideline for material covered http://www.ncees.org/exams/professional/pe..._exam_specs.pdf

And of course I can be given the generic spiel about the guideline may not be all encompassing, blah blah frickn blah.

Examples of what I mean:

1) (Prob. 11) Drawing a flow net in the morning? Give me a break. The rule of thumb in geotech is that your first pass at a flow net should have it done in twenty minutes of drawing. Yes, you can draw a one minute flow net on this problem and eliminate two of the answers immediately, but you would actually need to know what you're doing to get the right answer quickly.

2) (Prob 20, 21) I do not believe problems like these are representative of the difficulty NCEES would ask.

3) (Prob 22) Are connection problems included in the morning?

4) (Prob 23) This is a poorly drawn figure, but probably something we'd see on the Saturday California Seismic Exam

5) (Prob 25, 27, 29, 31) These transportation problems are not "geometric design" problems

6) (Prob 33, 38, 39, 40) Are these type of environmental problems included in the morning? I thought they were not.

And there were some inconsistencies and outright errors I believe:

1) (Prob 12) I think NCEES would have to specify to use Boussinesq. Your answer increases if you use 2:1 method (and your answer is wrong if you use simplified 2:1 method)

2) (Prob 13) The solution computes effective unit weight. This is wrong; a water table is never defined.

3) (Prob 15) Are we supposed to bring drawing tools to the exam? This is news to me.

4) (Prob 81) The solution uses 0.5 in the denominator of the delta p calculation. This should be cot 60=0.58.

5) (Prob 83, 90 &amp; 95) I don't understand his rationale between the computation of the hydraulic gradient of these problems. Be consistent.

6) (Prob 98) Very poorly worded problem. Basically, the only question NCEES can ask of RQD is it to see if we understand "core run length" versus "core recovered length." Here Lindeburg tells us 123 cm was "recovered". Okay, well that could be a four foot core run meaning 100% was recovered, or maybe it was a five foot "core run" meaning the recovery was 81%. There are two misuses that inexperienced engineers face when calculating RQD - a) they don’t account for mechanical breaks and B ) they divide by recovery instead of run length. Even in the solution he says "divided by the total length of the core." Well Lindeburg, you forgot to add the word 'run' at the end.

7) (Prob 84 &amp; 100) Answer for problem 100 is 194 mm and he rounds to 200 mm probably citing that it is 'conservative' to round up to a higher settlement. Well in problem 84 the calculation leads to 210 mm and he rounds down to 200 mm. Never mind the real world right now people, just talking about getting the right answer on this test...what is NCEES's breakpoint on when to be subjective and round to the more conservative answer and when to round to the answer that "is most nearly..." as all the questions ask.

Overall, I'm not surprised by all these issues that have come up. I've been finding numerous errors in his reference manual and in his practice problems (I've mostly been posting them on the "the other board" website forums).

Thoughts?


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## Guest

^^^ I agree with your assessment. My recommendation is to not let the errors and oversights in the prep materials shift your focus from studying - keep your eye on the donut! The goal is to pass .. and it sounds like you are at least THINKING which should help you realize that goal. 

Good luck!

JR


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