Environmental PE Oct 2013

[RIP - VTEnviro]

For those of you who took the environmental exam this weekend, how did it go?

Remember, don't reveal any information that coukd get you into trouble. NCEES monitors the board regularly at exam time.

 

[chiko]

Morning questions were mostly hydrology, waste water and water. I thought morning was rough. Afternoon questions were air, remediation etc. I had better luck solving air problems except 2 which I forgot. I think this exam was much harder than last one. So for me, study again. KNOWING WHERE TO LOOK is key

 

[suryan]

The qualitative questions in the morning and afternoon session stumped me. Maybe folks who work in the Air area may have been able to tackle it better- but I just didn't know where to look for the answers even though I had a lot of the reference books! I just made an educated guess and moved on. Even if I were to give the exam a second time I wouldn't know how to prepare for the Qualitative questions :-(

 

[RIP - VTEnviro]

The qualitative questions should be gimmes - no calcs to mess up. Anytime you see a reference to an act or a standard during your studies, you need to print it out and really review it thoroughly. There are too many messy quantitative problems to be missing Clean Water Act stuff.

 

[CU07]

I agree. If you're worried about retaking it but feel okay on the quantitative problems, you should spend some time reading texts. Salvato's text is pretty great for this, and Metcalf & Eddy for the wastewater problems - many of mine were taken directly from M&E and you just had to find the correct page to find the answer.

The qualitative questions should be gimmes - no calcs to mess up. Anytime you see a reference to an act or a standard during your studies, you need to print it out and really review it thoroughly. There are too many messy quantitative problems to be missing Clean Water Act stuff.

 

[RIP - VTEnviro]

I didn't use M&E. The way I handled qualitative stuff was if the problem says 40 CFR 123.45 defines toxic slop as...

Was to go to the CFR online, print out the section in question, read/highlight it, and stuffed it in a binder.

The Envl Law Handbook was invaluable for this stuff too.

 

[envirotex]

^^^

lusone:

 

[Dleg]

I agree. If you're worried about retaking it but feel okay on the quantitative problems, you should spend some time reading texts. Salvato's text is pretty great for this, and Metcalf & Eddy for the wastewater problems - many of mine were taken directly from M&E and you just had to find the correct page to find the answer.

The qualitative questions should be gimmes - no calcs to mess up. Anytime you see a reference to an act or a standard during your studies, you need to print it out and really review it thoroughly. There are too many messy quantitative problems to be missing Clean Water Act stuff.

I found Salvato to be invaluable for answering qualitative questions - probably more so than any others. I also used Metcalf & Eddy - there is great material in there on biological processes, as well as all things wastewater-treatment related. LaGrega was another reference that I found very useful for answering the odd-ball questions.

 

[JHKC]

Perhaps I missed whether this has been the case in the past, but as chiko pointed out, the morning was predominantly water/hydrology/wastewater and the afternoon predominantly air. Since my area of practice is in air, that made for a tough morning (though a considerably easier afternoon.)

I'd seen suggestions that there are a significant number of qualitative questions on the exam, which is good since there are 100 questions. I actually felt good about the qualitative questions, since I do mostly regulatory-type work, and because I have a fairly good memory for stuff I read.

For what it's worth, having taken it, there probably wasn't a single question on the exam that was completely new material for me, or that if posed to me now, that I couldn't have a fairly quick answer for. If it turns out that I have to take again in April, I think just having been through once to get a "live" feel was good. It wasn't as grueling as I'd expected, I remembered more than I thought I would, and it was a good reminder that while the test is specific, it's not designed to be excruciatingly hard or to have complex calculations.

I also used a great tip from elsewhere on these boards, namely spending the first 5-10 minutes going through every question and assigning a 1, 2, or 3 to each. I found this helped me get a feel for what I knew and what was coming, plus helped me prioritize time. Since a definition question counts the same as a multi-step calculation, I wanted to make sure I got my low-hanging fruit first.

 

[suryan]

I felt that way about the quantitative questions! Nothing that really stumped me in the quantitative section. Unfortunately I didn't feel that way about qualitative questions. There were quite a few that were new to me. Now the agony of waiting for the results!I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

 

[CU07]

Perhaps I missed whether this has been the case in the past, but as chiko pointed out, the morning was predominantly water/hydrology/wastewater and the afternoon predominantly air. Since my area of practice is in air, that made for a tough morning (though a considerably easier afternoon.)

...

I also used a great tip from elsewhere on these boards, namely spending the first 5-10 minutes going through every question and assigning a 1, 2, or 3 to each. I found this helped me get a feel for what I knew and what was coming, plus helped me prioritize time. Since a definition question counts the same as a multi-step calculation, I wanted to make sure I got my low-hanging fruit first.

On your first point, it seems that breakdown is consistent across each exam. If you look at the percentages, it works out perfectly in order to water (32%) and solid waste (18%) in the morning, and air (23%), site assessment/remediation (12%), health and safety (8%), and other engineering principles (7%) in the afternoon.

I'm a big proponent of ranking problems in that way...it came from my boss and I found it to be a huge help on my exam. Glad it worked for you!

 

[KYEnvEng]

I got my results today (Kentucky) via NCEES web site - I passed! This board was helpful in my preparation for the exam - I'll post in the advice thread later about which books I used to prepare, etc.

 

[envirotex]

Awesome! Congratulations!

 

[mfleming29020]

Congratulations on passing the PE. Did the website suggest what the passing score was?

 

[Dleg]

Congrats! Wow, results are coming out early these days... I didn't get mine until January, back when I took the exam.

 

[matt267 PE]

Congrats! Wow, results are coming out early these days... I didn't get mine until January, back when I took the exam.

ld-025:

 

[Mike in Gastonia]

Congrats! Wow, results are coming out early these days... I didn't get mine until January, back when I took the exam.

And kids these days! They don't appreciate the results coming out earlier. They want them even earlier.........

 

[chiko]

Passed- NY :Banane36:

 

[CU07]

Congrats, chiko and KYEnvEng!

 

[chiko]

Thanks CU07. many thanks to everyone on this board to help me figure this out. Special thanks to DavidPE