If you passed, what review course did you take?

[ArrowF]

I did SOPE and did practically the same routine as "Rwhit PE" described above in great detail.  I first time passed WRE though.  I signed up early enough to watch the April '17 videos onDemand and then watched the Oct '17 onDemand videos as they became available.  I LOVED the fact that I could playback the videos at faster speeds.  Some topics I could listen to at 2x speed and others I needed to listen at a slower speed to get the content.  SOPE depth for WRE had two different presenters between April and October.  They seem to be putting emphasis on improving this portion.  Neither depth instructors really "nailed" what was on the test, but between the two, I learned enough.  The Breadth is where SOPE really excels though in my opinion.

 

[ArkEngineer]

I took and passed the Civil WRE. I used the ASCE review class, mainly due to price. The local chapter had some sort of group buy-in so the class was only $200. The class had 12 2-hour sessions for the morning portion, and 2 2-hr sessions for the depth. The morning review was fine, the different instructors had different styles so I liked some more than others, but they all did well enough. The depth review was useless. Half of it was just a repeat of the water lectures in the breadth review. The other half was really high-level overviews of the different possible environmental topics. Environmental was what I knew the least about, so I had to learn that all on my own. I'm sure I only passed because I did well enough on the other sections to cover bombing the enviromental questions.

The class notes were available, but not really concise enough to use as a reference during the actual test. I took them with me, but only opened during the morning after I had already answered all the questions and had some spare time left. I was looking to see if they had info about some of the conceptual questions I wasn't sure on, but got no help there.

Each topic had a set of practice problems, and most of the lectures had some in-line that you could do after. I felt the class spent way too much time on engineering economics since the NCEES outline only lists that as one or two questions on the test. 

Overall I wouldn't recommend the ASCE class, but it was good enough to get me a pass.

 

[casummerlin]

Self-study only.  Passed ME TFS first try.  >90% of my study time was just working NCEES and Eng Pro Guides practice problems over and over and diving into the MERM when I hit problems I didn't know how to work.

 

[teab]

Took the PPI Civil Breadth with constriction depth (depth module was new this round). Bought the full package at about $2264 which included a lot of reference material. See below for what was included.  



It was twice a week on weeknights for about 3 hours a night from about July to October (25 total classes). This was good so you can use the weekends to study more material.  It was pricey and riddled with errors in the presentations and books. Most of the time the teacher would find the errors as we worked through the slides, which was really really really frustrating to focus on what you needed to learn from the problem. Don't think I had a single homework assignment without several problems that had an error. I really used those errors though to dig in and prove  why it was incorrect, so maybe it helped...hard to say.

Overall the class forced me to open the books and hit every subject you need to cover which was good. Most of the practice problem homework you work through will have a 1 hour time limit on the homework which isn't realistic for the test....... But in that time working the problem you basically solve what could be 10 different variations of how an exam question can be presented and it forces you to hit the concepts to understand what the hell is going on.  Concepts probably are one of the most important things to learn for the exam because if you know the concepts of a problem you can usually hack your way through it even if you have no clue what is be asked.

I got a very negative attitude towards the end of the class because of all the errors and for that kind of money I expect very few to zero errors in my study material. My work paid good money for. If your work will pay for it go for it, if not you might want to explore other options to invest your money.  

So really if you get a good package deal on basically what equates to a lot of the material you're going to buy anyway (CERM, PPI practice problems, etc) its a pretty good value. 

I passed my first try after being out of school for 8 years, so caulk it up to the class and also the 15 to 25 hours a week between studying and class time.

Overall Breadth I would give a 7/10 and Depth 5/10 (Depth didn't cover much more than breadth section and most of the material was repeated)  

My 2 cents

 

[fsrwc5]

ASCE on demand.  (10) 2-hour videos covering each of the AM topics.  PDFs of the lectures, which were mostly useful.  There were 3 sets of practice problems, and on the hydrology he included several in the lecture also.  For me it helped to solidify the morning.  I also had access to the afternoon sessions, those I did not find as helpfull, at least for structures.

I also did the ASCE on demand. I found the review of the AM topics pretty good. It really helped narrow down my study efforts. I did the afternoon session for Geotech, which was fair, it definitely helped with some obscure stuff.  Overall, I'd recommend the course if you are a Civil.

It was also offered at a discount through the local ASCE chapter, so I was able to do it for $175. May be worth looking into through your local chapter to see if they subsidize the test.

 

[abell8418]

i passed the 8 hour exam last year 1st try.  I used EET for WRE.  HIghly recommended.

 

[pkthundr136]

Self Study for ~20 hours. I saw review courses costed around $1k, so decided to do this on my own, much to my mentor's dismay. Passed ME HVAC on first try. I've been 6 years out of college; I was too lazy to take it earlier.

