# Oct Civil - Structural Impression



## MIPE (Oct 27, 2014)

Has anybody here taken the civil - structural exam? The PM part was a bit tough. What is your impression about the exam in general? how about the morning part? I think it was easier but I belive there are at least one problem that is outside the scope of the exam specs.... what do you think?

For me

morning: 32 should be OK, 5 not 100% sure, 3 total guess.

PM: 27 should be OK, 10 not 100% sure and 3 total guess.

What do you think?


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## Porter_ (Oct 27, 2014)

the morning section was about what i expected. the afternoon was rough. I'm strong in steel and concrete but weak in masonry and timber. Here's how i think i did:

AM Portion: 32 I'm confident are correct, 5 could go either way, 3 are complete guesses. 
PM Portion: 26 I'm confident are correct, 7 could go either way, 7 are complete guesses. 

'confident' is assuming i didn't fall victim to a common mistake (units, forgetting to divide by Phi, etc.). i did a quick check of my work on the morning section and found two bone-head mistakes on questions 2 and 3. some of the questions were pretty sneaky. for the afternoon section i had only enough time to check about half my work, but i was brain-dead so it was a light-hearted effort.


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## mountainhawk (Oct 29, 2014)

I feel about the same way. The morning wasn't too bad after I settled down and got into the problems. It took me a few minutes to make my mind stop racing. I was unable to get a correct answer on the first 5 problems and started to really freak out. I just sat back in my chair, took a few deep breaths, and then went to the structural questions to gain some confidence. After that I was able to go back to the beginning and start knocking out some of the problems that stumped me early. I had time to go through the morning test about 3 times, and luckily I was able to catch a few mathematical errors and correct some problems.

The afternoon took more time, and with about 17 minutes left I decided to cut my losses and leave the exam. I didn't want to end up second guessing myself on some questions and changing to a wrong answer. I had time to go through the afternoon exam a couple times, but there were a few questions that I couldn't even think of where to look in my references.

Breakdown:

Morning - There were 35 I was confident on, 4 that I had a 50/50 guess, and 1 that completely stumped me.

Afternoon - 25 that I was confident on, 12 that I was not sure if I missed a trick or did completely correct, and there were 3 that I had to completely guess.

I just hope I didn't make a ton of dumb mistakes on the afternoon. Some of the questions seemed very simple, which worries me. I hope I didn't miss a small detail or trick in too many of them.

I did get the feeling walking out of the exam that there was no amount of extra studying I could have done to make my chances better. I put in a lot of time, so hopefully it pays off. If it doesn't, I won't be too disappointed knowing I did everything I could to pass. It will just come down to a matter of how I performed mentally on exam day.


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## MIPE (Oct 29, 2014)

mountainhawk said:


> I feel about the same way. The morning wasn't too bad after I settled down and got into the problems. It took me a few minutes to make my mind stop racing. I was unable to get a correct answer on the first 5 problems and started to really freak out. I just sat back in my chair, took a few deep breaths, and then went to the structural questions to gain some confidence. After that I was able to go back to the beginning and start knocking out some of the problems that stumped me early. I had time to go through the morning test about 3 times, and luckily I was able to catch a few mathematical errors and correct some problems.
> 
> The afternoon took more time, and with about 17 minutes left I decided to cut my losses and leave the exam. I didn't want to end up second guessing myself on some questions and changing to a wrong answer. I had time to go through the afternoon exam a couple times, but there were a few questions that I couldn't even think of where to look in my references.
> 
> ...




I did not have the luxtury to review any of the answers. In fact, the only time I had was the that one final minute after the last annoucment of the exam time. From what i can see, we are all on the same page. I agree with you there was no extra study i could have done to make my chances better. However, I expected the exam to be much smoother than that. I expected myself exiting the exam with at least 36 confident answers on both sessions, which obviously did not happen.


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## NOLAENG (Oct 29, 2014)

Pretty much the same as you all. I went to lunch thinking that it was all but guaranteed. I didn't know anything about timber, masonry, prestress, or bridge before studying. After studying for around 2 months, I felt comfortable with everything besides the bridge problems. Only to get to the test and see a random obscure code question for most of the design codes. I was annoyed by this but still think I have a decent shot. If it would have been closer to the NCEES practice exams, I think I would scored around 70/80. Right now I fell like I'll be close to 60/80 (+/-)3.


