Hi guys,congrats for those who passed and hard luck for those did not,my score is 67% failed of course,this was my first attempt for pe civil construction exam,I graduated overseas in 2000, 2 years ago i had my degree evaluation and last year i passed eit in florida so i’m registered as Eit in florida and Texas ,last October i sat for pe (decoupling),and now i feel sick to the stomach, i had plan to pass the test,prepare my resume and apply for job , i did not practice engineering in Us yet so i thought passing pe will give me good credit , now my plan will be hold till i pass this f****n test so disappointed
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I feel your pain so hard. I took the exam the first time in April and felt okay about it and failed pretty badly. I was shocked because I took the testmasters course and felt like I had studied intensely, but structures and geotech got me good. Also the means and methods and cost estimating. I immediately came to this forum to see what I could do to improve, because, again, I've been doing my job for almost a decade now and there was a nice bonus and promotion dangling in front of me that I missed out on. Not passing felt very very bad, but I didn't know what to do. BUT there is a topic in the civil construction forum and I don't know how to link things, but the title is as follows:
How I Passed the October 2015 Civil-Construction Exam (1st Attempt). I poured through all of the suggestions and wrote down all of the references and practice exams and got to shopping. FOLLOW THOSE RECOMMENDATIONS AND YOU WILL PASS. I also mostly used his suggestions to set up a study schedule. I highly advise putting a study calendar together to know how long it will actually take to hit all of the videos and references (depending on which practice course you choose).
I am a terrible standardized test taker. In college I would have to study way more than other people to score well as my anxiety makes me freeze in high stress situations. So I spent $1000 additionally on top of the course and books I had already purchased (choke!) the first go around and started over. I dedicated two months to re-watching and studying testmasters breadth and references and then spent a month and a half on testmasters construction videos and all of the recommended construction references. I would typically spend a day for each reference to familiarize myself with where things were located in each text. Then two weeks before the exam I pulled out the 7 practice exams I had purchased. Some were just depth or breadth and some were combined. I was scoring decently on these exams, but went through them afterwards to really make sure I was familiar with what the question is ACTUALLY asking, because as we know, this test has the tricks. Seeing more of the sneaky ways to ask a question really helps in identifying the pot holes you can fall in.
Without all of the references I would not have passed this time around. I cannot stress how important it is to buy all of the recommended references and really know where things are in the books. Honestly I used my indexes like crazy, but it was still good to know the layout of each book. I would not use testmasters, I don't feel like it helped me all that much, but I was already so financially invested in it that I utilized it again (every little bit counts). I have heard very good things about EET and I really liked the Goswami Breadth and Depth books and practice exams.
I gave up this entire year of my social life to pass this exam and, I've got to be honest, walking out this time around I felt I did much better, but I didn't know if it was enough to pass. Thankfully it was, but I realized there is always room for improvement and working more problems. And additionally, you scored 67%, you know what you're doing, the only barrier is that final passing score. You are no better an engineer today than on passing day. I remember feeling like I shouldn't be doing my job if I couldn't even pass this exam with so much work experience, but once you pass you just feel relief. I didn't feel any better or smarter, just done. Good luck to you in your studies, I know how this feels and trying to avoid this feeling again is all we can try to do.