# Conceptual Questions Civil PE



## RKo (Oct 10, 2019)

For conceptual questions I would like to know for the people who took the exam already, which notes are better to be ready for those questions. (I know it can be difficult since NCEES can ask you ANYTHING) 

EET, Test masters, or School of PE?

For the AM part of the exam.


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## NikR_PE (Oct 10, 2019)

RKo said:


> For conceptual questions I would like to know for the people who took the exam already, which notes are better to be ready for those questions. (I know it can be difficult since NCEES can ask you ANYTHING)
> 
> EET, Test masters, or School of PE?
> 
> For the AM part of the exam.


This is tricky. My answer is none. Many of these conceptual questions build on your understanding of the topic/concept, unless you have experience in that area. The questions I encountered could not be found anywhere but if you know the underlying concept then you could figure it out. CERM, in my opinion, covers wider (and sometimes deeper) concepts than any class notes. It helped me with some of these questions.

However, these conceptual questions cannot be relied on for passing. They could be a hit or miss. I would focus on passing the exam from the standard expected type questions which the class notes (I used EET) cover pretty well. And if you have extra time left to think about these questions, then you can try to figure out or deduce from CERM.


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## Edgy Cheesy Graphite PE (Oct 10, 2019)

For whatever it's worth, I found the same thing on the Mechanical: MDM exam. There were some conceptual questions that I didn't know, but I was able to find them in the MERM. I know the "Reverence Manuals" are not official NCEES references, but it definitely seems like NCEES heavily uses them when creating questions. I definitely found some exact wordings between NCEES questions and the MERM.


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## Will.I.Am PE (Oct 10, 2019)

jean15paul_PE said:


> "Reverence Manuals"


Is that an intentional play on words or a typo? Either way, I like it. Their girth alone commands a certain sense of awe.


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## J. Jones PE (Shengineer) (Oct 10, 2019)

EET &amp; SoPE helped me tremendously


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## Edgy Cheesy Graphite PE (Oct 10, 2019)

Will.I.Am said:


> Is that an intentional play on words or a typo? Either way, I like it. Their girth alone commands a certain sense of awe.


LOL, no. innocent typo.


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## civilrobot PE etc etc (Oct 11, 2019)

I could see my EET notes helping me out through conceptual questions. I was putting together an index for the depth section and scanning through the binder and I saw so many bits of information packed in there that I kind of forgot about. I answered a question on a practice exam a few days ago and the answer was Nurse-Saul Maturity Method. I flippantly thought, "never heard of it".

But while thumbing through the binder yesterday I saw it right there in black and white. 

So needless to say, I will definitely make a point to read that binder a few more times before exam day. I think my keyword index will help too.


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## john813_PE (Oct 11, 2019)

You can get by the AM with purely the CERM. 

I noticed quite a few people around me, along with myself, just end up using the CERM for most of the AM. 

When I went hunting for a few "tough" questions that's when I tried practice tests/notes to see if I could spark something in my head. 

But, how many people actually use all three SoPE, EET or Test Masters? I assume most just used one of those three and never could dabble among all 3 due to costs and time going through each exam prep course.


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## civilrobot PE etc etc (Oct 11, 2019)

@john813 desperate times call for desperate measures lol


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## Fisherman504 (Oct 15, 2019)

I honestly think the conceptual problems are there to throw you off sometimes and any amount of reference will not help you unless you've dealt with it once or twice in the real world. For Civil's, I think the CERM is the bread and butter to find conceptual question answers.


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## ads0221 (Oct 16, 2019)

I actually used my EET notes and the CERM quite a bit for conceptual questions. Surprisingly there were a bunch of questions that were just look up's...you had to know where they were to find them.


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