Passed the exam the first try by following the regular girl advice
Hopefully it will help those of you starting to study.
I wish I knew this stuff from the get go...
“1. I first started trying to read the CERM book like a novel. DON'T do
this (at least not at the beginning). It is frustrating. Too in depth
(which I originally thought would be a good thing) but all it did was
make me almost want to quit studying a couple of times and give up on
the PE all together. The CERM is a good reference (a GREAT reference)
actually, but not a good Teaching tool.
2. Instead, go to this website from Texas A&M university:
http://engineeringre...views/index.htm
They have free videos for you to watch on all of the disciplines. They
are a bit old, but bear with them, they are VERY worth the time
invested.
So what I did is print out the PDFs for the videos. I watched the
video for one of the disciplines, for example Geotech. It would take
me a couple of days to get through the video. Stop the video, work the
problems out step by step along with the instructor, continue until
you have completed the video. Then I would spend the rest of the week
working through sample problems of that discipline. I had about 3
books of practice problems (one form Lindeburg, one for Kaplan, one
directly from NCEES etc). Work as many problems as you can that week
for that discipline. Keep the CERM book next to you the whole time.
Every table you use, tab it. Keep working more problems until the end
of the week. If a problem is ridiculously hard, skip it. You can use
your time better by covering more problems first. At the end of your
review months you can always come back to do hard problems if you have
time.
Next week, Monday & Tuesday spend watching a video on Hydraulics for
example. Work Hydro problems the rest of the week. Continue until you
have finished all the videos and you will have covered the morning
material well (for free!!!).
3. Next move into your afternoon depth portion. For me it was
Construction. If this is yours, start with the Rajapakse review book
(otherwise skip this step 3). Read this one like a novel, cover to
cover. This book is very frustrating because it has lots of grammar
mistakes, the drawings look like a kid drew them on the "paint"
program, etc. Stick with it though. Try to overlook the little
mistakes (which at the beginning will drive you NUTS). Keep going, and
tab important formulas etc. This book is pretty easy to work through,
and very informative. It will give you momentum on Construction if
anything. Momentum is a great thing to have while studying.
4. Then work the companion problems from the Rajapakse practice
problem book. By now, you should have all your codes listed on the
NCEES list. As you work through the practice problems for your
afternoon section, tab your references.
5. When you are done with your afternoon portion study of these books,
I would take the "old" NCEES practice problems book (2008). They are
much easier than any of the other problems: Lindeburg, kaplan,
6-minute solutions etc are all harder. Anyway, I would recommend to
take the 2008 NCEES practice problems (treating it like an exam). Time
yourself, make a homemade bubble sheet, whatever you can to make it as
realistic as possible. Grade yourself. I got about a 60% on this first
try (even after WEEKS of all that studying). That is OK. It just shows
you where you need to improve.
6. If you got an earthwork moving problem wrong, I went through a
bunch of similar earthwork problems again... not just the one I got
wrong. Reinforce the entire TYPE of problem. Continue until you have
covered a lot of material for each of the problems you got wrong (as
well as the ones you got right but guessed!!).
7. Then take a print out of the NCEES outline and make sure you have
covered every line item on it. If you haven't come across any work yet
on a specific line item from the NCEES outline, THEN go to CERM book.
This book covers it all. Read the section, work their problems.
8. I found at this point in my study timeline that I needed more
problems that were similar to the actual exam. I had a lot of problems
left in the Lindenburg practice problems, about 20% of the Kaplan
practice problems were still unanswered but it was a waste a time to
go through those, because they are too hard. I needed more practice
problems that were similar difficulty to the exam. I bought a School
of PE pdf review. I did every problem on this PDF set. Work as many
problems as you can as similar as possible to the NCEES books at this
point.
9. Lastly I took the last NCEES practice problems (the new 2011 book)
as one final practice exam. Grade it also. Go through any problems you
got wrong on this exam in depth
10. Make sure all your references are tabbed. Make sure you get a good
rest before the exam. And go in confidently. Try and stay relaxed and
pray. That helped me tons and I passed on the first try.
A couple of other EXTREMELY HELPFUL notes for you:
- I kept 3 ring binders of problems I worked. One for soils, one for
structures, one for transpo etc. Every example you work, put it on a
new sheet of paper. Stick it in the appropriate binder. Before long
you will have a ton of solved transpo problems. Some on vertical
curves, some on horizontal curves, some on traffic etc. Group all
those problems and divide them with tabs. These binders were a great
tool during the exam. I knew that if I got a horizontal curve problem
on the exam, and if my mind went blank on what to do, I just had to go
to the Transpo binder, the horizontal curve tab, find a similar
problem and I would have procedures, formulas etc everything right
there. I actually used this quite a bit during the exam. I also put
printed out notes from the Texas A&M video PDFs at the front of each
appropriate tab in my binders. Also, every formula I used in these
solved problems, I put a CERM page number next to.
