All-in-One Civil PE Exam Guide by Indranil Goswami

[civilized_naah]

From NCEES.org, I could find list of the codes from " Structural specifications" & list of books from "Study materials" .If I am missing something please send me the link for whole list of referenmces required.

Thanks

Try this: http://ncees.org/Documents/Public/PE%20Civ...0Apr%202008.pdf

 

[playboyman007]

was it more useful than the CERM?

I would recommend having both. This one is more user friendly, but doesn't cover as much as CERM. The examples are better laid out, and I found them to be more similar to what you see on the PE than the CERM examples. You could probably get by with it alone- but they compliment each other really well.

I'm planning to take PE for first time with Structural Depth next Oct . Please help me to decide about which books should I purchase.

So far my research concludes purchasing:

1. NCEES: BOOK PE Civil Sample Questions and Solutions Book

ISBN 978-1-932613-31-5 IS LATEST EDITION, 2008

2. Civil Engineering Reference Manual (CERM)

By Michel R Lindeburg; ISBN 1591261295

3. AISC STEEL Manual 13th edition

(I have 8th Edition)

4. 2009 Civil Engineering All-In-One PE Exam Guide: Breadth and Depth McGraw-Hill Professional Indranil Goswami

Please let me know if you have any of these to sell at good price.

Thanks in advance....

here is my list of reference for the Structural Depth I'll be using to prep for the test.

1) Civil Engineering Reference Manual

2) Structural Depth for the Civil Test

3) Concrete Design for the Civil/Structural

4) Timber Design for the Civil/Structural

5) Practice Problems for the CE

6) All the 6 minute solutions

7) 365 Solved Seismic Design Problems

8) Structural Materials from RBF Prep course

9) NCEES practice exam

10) code books (NDS, ACI 318, AISC, PCI Design Handbook)...not the MSJC

11) etc...

I still feel these materials I have isn't sufficient for the test.

 

[txguy]

If anyone wants to buy this book let me know, i am selling this one for 50$. no marks and no highlighters used. excellent condition. I passed PE this time and this book helped me a bunch. Shoot me email at: [email protected]

Thanks

 

[srk]

what is the latest edition of this book? i am starting my prep for apr 2011.

heard some good reviews about this book. are there any other better reference and prep book for transp PE?

thanks!

 

[PE_2009]

what is the latest edition of this book? i am starting my prep for apr 2011. heard some good reviews about this book. are there any other better reference and prep book for transp PE?

thanks!

Don't get confused with this book. All you need for morning section is CERM.

 

[boo]

what is the latest edition of this book? i am starting my prep for apr 2011. heard some good reviews about this book. are there any other better reference and prep book for transp PE?

thanks!

Don't get confused with this book. All you need for morning section is CERM.

i found 2 answer from this book in oct. exam

 

[kengineer]

The Goswami book is definitely worth getting, but like anything it has plusses and minuses.

I actually like the format of this book a lot more than the CERM, but Goswami does lack depth The CERM is such a busy, cluttered format its sometimes difficult to find exactly what you are looking for.

The Goswami needs some to address some formatting where similarly used formulas are split between pages where you may not always see each case and pick the wrong one. I added notes and arrows for continuity where this happened in the book.

For me, I was not comfortable with just the CERM and the Goswami gives things in a more readable format and different example problems. The way I see it, having a few extra examples around is priceless in the test and I didn't have to bring every undergrad college book to the exam.

Goswami helps more with the knowledge based questions because you can visually scan the text easier. I know I answered a few of questions right out of the book.

For about 1/3 of the price of the CERM, it's a must have.

 

[ptatohed]

I just ordered it. I found it cheapest at Barnes & Noble. Even cheaper than Amazon. $66 + $4 = $70 shipped (new). It should arrive in a few days.

Just curious, do you guys have the soft or hard cover? On Amazon and B&N, it's listed as a hard cover but some reviews state that people have received soft covers. ?

 

[lccivil]

I used this book and it was my number one resource as it was very well written and concise. My biggest peeve about this book is that there are not code references. So a good idea is write on the site the respective chapter or code reference.

My discipline was structural. There is even some AASHTO Stuff in here that was very useful.

For those studying Civil/Structural purchase the PM problems from Dr. Goswami as well. The practice problems had a very realistic feel. Remember this a reference book, it does not substitute for your code manuals. Know how to source material in all of code manuals (very important), there are a lot of give me questions if you know your stuff.

Other books I used included the CERM and SDRM, 6 min solutions (structural depth), NCESS Structural I sample questions and NCESS Sample Questions.

Good Luck,

Time for the 16 hour structural exam now...

 

[lccivil]

I used this book and it was my number one resource as it was very well written and concise. My biggest peeve about this book is that there are not code references. So a good idea is write on the site the respective chapter or code reference.
My discipline was structural. There is even some AASHTO Stuff in here that was very useful.

For those studying Civil/Structural purchase the PM problems from Dr. Goswami as well. The practice problems had a very realistic feel. Remember this a reference book, it does not substitute for your code manuals. Know how to source material in all of code manuals (very important), there are a lot of give me questions if you know your stuff.

Other books I used included the CERM and SDRM, 6 min solutions (structural depth), NCESS Structural I sample questions and NCESS Sample Questions.

Good Luck,

Time for the 16 hour structural exam now...

