Edward,
Thanks for purchasing my book! I really appreciate it.
I tried to make the problems in the book to be roughly the same "6-minute solution" model that the exam uses. But in some instances I may have added a step or two that would maybe not be necessary on the exam so that the book covered that additional concept. Being able to solve every problem in my book in 4 hours may be a little tough. Although, you would save the time having to jump from one code to the next since the only code you need is AASHTO and the order of the problems in the book generally follows AASHTO as well.
If you want to test the time it would take to solve some representative problems I would pick 10 problems at random and see if I can do them in an hour or mix them in with 30 building problems from another source for a 4 hour practice exam. That is what is generally assumed that you would see in the morning section of the exam. Grinding out the entire book in one sitting may not be the best way of going about it. But I would definitely cover the entire book prior to the exam date.
Additionally, on the exam (and in my book) there will be some problems that are easier than others or may even be considered "word problems". These may be picking a number out of a table, etc. Obviously these should take less than 6 minutes, especially if you know exactly where in the code to go. In my "Tips and Recommendations" section of the book it is my opinion that these problems should be answered first to get them "out of the way" on the exam.
Thanks, and if you have time please leave a review of the book on Amazon.
David
