Construction PE (I am a civil) - what do I need?

[jesdoo]

I am a civil engineer who has done "0" design since graduating. For that reason, I've decided to take the Construction PE in April of 2011. I live in Minnesota.

My questions:

- What does the morning consist of?

- What does the afternoon consist of?

- What resources are a MUST for morning and afternoon?

Exam prep: I plan to take practice tests, thats it. Is this a good idea?

Many thanks for any information.

Jesse

 

[Happy]

Exam prep: I plan to take practice tests, thats it. Is this a good idea?

I haven't written the exam, but from all researched this does not sound like a good idea.

Most opinions I've read state that you should put in about 300 hours of study to have a good chance at passing. I'm shooting for that number myself.

Recommended texts for all Civil diciplines are Goswami's Engineering Breadth & Depth & the CERM by Lindberg. Many have said that these texts are usually said to be enough to get people through the morning. In my opinion, the CERM has too much irrelevant information and Goswami's doesn't have enough info. But I'm going through and becoming familiar with both.

Here's an example study guide for the CERM. I did not write it and have personally heavily modified it for my studying:

http://pe-exam.com/studyforthepeexam.html

You'll need specific texts for the afternoon construction. Read through these forums to get all the info you can.

 

[Walker D]

Hey Jesse,

I will do my best to answer you questions. I just took the Construction Module in October and passed, thankfully.

- What does the morning consist of?- What does the afternoon consist of?

The morning problems consist of a total of 40 problems, with 8 problems from each of the 5 areas of discipline:

• Transportation (20%)
• Construction (20%)
• Water Resources (20%)
• Structural (20%)
• Geotechnical (20%)

The afternoon problems consist of a total of 40 problems all of which are specific to your area of study. In your case it will be Construction.

A more detailed breakdown of the morning and afternoon topics can be found here (too much to post):

http://pe-exam.com/whatisgoingtobeonthepeexam.html

- What resources are a MUST for morning and afternoon?

The most commonly used reference for the morning (and much of the afternoon) questions is the Civil Engineering Reference Manual by Michael Lindeberg (11th Edition). This is the one I used. Although I have not seen it, I have heard lots of good things about Indranil Goswami's Civil Engineering All-In-One PE Exam Guide: Breadth and Depth.

For the afternoon, here is a link that has all the references I used for the afternoon construction module:

http://pe-exam.com/Civilpeconstruction.html

Exam prep: I plan to take practice tests, thats it. Is this a good idea?

It really depends on you but my initial response to your question is: "Absolutely not". I studied 12 hours a week for 5 months leading up the the exam and I still felt very much unprepared.

Here is how I would prepare for the test:

-Work as many practice problems as you can.

-Flag all of your resources. You should know exactly where to look for specific types of problems. This can be a "killer" if you fumble through your resources during the test. Remember you only have 6 minutes per problem. You either have to know how to solve the problem or know where to find the information to solve the problem. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT

-Identify what types of problems give you the hardest time and rework them as much as possible. I actually had to develop a step-by-step instruction sheet on how to handle Moment of Inertia problems and Borrow sediment and Fill type problems. They came in handy during the test.

Hope this helps!