New Afternoon Construction Module Book?

[SPSUEngineer]

Has anyone tried the new afternoon construction module book from amazon or ppi?

http://www.amazon.com/Civil-Professional-E...3768&sr=8-1

It looks good on the surface but not many reviews yet. I went ahead and ordered it today to try it out. I'll let everyone know how through it is once I receive it.

 

[Wendy]

Has anyone tried the new afternoon construction module book from amazon or ppi?
http://www.amazon.com/Civil-Professional-E...3768&sr=8-1

It looks good on the surface but not many reviews yet. I went ahead and ordered it today to try it out. I'll let everyone know how through it is once I receive it.

I bought it, but after I spend two days to finishes the whole book. its good to give you some sort of idea what is construction all about in basic. BUT not good enough material for the exam. just too basic. The font was so big which I don't like. 59 dollars kind of over price. really over price.

 

[EnvEngineer]

I got it pretty cheap, its a good book but for any other purpose would retail for 9.95. I am getting the CEMR 11th edition to day and I will let you know how they compare. I must say it is well orgainized, he uses the test outline as a Table of Contents to organize the chapters. I am a little worried that there is a lack of depth.

 

[jrs]

I have this book. It's about what you'd get with course lecture notes.

Does cover mass diagrams and earned value better than the CERM though.

After having seen CERM, Ruwan, and SmartPros construction coverage, I think the market is wide open for anyone who wants to write a review guide for construction.

 

[EnvEngineer]

Got the CERM 11th edition last night so I can compare. My personal opinion is if you have a older version of CERM the Ruwan will supplement the Construction pretty well. If you are purchasing the CERM although costly is a great value given the bredth of the book. If you purchase CERM 11 there is no reason to have Ruwan, although, like jrs said the mass diagrams and CPM network sections are very good. The Construction sections are pretty well scattered throughout CERM 11 compared to the organized manner presented in Ruwan. Both cover the same topics, CREM 11 has more depth in the way of text, most of the text is good information but may not be on the exam.

 

[humner]

Got the CERM 11th edition last night so I can compare. My personal opinion is if you have a older version of CERM the Ruwan will supplement the Construction pretty well. If you are purchasing the

I purchased two sample exams from http://pe-exam.org/ . These cover the morning part of the civil. The only afternoon part that they have is the Geo. Not bad questions, you get 40 for $10 and they have 2 sets prepared.

 

[SPSUEngineer]

Well after taking the Construction afternoon and preparing with the Ruwan book I answered my question.

The book is too general and easy for the afternoon. It was priced way to high for the help it gave me....almost none.

 

[Adrock]

Ya the questions were real specific in the afternoon. You have to really know what your doing in every area of the depth. I might consider Geotech next time if I don't pass.

 

[SPSUEngineer]

Ya the questions were real specific in the afternoon. You have to really know what your doing in every area of the depth. I might consider Geotech next time if I don't pass.

Hey Adrock I was wondering when you were going to check in here.

I'm curious of what you thought of the exam. I thought it was very difficult in the afternoon with the Ruwan book and the CERM. Most of the questions were very complex, detailed, and time consuming in my opinion. Testmasters notes didn't help me very much either. I couldn't believe they wanted us to answer a few (ok several) of those questions in 6 minutes or less given the number of steps involved.

 

[Adrock]

Hey Adrock I was wondering when you were going to check in here.
I'm curious of what you thought of the exam. I thought it was very difficult in the afternoon with the Ruwan book and the CERM. Most of the questions were very complex, detailed, and time consuming in my opinion. Testmasters notes didn't help me very much either. I couldn't believe they wanted us to answer a few (ok several) of those questions in 6 minutes or less given the number of steps involved.

I didn't think the morning was easy either. Didn't think I needed The Green Book but it was required I guess. I blew it on a few structural questions that I think I could do now and the water resources kinda kicked my butt too.

Afternoon was pretty complex. I did leave early because I had to guess on alot of problems.

 

[Adrock]

Do you think its a good idea to start studying again or just wait until results are back?

 

[SPSUEngineer]

man I'm wondering the same thing about studying. I think I'm going to chill for a couple of weeks and then start studing a little again. I'm definitely not going to wait until results are back. I'd be real surprised if I passed the thing. I had to pure guess on 10-12 in the afternoon and I'd be real lucky if I got 20/40 correct. The lookup/definition type questions were rougher than I was anticipating too. You had to have some pretty specific text books and even then some of the answers were not black and white to me. I thought a few of them were ambiguous and I'm thinking about challenging at least one of them because I believe two correct answers were there. I had two references and each one said an aswer that was one of the selections but they were different answers. I was able to find some of the answers but I ran out of time in the end. I just wasn't adequately prepared for the depth and complexity of the questions. Yea I know what you mean about needing the HCM for the AM. I didn't have the HCM either and had to guess on a question. Funny thing is I had it packed and then thought "i won't need this book for the AM questions". Damn.

 

[Adrock]

man I'm wondering the same thing about studying. I think I'm going to chill for a couple of weeks and then start studing a little again. I'm definitely not going to wait until results are back. I'd be real surprised if I passed the thing. I had to pure guess on 10-12 in the afternoon and I'd be real lucky if I got 20/40 correct. The lookup/definition type questions were rougher than I was anticipating too. You had to have some pretty specific text books and even then some of the answers were not black and white to me. I thought a few of them were ambiguous and I'm thinking about challenging at least one of them because I believe two correct answers were there. I had two references and each one said an aswer that was one of the selections but they were different answers. I was able to find some of the answers but I ran out of time in the end. I just wasn't adequately prepared for the depth and complexity of the questions. Yea I know what you mean about needing the HCM for the AM. I didn't have the HCM either and had to guess on a question. Funny thing is I had it packed and then thought "i won't need this book for the AM questions". Damn.

Yeah looks like you had the same type of experience as I did. I took a peek at the geotech afternoon questions and they seemed hard too. Don't know if its worth studying the question types I missed in construction or to just give geotech a shot. But given how there are so many types of construction questions that can be asked it might be too tough to study everything.

 

[pugsx]

Testmasters notes didn't help me very much either. I couldn't believe they wanted us to answer a few (ok several) of those questions in 6 minutes or less given the number of steps involved.

Wow! Really? I've heard so much about the testmasters course that I was kicking myself for not taking it. I took the UVA course instead. I was thinking if I didn't make it this time (likely so) I would sign up for the testmasters.

My course ended a whole month before the exam and I totally fell off the wagon and stopped studying (yeah 7 month old kid doesn't help either). I went into the exam not having reviewed any of the material in the course (had given up by then). I got killed in the AM portion on water and geo. I thought the PM construction was quite good but who knows I may have fallen into their trap answers! If I get a similar construction PM portion in October and I study my AM part, I'll be so happy. I changed/confirmed at least 4 answers when I went back during the last hour checking my answers. To the guy who said "Never bring a reference that you never opened before" I proved that statement is soooo wrong.

 

[sfwater]

wanted to put in few words about this reference........the words are: you can't rely on it completely by itself on the exam.

I guess a lot of authors rushed to issue construction books without taking the time to produce a good product. The book is excellent on some chapters yet very poor on others which kinda gives me the impression that different authors contributed to it.

Anyway it helped me but it didn't meet my expectations - to use this book by the way you need to either know it by heart or tab it like hell because it doesn't have an index nor a TOC.