Club for people who passed April 2015

[Blue 8]

Environmental first time. I'll post details in the environmental section but School of PEs course was the difference maker. $990 for early birds paid off. Weekday classes 7-10. Those notes were invaluable during the exam. The only thing I would change is taking the course a cycle ahead to give yourself time to do the problems. Working full time and night classes for 5 weeks was hard. But the class really narrowed down the scope for such a broad exam.

 

[juaquin]

Powed PE: Pass, second attempt. Yesssss

 

[NikatKimber]

Add another Pass to the list!

First try. PE, ME, Mechanical Systems and Materials

woohoo!

 

[Beringlerty]

I can't believe I can join this club! Civil Construction PE, first try! Thanks for keeping me sane during the waiting period! Congrats to everyone else!

 

[nolatrader]

3rd time is the charm, I was told..Yes, I passed Civil with 83%- Water Resources & Environmental, Texas. EET helped me big time even I had taked Test Masters prior to that. EET (Especially Dr. Nazrul), All-in-one Goswami, All Previous NCEES exam books, David Cornwell (Environmental Engineering for PM). Good to luck to all, never give up ans study hard and consistently.

 

[poosri]

I am so happy....Passed PE Power ...second attempt...such a big relief...I can't thank people enough in this forum...I wouldnt have done it without this forum...Will share my thoughts on study prep in Power subforum in the next few weeks..

 

[JerusalemPE.]

Passed PE transportation first attempt. Studied only 75 days about 30 hours a week total studying and last 2 weeks only doing PM problems. School of PE materials are perfect and also test masters.

 

[ilovefetacheese]

I am really shocked I passed. I had nearly convinced myself I had failed.

I took Civil: water resources and studied as follows:

- 1-2 hours after work on weekdays, 5 hrs per day on weekends

- I used School of PE notes but did not attend courses - studied on my own.

- I think I'm the only one that felt this way, but the CERM was sorta useless to me. I maybe used it for 5 questions on the exam. I mainly used it for conversion factors/charts.

- I put a study binder together for each major topic. I split up the week into "courses" based on the Table of contents.

- I only started seriously studying in mid February.

 

[ilovefetacheese]

I am really shocked I passed. I had nearly convinced myself I had failed.

I took Civil: water resources and studied as follows:

- 1-2 hours after work on weekdays, 5 hrs per day on weekends

- I used School of PE notes but did not attend courses - studied on my own.

- I think I'm the only one that felt this way, but the CERM was sorta useless to me. I maybe used it for 5 questions on the exam. I mainly used it for conversion factors/charts.

- I put a study binder together for each major topic. I split up the week into "courses" based on the Table of contents.

- I only started seriously studying in mid February.

Hit enter too fast and couldnt find the edit button.

I took the full time for both parts of the exam and felt ok about the AM but really bad about the PM. It was a lot harder than I expected (even though I had the practice exam). I flat out guessed on 10 questions in the PM. I feel very very lucky!

 

[mcjohn4]

To echo what someone else said, I absolutely do not regret over-studying. I found myself at work seeing how all the different parts of Civil Engineering fit within the projects I was working on. Even though I don't do geotech, I could start seeing the problems we should be looking for under the surface. Same goes for the structural aspects of my projects, even though I do no structural engineering. I'm sure my brain will dump this information I don't use over the next year, but for now I feel like I'm a lot better of an engineer for putting in the extra work.

 

[Lumber Jim]

Congrats to all!!

Enjoy the new car smell as you will find that you will begin to set new goals for yourself and look back on this accomplishment as a stepping stone. (with pride I might add )

:w00t: :w00t:

 

[partmanpartmyth]

Passed 1st attempt on the Civil WR&E in MA. Had the upper hand due to my recent masters degree in civil engineering with an environmental focus. I used a handful of textbooks including the CERM, the Metcalf & Eddie wastwater bible, a transpo book I had from undergrad, the past two editions of the NCEES practice test in my discipline, and that was pretty much it, besides handwritten notes on topics that weren't covered to my liking in the CERM.

 

[SouthBay]

I passed on my first attempt at the Power exam. It was extremely difficult, and I doubted the whole that I passed. Low and behold I actually passed. I'm surprised and ecstatic!

