April 2013 SE, how did you do?

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steve1997 said:
Failed lateral buildings for the second time but I passed the vertical. To be honest this lateral test is beyond difficult and having a 16% repeat taker percentage is horrible and it should open their eyes on how difficult this test is, especially at $500 per test! I struggled through the morning exam and I thought the questions were really not fair especially given the time frame that you have. Well here I come in October!
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I took it for my first time. I didnt understand how the passing rate could be so low, but now i understand...the test was rough!

 
Honestly I think Lateral is easier to prepare than Vertical, because you have a narrower topic to prepare. Though I am sure the Bridge guys would say the same thing, the exam have too many bridge problems in the morning! I don't design bridge and will never in my career. I guessed all bridge related problems in the morning and pretty sure I flunk all of them. Why couldn't NCEES separate the building and bridge question out like the afternoon session? We need to start a petition on this...

 
I took the building afternoon, but I honestly didn't have a problem with having bridge questions in the morning. I don't like the idea of having zero knowledge in a large area of structural engineering, so I enjoyed preparing for those questions. I can at least get around in the AASHTO code now and have at least a very basic understanding of bridge design. It's not like the bridge questions were insanely hard or anything. All but one or two were similar to practice problems I worked leading up to the exam. I've also always found it interesting to see where different codes and standards differ on the same topic. It gives a better understanding of the thought process behind the provisions and their application.

For the bridge guys, I realize it's a staggering amount of information to brush up on, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect them to have knowledge outside of one code.

 
akladiva said:
I took the building afternoon, but I honestly didn't have a problem with having bridge questions in the morning. I don't like the idea of having zero knowledge in a large area of structural engineering, so I enjoyed preparing for those questions. I can at least get around in the AASHTO code now and have at least a very basic understanding of bridge design. It's not like the bridge questions were insanely hard or anything. All but one or two were similar to practice problems I worked leading up to the exam. I've also always found it interesting to see where different codes and standards differ on the same topic. It gives a better understanding of the thought process behind the provisions and their application.

For the bridge guys, I realize it's a staggering amount of information to brush up on, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect them to have knowledge outside of one code.
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Nope, i agree with you. Just wish maybe we got like 5 more bridge problems in the morning, haha. You are right though, the topics are much more narrowed for lateral morning than the vertical morning.

 
I found the vertical was fairly simple as this is my main focus at work. The lateral however I believe is more difficult and broad.

 
bassplayer45 said:
akladiva said:
I took the building afternoon, but I honestly didn't have a problem with having bridge questions in the morning. I don't like the idea of having zero knowledge in a large area of structural engineering, so I enjoyed preparing for those questions. I can at least get around in the AASHTO code now and have at least a very basic understanding of bridge design. It's not like the bridge questions were insanely hard or anything. All but one or two were similar to practice problems I worked leading up to the exam. I've also always found it interesting to see where different codes and standards differ on the same topic. It gives a better understanding of the thought process behind the provisions and their application.

For the bridge guys, I realize it's a staggering amount of information to brush up on, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect them to have knowledge outside of one code.
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Nope, i agree with you. Just wish maybe we got like 5 more bridge problems in the morning, haha. You are right though, the topics are much more narrowed for lateral morning than the vertical morning.
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Let me start by saying I am a buildings guy... hate the AASHTO with a passion. But I agree completely with akladiva, it is good to now have a working knowledge of the AASHTO code, the design criteria, etc. I used to think that they should have a separate exam for buildings or bridges, but then someone made the point that they would have to qualify you as a "SE-Buildings" or "SE-Bridges" which is not only annoying but career limiting. I don't think any of us want to take separate 16 hour exams for the two diciplines to practice in either.

I have to agree that the bridge guys have room to complain about how the AM portion of the exam is currently formatted. Theoretically they should ask 20 bridges questions and 20 buildings questions, then go to your specialty in the afternoon. I am not sure what the justification is on only asking a handful of bridges questions... but as a building guy I won't complain about it ;)

 
On quantity of questions in each area, I think you can make valid argument for just about anything. I could argue that there are too few ACI questions because they use up concrete questions with AASHTO, for both more or fewer pure analysis problems, etc. In the end, I think the mix they have now is pretty good. When you have a dozen or so required codes, it would be hard to justify having half the questions come from one code (AASHTO). If you spent any more questions on bridge stuff, you'd probably have to eliminate some of the specialty stuff like PCI and AISI altogether. Anyway, my only real complaint about the exam is the lack of time. I pride myself on being thorough and not rushing through designs, so having to race through a test just to finish doesn't sit well with me. But I understand why they do it. They'd have to make the test a couple more days long to test everything they want to and give people ample time.

 
Anyone have an idea of how long it has taken in the past between when NCEES sends results to IL & when IL (CTS) posts scores? Should I stop checking & wait until next week as an IL test taker?

 
Any thoughts on how long CTS will take to post results for Illinois? Based on how long the PE results took, I'm guessing next Wednesday...

 
Well i failed first try at Lateral. Confused as hell by my results. Got 21-40 morning. I somehow did better on the stuff i thought i knew nothing about, but was hurting on the stuff i work the most on. Proud of myself for getting almost 100% right for lateral forces and analysis methods though.

Essays

Columns: Acceptable (I thought i did enough to get needs improvement, but i guess i did enough to get it right!)

Foundations: Needs improvement (i seriously thought i did nothing right on this)

Analysis: unacceptable (This kind of bums me out. I thought i had the best grasp on this problem and did it correct, not sure what i screwed up. Very worst thought i would get needs improvement)

 
For Illinois examinees, I think CTS will e-mail when your results have been posted. Then you log onto the CTS site to check. As to whether or not that will be today or next week, I'm not sure. Based on what I saw, there were probably about 80 people there for the Vertical and 120 or so for the Lateral. It seems like a relatively small pool, but I'm not sure how many people at CTS will be available to process the data.

 
I took it in Illinois in October last year and I believe my results were available on CTS on Christsmas day. So I believe they entered them in on Christmas eve during they day, and the website was updated automatically the next day. Good luck to you all still waiting.

 
120 took lateral in Illinois? What the....there were only three people including myself in Arkansas. At first I thought I was in the wrong place at the exam site because there were about other 100 or so kids there taking their FE. They looked at me funny when none of them brought any books and I walked in with a huge suitcase of books.

Sorry to hear that, BP. Now you know what to expect next time...bring some ear plugs dude. Hearing Gangnam style every 15 mins during exam I would have flipped >.>

 
For anyone interested, the CA board has statistics up for the April 2013 exam: http://www.bpelsg.ca.gov/applicants/ap13stats.shtml

The pass percentage seems higher than the historical average. I'm curious to see what ncees publishes for the national pass rate.

National Structural Lateral
Tested
142

Passed
78

Pass %
55%



National Structural Vertical
Tested
146

Passed
76

Pass %
52%
 
I'm surprised the CA pass rates are so high, I'm curious to learn the national statistics. I'm happy to report that I passed the Bridge Vertical last Oct, and the Lateral this April. Huge relief! To all test-takers out there, I STRONGLY recommend taking the tests at separate times, so that you can focus your study on each one (I studied for 3 months each time). There is way too much material to study if you're trying to do both the same weekend. Obviously if you know your stuff, go for it, but you have been advised ;)

 
NCEES has posted national passing rate for SE. 41% for lateral, that is much higher than 25% last October.

 

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