I brought the following reference materials with me into the test:

• Mechanical Engineering Reference Manual for the PE Exam, 13th Ed
  
• PE Mechanical Engineering: HVAC and Refrigeration Practice Exam
  
• ASHRAE Pocket Guide for Air Conditioning, Heating, Ventilation, Refrigeration, 8th edition
  
• A binder with one page of notes.
  

My strat was to primarily study the test questions, as the Practice Exam was extremely similar to the actual test. I marked up the Practice Exam with quickest paths to the solutions in addition to the overall concept being tested on (the majority of the test was heat transfer or psychrometrics). I didn't bother tabbing out any of my reference materials. 

My single page of notes had common equations or explanations of uncommon topics for easy reference.

I bought the Pocket Guide two days before the test, as I didn't realize that the afternoon module had questions based on code, which were always pulled from tables in the Pocket Guide.

Beyond studying heat transfer in depth (psychrometrics, steam tables, air and water, etc.), I skimmed the Reference Manual and Pocket Guide enough to know where chapters were and how comprehensive the index was. This gets you about ~60% of the way through the test. The remaining concepts were either learned through the practice exam and reappeared on the actual test, or I had to learn them while I was taking the test. 

During the test, I skipped questions that I knew would take longer than 6 mins (40 questions/4 hours) to learn/solve and leave those for a 2nd pass. Any answer that I had strong confidence in solving correctly got crossed out in my test booklet to not distract me from solving the harder questions. Just kept iterating on this cycle until I ran out of time or felt confident in all my answers. 

I probably came off as an ******* in writing this, but this is how I avoided getting overwhelmed by the sheer density of information needed to take this test. Best of luck to future test takers. 

 

[bigbass1170]

Created an account just to reply to this because I didn't see the course I took mentioned yet. Took Mechanial TFS for the first time and passed with an 87.

I did the 20-week TFS online course at Doctor Tom's Classroom. Very structured, lots of handouts, videos every week. I went into the test with the MERM and the exam day companion from the Doctor Tom course as my two main references. That exam day companion was worth its weight in gold during the exam. I highly recommend the course.

 

[Lucenzo11]

I took EET as well for Civil/WRE. Breadth is taught by all three instructors and they each teach their specialty subjects. Notes are arranged differently for each but in general there are summary equations, content slides, and then practice problems. I took on-demand given my schedule but it is pretty much identical to the webinar except for the live interaction. I also took Depth course and Nazrul is a good instructor. Breadth and depth each have about 50 hours of class time and then a variety of practice problems, quizzes, and a 4-hr simulated morning and 4-hr simulated afternoon exam. There is a lot of content here and I didn't get to all of it, but if I had failed then I would definitely go back to the additional problem sets. 

The best benefit of EET is the binders. They have condensed all that you need to know into two binders for the entire exam. Ok, fine, it doesn't cover 100% of the exam questions, but it covers enough for anyone to pass. For the morning, I thought it covered about 85% of the questions and for the afternoon about 90%. I also brought an old CERM which helped out on a few questions in the morning, but a coworker only had the binders and passed too. If you take the EET courses, study where everything is in the binder. Time management is so important and even if you don't know exactly how to do a problem, if you can find the right equation in 30 seconds then that leaves so much time for you to figure out how to solve it. 

If it wasn't clear, I would highly recommend EET, study the binders, watch the classes to your best extent, and do as many of the practice problems as possible. 

 

[massPEtaker]

The first time I took the exam I was enrolled in School of PE. I was close but ended up failing. After trying my hand at just the depth EET class, I ended up enrolling in the full breadth and depth course this time around and passed. I knew taking the exam this time that it was not going to be a problem for me to pass and I did this last exam. Nazrul at EET is the best instructor around and it frankly isn't even close. Highly recommend the EET class. The two binders is all you need to really bring to the exam for 90% of the questions.

 

[CivilGuy00]

Testmasters (here in the Bay Area it's through Excel Test Prep), PM Transportation, 1st timer. 

Would you say the TM material helped you a lot during the exam? Did you use their material exclusively for reference?

 

[CivilGuy00]

The first time I took the exam I was enrolled in School of PE. I was close but ended up failing. After trying my hand at just the depth EET class, I ended up enrolling in the full breadth and depth course this time around and passed. I knew taking the exam this time that it was not going to be a problem for me to pass and I did this last exam. Nazrul at EET is the best instructor around and it frankly isn't even close. Highly recommend the EET class. The two binders is all you need to really bring to the exam for 90% of the questions.

Did you do the on-demand? How long did it take you to get through the courses?

 

[txjennah PE]

The first time I took the exam I was enrolled in School of PE. I was close but ended up failing. After trying my hand at just the depth EET class, I ended up enrolling in the full breadth and depth course this time around and passed. I knew taking the exam this time that it was not going to be a problem for me to pass and I did this last exam. Nazrul at EET is the best instructor around and it frankly isn't even close. Highly recommend the EET class. The two binders is all you need to really bring to the exam for 90% of the questions.