 

[Civil Dawg]

Passed Civil-Structural in CA first attempt! Still waiting to hear back from Seismic/Survey Exams so fingers crossed I'm finished studying for a little while until I can take the SE!

 

[Kovz]

I passed on my first attempt at the Power exam. It was extremely difficult, and I doubted the whole that I passed. Low and behold I actually passed. I'm surprised and ecstatic!

Congrats SouthBay! It was the lowest first time test-taker passing percentage in 6 exam cycles for electrical power.

 

[maksins]

Passed Civil-Structural...1st time..yeay

I think I might just crossed over the cut off line. I did all the morning questions, but couldn't do all afternoon structural depth questions, especially related to codes and stuff.

I also had my PhD defense on March 27, so it was really busy time for me. I think my graduate studies gave me edge in solving theoretical questions, but I had zero knowledge of codes related questions.

I took SchoolOfPE online review course, which I think was really good, and it helped me get acquainted with problems that I had never seen before as part of my graduate studies. Apart from the hours I put in for SchoolOfPE (around 70 hrs), I would've done 50-60 hrs at max. I did not do any highlighting or tabbing in the books I possessed (SPE notes, CERM and codes). I used index of books extensively, and it might have helped me get alteast 3-4 problems correct. These were the problems I had no clue about!

I am waiting for seismic and surveying..fingers crossed.

 

[Adair1492]

I passed Environmental first time. I thought the morning was pretty straight-forward, but I was nervous about the afternoon session since it was a lot of qualitative questions about things I'm not so good at. I have always been weak in air and water distribution systems (which is why I work in remediation). I studied for about 100 hours, tried to get 10 hrs a week starting in mid-February. I read the EERM cover to cover and worked the corresponding practice problems for each chapter. Then I did practice problems every day until the test. I had to take a break the week before the test because I got the flu and could barely walk, let alone study.

Test results came in today, which also happens to be my birthday. Best present I've received in years.

 

[NakedOrangie]

2nd time, but I passed civil transportation! (Still waiting on seismic though)

I'm just going to join the bandwagon and say that EET is part of the reason I passed. I opened the CERM for all of two problems during the exam, while I used my EET binders extensively for both the morning and afternoon. Also, I would have never known about EET without eb.com, so everyone throw some money at RoadGuy to help fund the site!!

 

[JayKrone89]

Passed - Mechanical: Mechanical Systems and Materials

For anyone interested, for studying I used the MERM, the MERM Practice Problems, the MERM Practice Test, and the NCEES Practice Test. I used the same books when taking the test with the addition of Shigley's Mechanical Design book. Though, I don't remember Shigley's being very useful as most, if not all, of the info was in the MERM. Shigley's was probably unnecessary for my particular test, but I have read others talk about tests in the past where Shigley's was crucial. So I don't think I'd recommend leaving it out.

As far as studying with the MERM, I read all of the chapter's pertaining to my field of depth and then did all of the associated practice problems (at least twice through). I did the same for the first few chapters of the fluids section and thermo section. I skipped the HVAC, Heat Transfer, Plant Engineering, Ethics and Economics chapters. In hindsight, I think I should have done at least the first two chapters of HVAC. That was definitely a weak area of mine on the test. I don't think it is necessary to do all of the chapters for Fluids, Thermo, and HVAC as the questions that I saw were pretty simple. For the problems that I saw on the test, you really only need a solid introductory understanding of these subjects to do well.

I thought the NCEES Practice test was similar to the real test. I'd say that the real test was slightly harder but the same level of complexity. Alternatively, the MERM Practice Test was much harder than the real thing. So I definitely recommend both, but judge your prepardness on the NCEES Practice Test. If you do the same on the MERM Practice Test, you will become very depressed as it is pretty hard :mf_Flush:

In total, I'd say I spent an average of 1.5 - 2 hours every night for 4 months studying. I took about a 1 week break in the middle. And of course I skipped a few nights here and there. If I were to do it again, I think I would have started a month earlier to give myself more time to study a few sections that I skipped.

 

[gyzmo]

Passed!! Just wanted to thank everyone on here. You guys are freaking amazing. I wouldn't have been able to pass without the help of this forum and everyone on here. Thank you!!!