 

[ptatohed]

I just ordered it. I found it cheapest at Barnes & Noble. Even cheaper than Amazon. $66 + $4 = $70 shipped (new). It should arrive in a few days.
Just curious, do you guys have the soft or hard cover? On Amazon and B&N, it's listed as a hard cover but some reviews state that people have received soft covers. ?

It arrived on Friday. Hard cover.

 

[maximus808]

ptatohed,

I'm glad you got that book. It is such an excellent resource. In my opinion there are sections in that book that are better than the CERM. The transportation section is much better as it hits many more topics including signals. The author of the book Goswami has an online review course that suppose to be good. They send you notes and use the book during their live online study classes. I don't have the link but I believe you can search for it on google. He's a great advisor.

 

[passpepasspe]

ptatohed,
I'm glad you got that book. It is such an excellent resource. In my opinion there are sections in that book that are better than the CERM. The transportation section is much better as it hits many more topics including signals. The author of the book Goswami has an online review course that suppose to be good. They send you notes and use the book during their live online study classes. I don't have the link but I believe you can search for it on google. He's a great advisor.

I agree that it is a great book.. I used it for transportation and i thought the water section to be very well done also...

 

[JKG]

Passed on first sitting (water resources/environmental) using this book as my primary study resource. Also worked through the NCEES sample problems, but found myself getting stuck too often, with the solutions not providing the level of detail I needed. And that is really all I used to prepare, basically working through the All-In-One guide from start to finish, and then going back and working the NCEES sample problems.

I found myself completely overwhelmed and feeling hopeless with Lindeberg's CERM and study questions. The level of difficulty is *far* beyond the actual PE exam. If the theory is to be over-prepared, that is great, if you have the time. I neither had the time, nor was it such a high priority.

 

[BAZ20]

I am planning to take Construction depth exam this October... Did someone use this book for construction exam?

 

[Sam77]

Passed on first sitting (water resources/environmental) using this book as my primary study resource. Also worked through the NCEES sample problems, but found myself getting stuck too often, with the solutions not providing the level of detail I needed. And that is really all I used to prepare, basically working through the All-In-One guide from start to finish, and then going back and working the NCEES sample problems.
I found myself completely overwhelmed and feeling hopeless with Lindeburg's CERM and study questions. The level of difficulty is *far* beyond the actual PE exam. If the theory is to be over-prepared, that is great, if you have the time. I neither had the time, nor was it such a high priority.

Same here, I passed the Civil/Water from the first attempt. I did not have enough time to study, did not even bother to buy Lindeburg's CERM. Used Goswami's All-in-One for familiarizing myself with topics I never took before, focusing on subjects that are mentioned in the NCEES syllabus; this helped me to skip a few chapters.

Not a lot of examples though to practice.

So, I Bought the Lindeburg's practice exam, could not even finish half of the questions in 8 hours, good thing I knew already that it is way harder than the actual exams from comments of people in this board.

I Bought the NCEES practice exam finished the exam in 7 hours with 29/40 morning, 29/40 afternoon.

I think Goswami's All-in-One is a good book for studying, however, I think you need to bring with you more reference books in the exam, I brought 10 more books to the exam, I used only 2 of them for 4 questions that I would never find their answers in Goswami’s. Not sure if these 4 questions were crucial for me passing the exam.

 

[Happy]

Civil Trans here. I've been holding back my comments until I knew I passed. But I am going to contradict the going census here and state that I don't think Goswami's book is very useful. I bought the CERM and Goswami's both - and reviewed them both. During the exam I refered to the CERM a lot, but the few times I tried cracking Goswami's book it didn't help me at all.

I personally don't the layout at all of the book. Poorly organized and presented in my opinion.

The CERM isn't great either. It covers too much information. But, if you use the NCEES exam outline to focus your studying EXTENSIVELY and EXCLUSIVELY (as you should be), you will find yourself skipping most of the CERM chapters and sections anyways, you really only need to study maybe about 25% of it. But the parts you do study have enough detail to help you in the exam.

By contrast, the Goswami skips several topics on the NCEES outline - so unless you have a lot of other resources you're going to be SOL with this book.

Go in with the CERM, and I'd also recommend a copy of Das's geo book as well. I had a super old Das version from the 90's but it was enough to help me a lot on the morning exam. That and my transportation books were all I really needed.

 

[cindyanne]

I took the Transportation section in the afternoon and passed. I bought the All-in-One Civil PE Exam Guide and also attended the online review class. Both were great. I thought the book was a very valuable resource. It could have been laid out a little better, but if you actually use it to study with and not just open it for the first time the day of the test then you should be OK. There are not a lot of problems in the book. BUT .... if you take the review course he gives you course notes and there are tons of problems.

I also had the CERM. The CERM was difficult for me to follow, which is why I looked for a different PE Exam book in the first place.

I think that most Civil afternoon exams are going to require you to have extra resources. Its wishful thinking to think that one book is going to have everything you need, especially when you are dealing with codes, AASHTO manuals, design guides, etc

 

[JKG]

I think Goswami's All-in-One is a good book for studying, however, I think you need to bring with you more reference books in the exam, I brought 10 more books to the exam...

Good point, that's what I did too. I used my other reference books while working through the Goswami book and the NCEES sample problems, tabbing them along the way. I used Goswami's book as my main reference during the exam, but frequently pulled out one of my other references.

 

[johnf]

I didn't use the all-in-one at all in the pm (construction), but I did use it in the am. The all-in-one is a better study aid, for working practice problems, than it is a test day reference, imo, but it helped me. i wouldn't go without it.