Bolivia-PE
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- Feb 15, 2011
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I took the pe exam (chosen civil-structural on afternoon) on April 2010, and I passed it the first time. Here is how I did it.
HOW TO PREPARE FOR THE PE EXAM: First of all, I read all the recommendations for taking the pe exam given in this forum and on the books of samples for the pe exam. There, among others, it was recommended to give about 3 months to prepare for this exam.
I got laid-off from my job on december-20, 2009. I started studying for the exam on Christmas-day, and for the next three months and change I only stop studying for breakfast, lunch, dinner and to sleep.
By that time, I had the following books: ACI 318-05, ASCE 7-05 and IBC-2006.
I decided to buy: ACI 530-05 (Masonry), AISC 13th EDITION, AISC Seismic, NDS-2005 (Wood), and the PCI 6th EDITION.
I decided not to buy AASTHO-LRFD Bridge, based on the recommendation of somebody on the pe forum, who said that it was not worth it to spend that much money for 2 or 3 questions that probably were coming for bridges, which was true at the end.
Also, I decided to rent the following books on as needed basis: “Civil Engineering reference manual for the pe exam” (first), then later “practice problems for the civil engineering pe exam: a companion to the civil engineering reference manual”, and finally “Structural depth reference manual for the civil pe exam”.
I started with the “Civil Engineering reference manual for the pe exam”, studying it in detail from beginning to end. I finished it on february 10. This book with the companion book, in my opinion is enough for passing the pe exam. While I was studying this book, I came up with the idea of making a index of any subject that I thought it could be on a question for all the books that I was going to take to the pe exam, write the book’s name and page to locate it, put it on excel, sort it and print it. This was absolutely a tremendous help. For example, there was a question where I needed to find 2 graphics to get a value. First I thought I knew where to find these graphics without looking at my index, I started flipping the books with no luck (I lost 2 minutes). When you are at the exam and you cannot find what you are looking for, you become more nervous, that was my case. Then I went to my special index and voila! it gave me the name of the book and the page number. It took me 2 minutes to answer the question.
Then, I follow with the “practice problems for the civil engineering pe exam: a companion to the civil engineering reference manual” for the next 2 -1/2 weeks. That is end of february already.
Finally, I took the “Structural depth reference manual for the civil pe exam” for the next 2 weeks. This book is good because it has the wood design section, but the problems for the other sections are way too complex. Remember that it is only 6 minutes for questions, so they are not going to ask you to completely design a concrete deep beam, but instead a small portion of the whole design. So, you have to know how to design a concrete deep beam, and where to find the codes and the best example for designing a concrete deep beam.
“THE PE EXAM IS TO MAKE SURE YOU KNOW BASIC ENGINEERING AND THE CODES!!!!!!” and those are the type of questions that you are going to find there.
I am in the middle of March already. The next 2 weeks were for the studying of the codes. ASCE 7-05, IBC-2006(chapters 16 & 17), AISC 13th Ed.(for example, if they give you the available moment and the unbraced length and ask you to size the beam, then you have to know that you have to go to the tables 3-10 graphics and size of the beam, piece of cake!), and NDS-2005.
I am at the beginning of April already. The first 12 days of April I used it to tab the books, print and coiled my “SPECIAL INDEX”, quick revise of the codes, get my body use to go to sleep early and get up early, and to relax!!!!!!.
The last 3 days before the exam I used it to check that I have all the papers need it, how to carry the books, parking space, etc.
THE EXAM: The biggest fear that I had was I did not know the type of question that I was going to get and if some of the question were going to touch subjects that I had not studied. Anyway, base on what I read on the pe forum, I knew that the morning section was easy and that the afternoon section was the one to fear.
When I got the book of questions for the morning section I was so happy to see that it was so easy (too easy I would say), then I said to myself that was expected for the morning section and that the afternoon section was the one to worry about. I tried to compose myself and went to work. I finished it in 3 hours and then used the remaining time to double check on the answers.
When I got the book of questions for the afternoon section I was ecstatic, I wanted it to yell to everybody that I was a PE already. This was so easy, this was almost a joke. Many of the questions were questions to test your basic knowledge only, without even the need to grab a book or code. The other questions were clear to me because I had studied them, except for the 2 bridge questions. Again, I tried to compose myself and went to work.
One helpful point here, even though the questions were easy to me, they still were going to need more time than the morning questions to solve them. So you have to categorize the questions: easy ones (1 to 3 minutes), regular ones (4 to 6 minutes), and complicated ones (more than 6 minutes).
At the end, I did not have time to work on 5 questions due to time constrains, 15 minutes before the end, I started filling the blanks.
When the time was up I was soooooo happy because I knew there was a 99.9% chance that I had passed, leaving only 0.01% chances due to calculator errors. Then I talk to some of the exam takers and I told them that the exam was so easy but nobody that I talked to or from the comments I heard from others would said the same to me.
Because I was not working, I went back to my country for a 2-1/2 month vacation and on June 7, while I was in my country I received the e-mail with the results.
Now I understand when somebody on the pe forum said that he had passed the exam without studying for it. That is possible, you just have to have the basic engineering knowledge (which that engineer had) and the knowledge of the codes (which that engineer had also because he was working on designing buildings by that time).
MISCELANEOUS: I have never read the wood design code (NDS-2005) before, but because of the recommendations from the pe forum, I read this code and the others thoroughly, and trust me it made a lot of difference at the end. Probably, there is going to be questions where you just have to find a formula in the code, replace the given data and voila, you have 2 points already, but the problem is how long is going to take until you figure it out and find that equation. I did it by knowing the codes almost by heart and using my special index.
I know that my case was special (I was not working at the time), because almost nobody have the time to study full time, but base in my experience I could say that studying between 1 and 2 months, depending on how much you know, you could pass the exam.
