What an improvement over the paper exams!
Yeah, I said it.
I took the P&P in April 2021 and October 2021 for water resources and I failed them both magnificently.
I switched to Construction because of my background, in retrospect I'm glad I did.
The nuts and bolts of the exam:
The NCEES reference guide is available in a separate tab, and all the referenced codes for concrete, steel, OSHA, etc are available in a separate tab from that.
Ergo, you have the test in one side of the screen and the ref guide/codes on a separate part of the screen. I could not find a way to have both the reference guide and the codes open at the same time.
There is a line tool for cross referencing tables and graphs, but mine would not work correctly. I guess we just don't have the technology yet.
The exam is not easy, but it's not supposed to be. It is VERY similar to the P&P in how the questions were organized and the types of questions.
However, my experience with the P&P was that it wasn't made on the same planet as the NCEES practice exam guide. The two were not even close.
The CBT, on the other hand, makes the NCEES guide almost useful.
There's some deviation in the questions and question types, but the underpinnings of the question topics and methodology are there (if that makes any sense).
Some questions can be solved by reading and/or interpolating data from the reference guide/s, but many of the questions rely on you to know how to work the problem.
The "morning session" was rough and although I know it's organized at random, it had mostly CE breadth questions, or so it seemed. Very similar to the P&P in content overview.
I knew at least 20 of them out of the gate, I was pretty sure about my answers on another 10 questions, and couldn't have answered the remaining 10 with a gun to my head. However, I was starting to get brain fried at that point, and by pacing myself to 10 questions per hour, I was able to comfortably answer all 41 questions before taking a break and clearing my head.
I walked out of the test center and spent my break drinking water, eating protein bars, and generally just questioning my life choices and career path, as I usually do during the PE exam lunch break. After about 35 minutes, I assumed that my prayers for a meteor strike or a plague of giant locusts were going to go unanswered, so I went back to take the rest of the exam since my backup plan had apparently failed.
The "afternoon session" was a breeze by comparison. Almost all the questions were construction related and many leaned heavily on the OSHA andASPCA AISC guides. I answered the first twenty questions in about an hour and wound up finishing the remaining 19 questions almost an hour ahead of schedule. I went back and checked my work on all of my answers and clocked out with an hour to spare.
Altogether, I rate the PE Construction CBT an 8.5/10, would take again (but only if I have to).
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
Yeah, I said it.
I took the P&P in April 2021 and October 2021 for water resources and I failed them both magnificently.
I switched to Construction because of my background, in retrospect I'm glad I did.
The nuts and bolts of the exam:
The NCEES reference guide is available in a separate tab, and all the referenced codes for concrete, steel, OSHA, etc are available in a separate tab from that.
Ergo, you have the test in one side of the screen and the ref guide/codes on a separate part of the screen. I could not find a way to have both the reference guide and the codes open at the same time.
There is a line tool for cross referencing tables and graphs, but mine would not work correctly. I guess we just don't have the technology yet.
The exam is not easy, but it's not supposed to be. It is VERY similar to the P&P in how the questions were organized and the types of questions.
However, my experience with the P&P was that it wasn't made on the same planet as the NCEES practice exam guide. The two were not even close.
The CBT, on the other hand, makes the NCEES guide almost useful.
There's some deviation in the questions and question types, but the underpinnings of the question topics and methodology are there (if that makes any sense).
Some questions can be solved by reading and/or interpolating data from the reference guide/s, but many of the questions rely on you to know how to work the problem.
The "morning session" was rough and although I know it's organized at random, it had mostly CE breadth questions, or so it seemed. Very similar to the P&P in content overview.
I knew at least 20 of them out of the gate, I was pretty sure about my answers on another 10 questions, and couldn't have answered the remaining 10 with a gun to my head. However, I was starting to get brain fried at that point, and by pacing myself to 10 questions per hour, I was able to comfortably answer all 41 questions before taking a break and clearing my head.
I walked out of the test center and spent my break drinking water, eating protein bars, and generally just questioning my life choices and career path, as I usually do during the PE exam lunch break. After about 35 minutes, I assumed that my prayers for a meteor strike or a plague of giant locusts were going to go unanswered, so I went back to take the rest of the exam since my backup plan had apparently failed.
The "afternoon session" was a breeze by comparison. Almost all the questions were construction related and many leaned heavily on the OSHA and
Altogether, I rate the PE Construction CBT an 8.5/10, would take again (but only if I have to).
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
