I took the Civil Structural this past April and failed with ~42 or 43 and passed this exam. Now, before I state what I am about to say I am only stating what worked for me. Don’t sign up to take the review courses. The structural pe exam is long... I used every second, both exam cycles, and still wish I had more time. Not that that questions were ‘too hard’ but more of the questions just take time.
I had a friend that had the EET binder and I gave it a look over after I failed in April and it seemed to be a GREAT resource for the breadth portion of the exam. Problem was, I felt good about the breadth section in April by only using the CERM. To me, the more material you have as a crutch, the more time you waste.
For the morning I was CERM only with some other practice exam books. I familiarized myself throughly with them just so I knew where to find some of the ‘similar’ topic questions that could have been asked on the exam. Excess time is key in the am.
Now, for what helped me tremendously. The exam schedule states the last 6 questions on the exam are code questions. Have all code books. As soon as the evening section started, I flipped to the end and did the last 6 questions. To me, if you have the material they are gimme questions. In April, I got the 5 minute warning and still hadn’t made it this far in the exam- thus nit having time to look them up. After receiving my diagnostic, that section I got 0-6 questions. To me, that was killer. So, I went into this cycle wanting to give myself he best opportunity to succeed so I wanted to make sure to get the last 6 correct. I am positive I got 5 out of the 6 correct (I did not have the AASHTO). After I found and answered all these code question, I went to the beginning of the evening section and started working problems like normal.
so, what worked for me was HOW I took the exam, not necessarily the prep work. I will also say that after I took and failed the exam the first time, I better understood how I needed to study and know the code books better. I truly felt I knew the code books better after taking the exam than before (which was a good and bad feeling at the same time).
keep your head up and keep expanding your understanding. Anyone who has failed the exam WILL pass if it’s something you truly want and realize how to better themselves and exam scores.