HOW TO PREPARE FOR THE PE EXAM: First of all, I read all the recommendations for taking the pe exam given in this forum and on the books of samples for the pe exam. There, among others, it was recommended to give about 3 months to prepare for this exam.
I got laid-off from my job on december-20, 2009. I started studying for the exam on Christmas-day, and for the next three months and change I only stop studying for breakfast, lunch, dinner and to sleep.
By that time, I had the following books: ACI 318-05, ASCE 7-05 and IBC-2006.
I decided to buy: ACI 530-05 (Masonry), AISC 13th EDITION, AISC Seismic, NDS-2005 (Wood), and the PCI 6th EDITION.
I decided not to buy AASTHO-LRFD Bridge, based on the recommendation of somebody on the pe forum, who said that it was not worth it to spend that much money for 2 or 3 questions that probably were coming for bridges, which was true at the end.
Also, I decided to rent the following books on as needed basis: “Civil Engineering reference manual for the pe exam” (first), then later “practice problems for the civil engineering pe exam: a companion to the civil engineering reference manual”, and finally “Structural depth reference manual for the civil pe exam”.
I started with the “Civil Engineering reference manual for the pe exam”, studying it in detail from beginning to end. I finished it on february 10. This book with the companion book, in my opinion is enough for passing the pe exam. While I was studying this book, I came up with the idea of making a index of any subject that I thought it could be on a question for all the books that I was going to take to the pe exam, write the book’s name and page to locate it, put it on excel, sort it and print it. This was absolutely a tremendous help. For example, there was a question where I needed to find 2 graphics to get a value. First I thought I knew where to find these graphics without looking at my index, I started flipping the books with no luck (I lost 2 minutes). When you are at the exam and you cannot find what you are looking for, you become more nervous, that was my case. Then I went to my special index and voila! it gave me the name of the book and the page number. It took me 2 minutes to answer the question.
Then, I follow with the “practice problems for the civil engineering pe exam: a companion to the civil engineering reference manual” for the next 2 -1/2 weeks. That is end of february already.
Finally, I took the “Structural depth reference manual for the civil pe exam” for the next 2 weeks. This book is good because it has the wood design section, but the problems for the other sections are way too complex. Remember that it is only 6 minutes for questions, so they are not going to ask you to completely design a concrete deep beam, but instead a small portion of the whole design. So, you have to know how to design a concrete deep beam, and where to find the codes and the best example for designing a concrete deep beam.
“THE PE EXAM IS TO MAKE SURE YOU KNOW BASIC ENGINEERING AND THE CODES!!!!!!” and those are the type of questions that you are going to find there.
I am in the middle of March already. The next 2 weeks were for the studying of the codes. ASCE 7-05, IBC-2006(chapters 16 & 17), AISC 13th Ed.(for example, if they give you the available moment and the unbraced length and ask you to size the beam, then you have to know that you have to go to the tables 3-10 graphics and size of the beam, piece of cake!), and NDS-2005.
I am at the beginning of April already. The first 12 days of April I used it to tab the books, print and coiled my “SPECIAL INDEX”, quick revise of the codes, get my body use to go to sleep early and get up early, and to relax!!!!!!.
The last 3 days before the exam I used it to check that I have all the papers need it, how to carry the books, parking space, etc.
THE EXAM: The biggest fear that I had was I did not know the type of question that I was going to get and if some of the question were going to touch subjects that I had not studied. Anyway, base on what I read on the pe forum, I knew that the morning section was easy and that the afternoon section was the one to fear.
When I got the book of questions for the morning section I was so happy to see that it was so easy (too easy I would say), then I said to myself that was expected for the morning section and that the afternoon section was the one to worry about. I tried to compose myself and went to work. I finished it in 3 hours and then used the remaining time to double check on the answers.
When I got the book of questions for the afternoon section I was ecstatic, I wanted it to yell to everybody that I was a PE already. This was so easy, this was almost a joke. Many of the questions were questions to test your basic knowledge only, without even the need to grab a book or code. The other questions were clear to me because I had studied them, except for the 2 bridge questions. Again, I tried to compose myself and went to work.
One helpful point here, even though the questions were easy to me, they still were going to need more time than the morning questions to solve them. So you have to categorize the questions: easy ones (1 to 3 minutes), regular ones (4 to 6 minutes), and complicated ones (more than 6 minutes).
At the end, I did not have time to work on 5 questions due to time constrains, 15 minutes before the end, I started filling the blanks.
When the time was up I was soooooo happy because I knew there was a 99.9% chance that I had passed, leaving only 0.01% chances due to calculator errors. Then I talk to some of the exam takers and I told them that the exam was so easy but nobody that I talked to or from the comments I heard from others would said the same to me.
Because I was not working, I went back to my country for a 2-1/2 month vacation and on June 7, while I was in my country I received the e-mail with the results.
Now I understand when somebody on the pe forum said that he had passed the exam without studying for it. That is possible, you just have to have the basic engineering knowledge (which that engineer had) and the knowledge of the codes (which that engineer had also because he was working on designing buildings by that time).
MISCELANEOUS: I have never read the wood design code (NDS-2005) before, but because of the recommendations from the pe forum, I read this code and the others thoroughly, and trust me it made a lot of difference at the end. Probably, there is going to be questions where you just have to find a formula in the code, replace the given data and voila, you have 2 points already, but the problem is how long is going to take until you figure it out and find that equation. I did it by knowing the codes almost by heart and using my special index.
I know that my case was special (I was not working at the time), because almost nobody have the time to study full time, but base in my experience I could say that studying between 1 and 2 months, depending on how much you know, you could pass the exam.