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## MIPE (Oct 29, 2014)

NOLAENG said:


> Pretty much the same as you all. I went to lunch thinking that it was all but guaranteed. I didn't know anything about timber, masonry, prestress, or bridge before studying. After studying for around 2 months, I felt comfortable with everything besides the bridge problems. Only to get to the test and see a random obscure code question for most of the design codes. I was annoyed by this but still think I have a decent shot. If it would have been closer to the NCEES practice exams, I think I would scored around 70/80. Right now I fell like I'll be close to 60/80 (+/-)3.




I totally agree with you in your descibtion for the code questions as being "Random Obscure".


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## Suko63 (Oct 31, 2014)

Must say, I have the exact same feeling towards the exam as the rest of you.

My confidence was at an all time high after taking the NCEES exam the weekend before and then finishing up the morning session. Halfway through the PM I had to take a moment and collect myself as I was self-doubting.

The NCEES structural practice exam was in my opinion quite a bit easier than the actual exam....that was my only complaint to NCEES on their survey....probably more of a self gripe 

Had maybe enough time at the end to review 5 of the PM questions, but as someone previously mentioned with a very non-cooperative brain at that point. So the extra checking of those problems probably was a futile attempt at believing I was going to have an epiphany and miraculously see the answers in my head.

I did happen to miraculously turn directly to the correct page in one of the code books for one of those obscure code problems....lucky me.

Will be very interesting to see when the results come out.


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## ptatohed (Oct 31, 2014)

http://engineerboards.com/index.php?s=7e4d7655f6429f9124747c0b8578411d&amp;showforum=38


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## DoSomething (Nov 10, 2014)

I am not even sure if studying for the test for an additional month would have helped as I felt so unprepared for the PM portion! The NCEES practice test I aced.


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## MIPE (Nov 10, 2014)

StrainedByStress said:


> I am not even sure if studying for the test for an additional month would have helped as I felt so unprepared for the PM portion! The NCEES practice test I aced.




I totally agree. I spent 9 months studing for the exam and felt after the exam that was a waste of time. I belive that I would have perfomed the same if i did not prepare at all. The NCEES practice was very easy compared to the actual one and it is not an actual representation of the actual exam difficulty.


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## Suko63 (Nov 10, 2014)

An interesting question would be......in terms of difficulty, how did this exam compare to previous exams?

I know one can not assume the NCEES practice exam would be an actual representation, but......would your thinking be flawed if you assumed it to be in the general ballpark? For me it wasn't even close.

I have been trying to purge my mind of its tendency to keep dwelling on how I did and thinking about the exam but that is easier said than done!


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## Ramy Gabr (Nov 11, 2014)

I had the same feeling as you all. My Colleagues have done previous exams, and their feedback is the structural PM exam is close to the NCEES practice problems. I have already reported few questions that I doubt though the conversation system at MyNCEES account. At least to convey the message to NCEES.

http://engineerboards.com/index.php?showtopic=24308


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## MIPE (Nov 11, 2014)

Ramy Gabr said:


> I had the same feeling as you all. My Colleagues have done previous exams, and their feedback is the structural PM exam is close to the NCEES practice problems. I have already reported few questions that I doubt though the conversation system at MyNCEES account. At least to convey the message to NCEES.
> 
> http://engineerboards.com/index.php?showtopic=24308




I did that too. I have reported a number of questions in both the AM and PM exams to NCEES. They said they will forward my concerns to the exam committee. Will that make any differnce? I do not think so but let's wait and see.


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## Ramy Gabr (Nov 12, 2014)

MIPE said:


> Ramy Gabr said:
> 
> 
> > I had the same feeling as you all. My Colleagues have done previous exams, and their feedback is the structural PM exam is close to the NCEES practice problems. I have already reported few questions that I doubt though the conversation system at MyNCEES account. At least to convey the message to NCEES.
> ...




I understand that such feedbacks will give an impression to the committee on how difficult the exam was, and based on this, the passing score can be slightly adjusted. Hopefully !

I assume they have their own statistics in order to level the pass/fail ratio for each intake.


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## SF_century (Nov 16, 2014)

I also took the pm structural, and I thought it was extremely difficult. I wouldn't say my studies were a waste of time because I did learn a lot about structural engineering. Good Luck to Everyone!


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## nightwing (Mar 2, 2015)

Were most of you with a structural engineering background?


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