April 2012 - what did you think?

[CU07]

I left the morning feeling pretty good. I couldn't answer everything but I felt solid on probably 38 problems with reasonable guesses on most of the rest. I rehashed it with some friends over lunch and we all felt okay. The water seemed straightforward and the solid and hazardous waste did as well. Two questions were variations on NCEES sample exam problems.

I thought the afternoon was miserable, at least the air portion. The remediation was okay and I thought the economics problems were easy points. The air seemed like it was mostly qualitative questions and I just was not prepared for that. Some of the qualitative questions were just definitions and despite having an environmental dictionary, I still had to make educated guesses on many of those. I still felt like I got around 35 right, so hopefully it was enough to pass.

I used my EERM, the slides from NC State (water and wastewater), Metcalf & Eddy, La Grega, Salvato, an environmental dictionary by Lee, and an introductory engineering book that was actually pretty helpful but I can't remember the name. Having a separate bound index to the EERM was very helpful.

If I have to retake, I'll probably try to do some more reading on air control technologies - what I did know wasn't on the exam at all - and just do lots of practice problems.

 

[VT-Matt]

It's good to hear someone else felt exactly the same way I did. The morning felt pretty good mostly straight forward if you knew what they were asking for. I was able to get through the morning exam in about 2 hours, take a bathroom break, and go back through and check my work. I ended up blindly guessing on about 6 problems.

The afternoon on the other hand was a struggle. I knew going into the exam that my weak area would be air....so that was expected. I ended up doing a lot of logical guessing mostly w/ the qualitative type problems. Overall i think i ended up blindly guessing on about 11 problems for the afternoon portion. I'm really hoping I squeked by, but if not I know where to focus my attention next time.

I'm very glad that I organized my references before hand because time was definitly a crunch on the afternoon section. I had one go to binder for about 75% of the problems w/ all my go to book indexes inside, a section for water resources, water treatement, ww treatment, air, solid and hw, and ehs. This turned out to be very helpful for me on the exam. The other books that I used during the exam included mostly Salvato, Metcalf and Eddy, Lagrega, EERM, Davis and Cromwell, and Cooper and Alley..I may have picked up the niosh pocket guide and DOT book once for a few odd ball questions. I also had all sorts of regs printed out that i had collected during my studying, but i didnt use once...possibly because i was able to remember w/out or the time just wasnt there. Now the long wait.

 

[engfriend]

I agree with you guys. I think I did really well in the morning session but afternoon was a struggle. Though I was able to solve quite a few problems but still I didn't get satisfaction coming out of the exam room and now I really don't know if I should be hopeful/worry. I pretty much used the same references as you guys too except for the dictionary and David and Cromwell books. All the best to everyone..

 

[RIP - VTEnviro]

When I took the exam (April 06), I felt good about the air quality problems, but the air treatment problems were not my strong suit.

I ended up as a site civil, but majored in envl in college, so I never encounter much of the exam in real life but at least have some theoretical background.

 

[Clivedom]

Well, it was my first time taking the exam and felt it was pretty fair. To me, the morning and afternoon sessions were both about the same (even though most of my experience is in the water/wastewater field). However, at first it definitely felt like the afternoon session was harder but as time went along, some questions seemed a lot more complicated initially than they actually were (at least I hope that was the way I saw them). There was definitely more of a time crunch in the afternoon while in the morning I had time to go through all my answers thoroughly a second time.

The main references I used were the EERM and Metcalf & Eddy, I also had Basic Environmental Technology by Nathanson that came in surprisingly handy, as well as the NIOSH Pocket Guide. The NCEES sample exam also was useful for a few questions. I don't think any extra revision time would have helped me with any of the calculations particularly but becoming more familiar with and perhaps printing out more regulations could have been helpful with some of the qualitative questions.

Anyway, fingers crossed and good luck to all.

 

[Dleg]

When I took the exam (April 06), I felt good about the air quality problems, but the air treatment problems were not my strong suit.

I ended up as a site civil, but majored in envl in college, so I never encounter much of the exam in real life but at least have some theoretical background.

You know, in my career I have actually encountered just about everything on the exam now - as an enviro regulator and as a utility engineer. I did not have the enviro degree (mech E here) so studying for the the exam was an excellent career enhancer. I have ended up using most of my references on the job.

Thanks to all the new exam takers sharing their experience - please add to the stickied threads at the top of this forum, if you have a chance. This thread will get buried with time, but your advice can live forever if you post in the sticky threads! (or if I wasn't so lazy to cut and paste your responses in there myself, which I won't)

 

[RIP - VTEnviro]

Oh don't get me wrong, the sutdying was useful. I was never smarter than on exam day, I just unfortunately don't use much of it on a day to day basis, except some hydrology/hydraulics stuff.

 

[CU07]

I will post to the sticky thread...I think I'll wait until I find out whether I passed, though. Something like 45 days to go.

 

[Soil_EngineerVA]

i thought the morning was difficult, but that is pretty normal for me. i don't really start getting my third wind until the afternoon anyway. So, i thought the afternoon was easier than the morning. i will say that they put some of the most random questions on that exam. i don't see how anybody could pass that thing with flying colors.

 

[CU07]

I feel the same way about the random questions. It's highly unlikely you would have references that would cover every single question, and I think it must have been 50% qualitative. I knew several of the "random" qualitative questions because I work in consulting and they had some up in my work, so that was nice. On a day to day basis, I don't deal in most of the water topics or in air, so I had to teach myself about half the exam material. However, in the last couple weeks I've stumbled across a few concepts that I only recently learned while studying for the exam. That was great, since it made the exam actually feel useful!

 

[envirotex]

Oh don't get me wrong, the sutdying was useful. I was never smarter than on exam day, I just unfortunately don't use much of it on a day to day basis, except some hydrology/hydraulics stuff.

Yep. Except, I am glad I bought some of the references that I did...now I know where to go look up all of the stuff that I don't know for everyday things (besides Google).

 

[bryantucfPE]

it makes me feel better that more people had trouble with the afternoon and air portions.... I was feeling good about the morning session and then the afternoon hit and it was much tougher. I think I did enough to pass and I hope I did. I primarily used my EERM and Cooper Air pollution books. Also sample questions and school of PE slides were helpful for getting through problems qucker. I used my solid waste textbook and a env eng dictionary a few times also.

If I have to take it again, guess I'll be studying more air questions. I do water/wastewater so those portions seemed straight forward and that there weren't as many as I would've thought. Not sure if since I blew through those without looking up too much, that there seemed to be many more air problems.

 

[ohtida]

I am feeling exactly the same. I failed for my first time so many questions about the air pollution.