- Another general note that helped me a lot in addition to my binders
were my tabs. I made my own color code. For example, the structural
binder was blue, and every tab in the CERM book (and in every other
reference) that had a structural table, or a useful structural formula
was also blue. Everything geotech was green. Everything construction
was red. etc. So I ended up with a bunch of tabs on my references, but
in the middle of the exam, if I needed to look something up, I knew I
had to focus on only one "type" so instead of looking through 50 tabs,
I was focused on the 10 blue tabs only. It gains you a lot of speed.
Use whatever system works for you. But I highly recommend something like this.
- take two of the same calculators with you. Odds are neither will
fail, but it buys you peace of mind. This is priceless during the
exam.
- buy all the NCEES codes early. I wasn't sure if I would need all of
them. So I bought some. As I kept studying some books referenced some
codes I didn't have. Then I bought those also. Near the end of my prep
time, I ended up with every code the NCEES had listed. But the ones I
bought near the end, I hardly knew how to use. If it is on the NCEES
list, it is for a reason. I think I used all but 1 of them during the
exam. Studying for this thing is a huge investment of time and money.
Don't cut your chances of passing because you wanted to save $100
bucks. I am so thankful I had everything with me. When you are done,
you can always sell your books and make back about 80%.
Good luck to all of you!! If I can be of any help, email me at
This forum was a great help to me. I
studied on my own (with no courses). The members here were awesome,
and now it's my time to give back.”
Here’s all my references and binders I used, contact me if you are interested
Lindeburg package – 4 books
1 - Civil Engineering Reference Manual for the PE Exam, 11th Edition Michael R. Lindeburg, PE ($100)
2 - Practice Problems for the Civil Engineering PE Exam, 11th Edition Michael R. Lindeburg, PE ($40)
3 - Quick Reference for the Civil Engineering PE Exam, 5th edition Michael R. Lindeburg, PE ($40)
4 - Civil PE Sample Examination, 2nd Edition Michael R. Lindeburg, PE ($30)
5 – Principles and Practice of Engineering PE Civil Sample Questions & Solution 2007, NCEES ($35)
6 – Civil PE Professional Engineer Exam Construction Module, 3r Edition Ruwan Rajapakse, PE ($25)
7 - Civil PE Professional Engineer Exam Construction Module, Practice Problem, 2010 Ruwan Rajapakse, PE ($25)
8 – All in One – Civil Engineering PE Breath and Depth, Exam Guide, Indranil Goswani ($45)
9 – Standard Practice for Bracing Masonry Walls Under Construction, 2001. ($15)
If you buy the complete package
I’ll include
2-3 ring binder index page of CERM
2-3 ring binder of MUTCD-pt 6
Hopefully it will help those of you starting to study.
I wish I knew this stuff from the get go...
“1. I first started trying to read the CERM book like a novel. DON'T do
this (at least not at the beginning). It is frustrating. Too in depth
(which I originally thought would be a good thing) but all it did was
make me almost want to quit studying a couple of times and give up on
the PE all together. The CERM is a good reference (a GREAT reference)
actually, but not a good Teaching tool.
2. Instead, go to this website from Texas A&M university:
http://engineeringre...views/index.htm
They have free videos for you to watch on all of the disciplines. They
are a bit old, but bear with them, they are VERY worth the time
invested.
So what I did is print out the PDFs for the videos. I watched the
video for one of the disciplines, for example Geotech. It would take
me a couple of days to get through the video. Stop the video, work the
problems out step by step along with the instructor, continue until
you have completed the video. Then I would spend the rest of the week
working through sample problems of that discipline. I had about 3
books of practice problems (one form Lindeburg, one for Kaplan, one
directly from NCEES etc). Work as many problems as you can that week
for that discipline. Keep the CERM book next to you the whole time.
Every table you use, tab it. Keep working more problems until the end
of the week. If a problem is ridiculously hard, skip it. You can use
your time better by covering more problems first. At the end of your
review months you can always come back to do hard problems if you have
time.
Next week, Monday & Tuesday spend watching a video on Hydraulics for
example. Work Hydro problems the rest of the week. Continue until you
have finished all the videos and you will have covered the morning
material well (for free!!!).
3. Next move into your afternoon depth portion. For me it was
Construction. If this is yours, start with the Rajapakse review book
(otherwise skip this step 3). Read this one like a novel, cover to
cover. This book is very frustrating because it has lots of grammar
mistakes, the drawings look like a kid drew them on the "paint"
program, etc. Stick with it though. Try to overlook the little
mistakes (which at the beginning will drive you NUTS). Keep going, and
tab important formulas etc. This book is pretty easy to work through,
and very informative. It will give you momentum on Construction if
anything. Momentum is a great thing to have while studying.
4. Then work the companion problems from the Rajapakse practice
problem book. By now, you should have all your codes listed on the
NCEES list. As you work through the practice problems for your
afternoon section, tab your references.
5. When you are done with your afternoon portion study of these books,
I would take the "old" NCEES practice problems book (2008). They are
much easier than any of the other problems: Lindeburg, kaplan,
6-minute solutions etc are all harder. Anyway, I would recommend to
take the 2008 NCEES practice problems (treating it like an exam). Time
yourself, make a homemade bubble sheet, whatever you can to make it as
realistic as possible. Grade yourself. I got about a 60% on this first
try (even after WEEKS of all that studying). That is OK. It just shows
you where you need to improve.
