Just passed! Fe Civil. 3rd try is a charm. 6 years out of school

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mike2014

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Just got my results back for the FE. I had failed twice already. Here is what I did to pass. Prep time 3 months. i was working full time during this period.

-took school of pe review course. its a 3 hour class 4 times a week. most of the professors are really good. most were ok. its mentally exhausting. i did the live course theres a go at your own pace video but this forced me to study every day. at first i considered taking the ppi2pass course but it was a lil more expensive and my big red flag was that there was only one professor teaching the whole course. I didnt take the course but I dont believe that one professor can be proficient in teaching every subject. Plus what if I didnt like his teaching style id be stuck with him. My complaints about school of pe are that for the money you paid they could have given you a printed book with all of the notes. It was a pain to print them out and gave me a whole mess of notes. You can rewatch lectures but they are online and you cant download them. Guess it protects their info but makes looking for a particular spot dificult.

-bought the fe civil practice problem book by Iqbal

really good practice i did the whole book twice. problems are easier than the yellow book. the secret is not to get stuck on a problem. and just keep going.

  • dont focus on subjects that are difficult for you. in college i was bad at structural design and dynamics. So I mostly skipped those.
-during the test I went straight to the ethics section first. This should be the easiest. Then did construction, economics, and math. Which I also found easy. Do the hardest and time consuming last.

-during the test. DO NOT GET STUCK. If you don’t get it immediately. Leave it and come back.

-get fast at doing problems. When practicing I would 5 problems at a time. Timer for 15 minutes. Then repeat. I got good at doing problems fast.

-during the test I went straight to the ethics section first. This should be the easiest. Then did construction, economics, and math. Which I also found easy. Do the hardest and time consuming last.

-during the test. DO NOT GET STUCK. If you don’t get it immediately. Leave it and come back.

-get fast at doing problems. When practicing I would 5 problems at a time. Timer for 15 minutes. Then repeat. I got good at doing problems fast.

 
I think its best to not to think that you have to do the test linearly from start to finish. The order of the questions is arranged by subject starting from math, statistics, etc. I pictured it as an apple tree and I wanted to pick the easiest fruit first so I jumped around a lot.

I spent the first 45 minutes answering questions that required no calculations whatsoever or super simple ones that I could do instantly.

 
I think its best to not to think that you have to do the test linearly from start to finish. The order of the questions is arranged by subject starting from math, statistics, etc. I pictured it as an apple tree and I wanted to pick the easiest fruit first so I jumped around a lot.

I spent the first 45 minutes answering questions that required no calculations whatsoever or super simple ones that I could do instantly.
Interesting.... CONGRATS Mike2014! I hope to have to same results for my Electrical & Computer CBT at the end of June. So, when you say jump around does that mean the order of what NCEES Exam specifications PDF order is true on the exam? Is it like divided by sections within the first part in the second part of the exam? Sorry, if I am wording the question weird...

 
Interesting.... CONGRATS Mike2014! I hope to have to same results for my Electrical & Computer CBT at the end of June. So, when you say jump around does that mean the order of what NCEES Exam specifications PDF order is true on the exam? Is it like divided by sections within the first part in the second part of the exam? Sorry, if I am wording the question weird...
No - questions are random and they don't follow the PDF.

 
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