Based on feedback I'm definitely doing EET depth class.  I'm environmental but really struggled with water/water resources on my exam attempts.  I am hoping this will put me over the edge and finally help me hammer down these concepts I need to pass.  

 

[blee26]

Would you say the TM material helped you a lot during the exam? Did you use their material exclusively for reference?

Testmasters material covered about 80% of what I needed. Due to the nature of the PM-Transportation Depth, I needed additional resources (HCM, Greenbook, Roadside Design Guide, Highway Safety Manual, Ped Facilities Book, MUTCD) since the PM had a lot of "look-up" type problems. I found that the Transportation instructor, Mark Ingram (no relation to the New Orleans Saints' running back), was the best instructor for this course. 

Also, I supplemented my TM - Geotechnical material with the EET breadth binder. I got this from a buddy so I was able to use their phasing charts and do some extra problems in there.

TBH, this exam is all about practice, practice practice. My advice for everyone that is studying for this (1st timer, or repeat taker) to not just rely on the material. But understand the concepts, visualize the problem and understand that NCEES can ask the same type of question in 12 different ways. They may also recycle questions and thus certain terminology has changed but hasn't been updated. Therefore the question can be confusing. 

Also, do a couple of dry-run exams and put yourself in "exam-like" situations. Meaning, 4 hours, all your materials on the table, no noise, and go through the practice exam. Do this a couple of times towards the end of your studies. 

 

[wyman]

School of PE - in person classes for breadth and Mon-Thu "live online" classes for depth.

I really felt like they "unlocked" thinks stored in my brain from undergrad and past work experience.

I used the notes binders as a primary resource for the AM exam. Instructors tended to overstate the importance of the minutiae w/r/t their chosen specialty (none of which were my discipline, Transportation) but that's alright since I felt rock solid in the morning.

 

[BEL]

The first time I took the exam I was enrolled in School of PE. I was close but ended up failing. After trying my hand at just the depth EET class, I ended up enrolling in the full breadth and depth course this time around and passed. I knew taking the exam this time that it was not going to be a problem for me to pass and I did this last exam. Nazrul at EET is the best instructor around and it frankly isn't even close. Highly recommend the EET class. The two binders is all you need to really bring to the exam for 90% of the questions.

I'm hoping this is exactly my story. I took a local prep class for test try 1, EET depth for test try 2, and now leaning toward EET breadth and the free depth re-take for test try 3. 

Thank you for the input. 

 

[pwccny]

I took the school of PE Civil/structural depth, and I passed on the first time. The morning portion was extremely helpful, especially on hydraulics/hydrology and geotechnical. The afternoon was fine and it was just not enough time to cover all the materials, but it did give me a sense of what topics I should focus on. I took my time to study and google additional problems and notes on those topics that I think I needed more knowledge on. 

 

[Nuke_em]

I didn’t take a review class, just worked review problems and the NCEES practice test for Mechanical TFS.  Was a little worried since my major was EE, but doing these problems and using the MERM was good enough.

 

[user 35538]

I'm Civil-WRE

I took SOPE On-Demand the first time and failed.  The second time, I took the EET WRE Depth On-Demand course (thanks to EB recommendations).  Doing a live webinar, if your work/family situation allows, would probably help keep studying on a better schedule.  I chose the On-Demand because baby twins .

SOPE was okay for the breadth, but the WRE depth review wasn't sufficient, IMO.  The first time I took it, there were items in the test spec that weren't even covered by SOPE.  EET's material is based on the test specs.

Comparing the two, the EET WRE depth review is much more comprehensive (I can't speak for their breadth review).  The EET binder is much better organized - which helps save time on the test.  I barely used the CERM for the WRE questions (maybe not even at all).  Many of the concept questions were actually covered in the review, so for many it was just a matter of double checking myself to make sure I'd chosen the right answer.  The instructor for EET's WRE, Nazrul, is probably the best instructor I've ever had.   I can honestly say that I am already a better WRE engineer because of EET's course.

For the money (the costs are about the same), EET is a much better investment.  The binder(s) alone is worth the money.  You have to put in the work, though.  EET provided a ton of excellent (quantity and quality) practice problems.  You have to do them ALL and make sure you grasp the concepts.  

Thank you for the review. Thank you everyone else for your reviews as well. I found this one particularly helpful because of the comparison between SOPE and EET. It sounds like EET is the better option for the cost.

 

[j.hernandez.1989]

EET?

School of PE?

Testmasters?

If you took any of the above prep/review classes for breadth and/or depth can you tell a little bit about the class you took? Online on-demand? In person classroom? Online webinar? The binder materials provided? First time or repeat test-taker? Quality of instructors?

Thanks!

Construction PE Civil. Made my own study plan based of the NCEES reference materials, exam breakdown and CERM. Spent quite a bit on practice exams. The NCEES practice exam was good, but I also liked the Desantis Practice Exam and the Civil PE Practice Exam from PE Prepared LLC (Version A & B and Const Depth A)