6. If you got an earthwork moving problem wrong, I went through a
bunch of similar earthwork problems again... not just the one I got
wrong. Reinforce the entire TYPE of problem. Continue until you have
covered a lot of material for each of the problems you got wrong (as
well as the ones you got right but guessed!!).
7. Then take a print out of the NCEES outline and make sure you have
covered every line item on it. If you haven't come across any work yet
on a specific line item from the NCEES outline, THEN go to CERM book.
This book covers it all. Read the section, work their problems.
8. I found at this point in my study timeline that I needed more
problems that were similar to the actual exam. I had a lot of problems
left in the Lindenburg practice problems, about 20% of the Kaplan
practice problems were still unanswered but it was a waste a time to
go through those, because they are too hard. I needed more practice
problems that were similar difficulty to the exam. I bought a School
of PE pdf review. I did every problem on this PDF set. Work as many
problems as you can as similar as possible to the NCEES books at this
point.
9. Lastly I took the last NCEES practice problems (the new 2011 book)
as one final practice exam. Grade it also. Go through any problems you
got wrong on this exam in depth
10. Make sure all your references are tabbed. Make sure you get a good
rest before the exam. And go in confidently. Try and stay relaxed and
pray. That helped me tons and I passed on the first try.
A couple of other EXTREMELY HELPFUL notes for you:
- I kept 3 ring binders of problems I worked. One for soils, one for
structures, one for transpo etc. Every example you work, put it on a
new sheet of paper. Stick it in the appropriate binder. Before long
you will have a ton of solved transpo problems. Some on vertical
curves, some on horizontal curves, some on traffic etc. Group all
those problems and divide them with tabs. These binders were a great
tool during the exam. I knew that if I got a horizontal curve problem
on the exam, and if my mind went blank on what to do, I just had to go
to the Transpo binder, the horizontal curve tab, find a similar
problem and I would have procedures, formulas etc everything right
there. I actually used this quite a bit during the exam. I also put
printed out notes from the Texas A&M video PDFs at the front of each
appropriate tab in my binders. Also, every formula I used in these
solved problems, I put a CERM page number next to.
- Another general note that helped me a lot in addition to my binders
were my tabs. I made my own color code. For example, the structural
binder was blue, and every tab in the CERM book (and in every other
reference) that had a structural table, or a useful structural formula
was also blue. Everything geotech was green. Everything construction
was red. etc. So I ended up with a bunch of tabs on my references, but
in the middle of the exam, if I needed to look something up, I knew I
had to focus on only one "type" so instead of looking through 50 tabs,
I was focused on the 10 blue tabs only. It gains you a lot of speed.
Use whatever system works for you. But I highly recommend something like this.
- take two of the same calculators with you. Odds are neither will
fail, but it buys you peace of mind. This is priceless during the
exam.
- buy all the NCEES codes early. I wasn't sure if I would need all of
them. So I bought some. As I kept studying some books referenced some
codes I didn't have. Then I bought those also. Near the end of my prep
time, I ended up with every code the NCEES had listed. But the ones I
bought near the end, I hardly knew how to use. If it is on the NCEES
list, it is for a reason. I think I used all but 1 of them during the
exam. Studying for this thing is a huge investment of time and money.
Don't cut your chances of passing because you wanted to save $100
bucks. I am so thankful I had everything with me. When you are done,
you can always sell your books and make back about 80%.
Good luck to all of you!! If I can be of any help, email me at
This forum was a great help to me. I
studied on my own (with no courses). The members here were awesome,
and now it's my time to give back.”
Here’s all my references and binders I used, contact me if you are interested
Lindeburg package – 4 books
1 - Civil Engineering Reference Manual for the PE Exam, 11th Edition Michael R. Lindeburg, PE ($100)
2 - Practice Problems for the Civil Engineering PE Exam, 11th Edition Michael R. Lindeburg, PE ($40)
3 - Quick Reference for the Civil Engineering PE Exam, 5th edition Michael R. Lindeburg, PE ($40)
4 - Civil PE Sample Examination, 2nd Edition Michael R. Lindeburg, PE ($30)
5 – Principles and Practice of Engineering PE Civil Sample Questions & Solution 2007, NCEES ($35)
6 – Civil PE Professional Engineer Exam Construction Module, 3r Edition Ruwan Rajapakse, PE ($25)
7 - Civil PE Professional Engineer Exam Construction Module, Practice Problem, 2010 Ruwan Rajapakse, PE ($25)
8 – All in One – Civil Engineering PE Breath and Depth, Exam Guide, Indranil Goswani ($45)
9 – Standard Practice for Bracing Masonry Walls Under Construction, 2001. ($15)
If you buy the complete package
I’ll include
2-3 ring binder index page of CERM
2-3 ring binder of MUTCD-pt 6
