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So advice to others thinking of taking a study course: my company was willing to pay for the online live ppi session this summer. Pros: you can ask questions during lecture, there are homework forums and scheduled office hours, you have access to on demand lectures,  if you fail you get access to an additional 3 months of online lectures. Cons: they require you to waste money on materials you'll never use again, the live lectures are kind of slow, it costs substantially more than the only on demand version. I moved my exam to August 6 in order to take the class. I'll update later on how the class progresses. Tonight is session 2.

 
I took the CBT Environmental PE exam on June 11, and I still haven't received results. Did anyone else take it around that time, and if so, have you seen results yet?

Update:
Just found out that I passed! I primarily worked through the NCEES practice exam. I also found the videos at the link below to be helpful working through additional problems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHKm4iNu0vE&list=PLhEt0fVgaYTjXqyTG_HI5xiQykBzYJHgo

 
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I’m scheduled to take it 2 weeks from now. I took the NCEES practice exam today and found it WAY more challenging than the PPI exams I took earlier. I was averaging about a 75% on the PPI practice exams but only about a 50% on the NCEES practice exam. Any insight as to whether the real exam is more similar to the NCEES or the PPI practice exams? Kinda panicking and thinking I may need to push it back :(  @Maryam @txjennah PE @GirlsCanDesign @waternerd @jtimothythompson

 
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BioEngineer said:
I’m scheduled to take it 2 weeks from now. I took the NCEES practice exam today and found it WAY more challenging than the PPI exams I took earlier. I was averaging about a 75% on the PPI practice exams but only about a 50% on the NCEES practice exam. Any insight as to whether the real exam is more similar to the NCEES or the PPI practice exams? Kinda panicking and thinking I may need to push it back :(  @Maryam @txjennah PE @GirlsCanDesign @waternerd @jtimothythompson
Click to expand...
Hey @BioEngineer, deep breath!

I do find the exam more similar to the NCEES practice exam than the PPI exams (which is probably not what you want to hear).  That being said, with my successful attempt, I too had a freakout moment when I took the NCEES practice exam 2 weeks out from the exam and bombed it.  You're still 2 weeks away, so while it might be too late to dive really deep into any new topics, I'd use this as an opportunity to review a couple of things that are still giving you issues. And like someone told me when I made a similar post back when I bombed the NCEES practice exam, it's a good way to remind yourself not to get too cocky on exam day and really read through every question.  I think only you know best whether you need to push the exam back or not, but know that bombing the NCEES practice exam isn't necessarily an indicator of how you'll do on the real thing.  You got this :)  

 
@BioEngineer I found that the CBT format is more similar to PPI. When it was pencil and paper it was more similar to the NCEES Practice Exam. Try not to freak yourself out - if I were you I'd go over the NCEES practice exam a couple times just to get more comfortable with those problems. Try to figure out where your issues lie with that exam, is it the qualitative or quantitative? If it's the theory questions, don't even consider rescheduling because you have no idea what to expect with those questions regardless, and those questions certainly won't appear on your exam anyways! I think you're just psyching yourself out though, which is very common at the 2 week period. 

Best of luck whatever you choose! I think you've got it though, stay confident.

 
@BioEngineerI agree with @GirlsCanDesign the CBT format is more similar to PPI,  the pencil and paper was more similar to the NCEES Practice Exam. My advice is to go over the NCEES practice exam in these two weeks until you feel confident with it. Focus on solving more quantitative questions, If you got most of  the calculation questions correct which can be achieved since the calculation questions were easy you will be fine. You do not know what to expect for the theory questions. Do not worry too much you will find the exam easier than what you expected.

Best of luck, you got it and I hope to hear your good news soon.

 
Hey all! I took the exam on Monday. Here were my thoughts:

  1. I found that the exam was probably about the same level of difficulty as the PPI practice exams
  2. There were A LOT of qualitative questions...I counted 12 in the morning and 14 in the afternoon, so that's about 33% of the exam.
  3. I had plenty of time to complete all questions and review the ones I wasn't positive about.
  4. There were no quantitative questions where I felt like the appropriate equation was not included in the reference manual.
  5. ...that being said, be very familiar with the reference manual and where things were located. I found that the term search did not always find all of that term like my personal computer had, so you had to know what you were looking for and have a general idea of where it was located in the manual.
I will update once I get my results!

 
Hey guys, got the result and PASSED :)

Thank you to everyone who provided advice along the way. It was a tough journey but it is definitely doable!

Also I will provide a write-up shortly of what materials I used to study.

Update: Here's how I prepared.

I studied for about 6.5 months (almost every day after work and on the weekend). I studied both calculations and reading as well. The prep material and references I used were:

Intro to Environmental Engineering textbook

Air Pollution Control by Cooper & Alley

Other materials used for reading were Environmental Law Handbook, RCRA Orientation Manual, EPA Fact Sheets, etc.

PPI PE Environmental Practice by Wane Schneiter

PPI PE Environmental Practice Exam by Wane Schneiter (two sample practice exams)

PPI2PASS On-demand Course (sample quizzes and exams were useful. You can also watch the lectures if you need to)

NCEES PE Practice Exam

So overall, I think the PPI material helped me the most with my preparation. I can agree with everyone else that the exam had a lot of qualitative questions. For these types of problems, I spent a good amount of time reading and memorizing facts (which I'm glad I did lol) from my textbook, codes & regulations, printed handouts, etc. I also wrote A LOT of flashcards because that helps me to remember. Good luck to all :)

 
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