Oct 2015

[matt267 PE]

I took the Civil/Water, the morning part killed me, and PM was fine.

Same here.

 

[NJmike PE]

I don't think I answered anything from the morning session...

 

[matt267 PE]

I don't think I answered anything from the morning session...

It seemed to work out for you too.

 

[NJmike PE]

see, nothing to worry about. Just keep F5'ing it.

 

[knight1fox3]

I try to post this every exam cycle to try and lighten the mood a bit while waiting on results. It's still one of my favorite exam recaps to date. :thumbs:

EE - Power. "You sunk my battleship."

Preparation Time/Materials: 250 total hours. 5 textbooks, prep coursework notebook, 2 notebooks of graduate class material, calculators, snacks, rolling suitcase.

Money: ~$1,550.

General Observations: Arrived at my site 30 minutes prior to report time. Noticed that many others had literally libraries and libraries of books. Someone had a giant wagon with bungie cords holding all of the books together. Others just had a single piece of paper. Wild. I randomly started thinking of a national geographic special with narration by Morgan Freeman on PE test taking habits. I needed that laugh to clear my head.

AM Session: Felt the AM session was great. Only ended up with 6-7 that I didn't have a single solid answer or couldn't find it in my reference. I finished slightly early and checked only some of my work.

PM Session: Total unadulterated bloodbath. Couldn't seem to concentrate enough to find the equations I needed. Calculator was spitting out answers that were out of this world. Saw stuff that I barely covered in droves. About 2-3 hours into the afternoon, my brain felt like it had been through a dishwasher and I started hopping around from question to question. Not good. I will be lucky if I got a quarter to half right. I might as well have taken another discipline in the afternoon or gone to work. A monkey may have been able to do better.

Final Thoughts: As I left the exam area, I felt numb, dumb, and a little crushed. I felt like I blew the morning session out of the water. Then the PE got off a torpedo as I was heading to collect my stamp, promotion, and better life. I'm not very good at guessing and doing the math in my head all weekend I kept envisioning a percentage score in the upper 60s with an afternoon diagnostic that simply says "monkey". 6 months of neglecting my wife and family might be for nothing in the end except doing it all over again. I know the pass rate for repeaters is low, but what is the divorce rate?

Oh well. If I recall from a coworker, last years results were released in around 45-50 days following the exam. I think he got his in late May. We shall see. I guess the ultimate decision is now do I crack open another book....or another beer?

 

[matt267 PE]

Fox, did bing pass?

 

[knight1fox3]

Fox, did bing pass?

Despite his negative recap, yes he did in fact end up passing.

 

[P-E]

The obvious answer is : another beer.

 

[Foozballd53]

Took the Civil/Transpo Depth. Morning session was not what I expected at all. Thought that at least 30% of the session involved concepts that required more than a "breadth" knowledge of civil engineering. I still think I did "ok" but it wasn't anything like the practice exams I took (lindeburg, goswami, ncees and mikes morning). On the problems I didn't know - coming up with an answer was more about eliminating wrong answers. Scouring the CERM for clues on the right one was near impossible.

I'd be curious to see what geotech and water resources folks thought of the morning, as just about everyone I talked to was pretty frustrated after the morning except for one of my buddies who now specializes in WR/Geotech.

As for the afternoon, I think I did pretty well - but I would say being familiar with the resources (Green Book, MUTCD, HCM and Roadside Design Guide) was a necessity. The problems were not easy, but at least coming up with a confident answer was possible if you knew where to look, whereas in the morning I was convinced at times that NCEES was making up words.

Also had a guy with a leaf blower during the morning. Pretty sure he duct taped it on and left it right outside the window while he took a 45 minute poop break... Just glad i had earplugs.

 

[matt267 PE]

Fooz,

I was a WRE depth and I agree with you that the morning seemed to have some unexpected questions.

Edit:

It's somewhat comforting to know that I'm not the only one to have trouble in the AM. Hopefully this helps the bell curve in our favor.

 

[John QPE]

What do they say? If you feel you didn't do well in the AM, you definitely **** the bed in the PM?

Better start studying now guys.

 

[louisianapipeline]

Good Morning Friends,

This was my second time taking the Civil exam. Last April I took the Construction depth after someone suggested it to me for my line of work, and I did very poor. I scored around 58% and did worse in the afternoon. For that exam I studied around 40 hours of lecture (Testmasters On-Demand), and about 20 hours of problems (two practice test). I was not heavily invested as I went offshore quite a bit during this time.

After the exam was worried sick for a month. I knew in my heart the only way I could have passed was from the grace of God. Basically Divine intervention. I failed of course, which did not surprise me. It was difficult.

I took the advice of many folks on the EB and switched to Water Resources. (I do some pipeline design). I also went the route of doing EET's review with Dr. Nazrul. It was the best study experience I've ever had.

His depth review was phenomenal.

During the morning sessions, I finished with about 30-40mins left, and checked my work. I found an error and changed it. I also was able to go through to count what I felt strong about. Here was my break down:

30 Questions - I felt comfortable I got right or knew how to work
6 Questions - I was able to remove 1-2 answers from to guess
4 Questions - I guessed outright

Not a bad breakdown. I felt pretty good at lunch.

During the afternoon It was relatively similar.

30-32 Questions - I felt comfortable with

4 Questions - I removed two choices and guessed

4 Questions - I had to throw out a hail mary answer

I had about 15mins left in the afternoon, and again checked my work and used the time to try and find any reference in my CERM.

I left the exam happy, satisfied. I reviewed the Test Masters morning classes, which helped. I put in close to 300-400 hours since mid-july. I likely worked 500-600 problems, and did a very accurate simulated exam the week prior to really pin point my strong points.

The questions were tough, but luckily I was able to find a lot of the critical thinking questions in my notes from one of the exam reviews.

I never want to feel confident and overlook, but I feel good and am excited to see the results. Here's to praying still!

I do want to give another thanks to Dr. Nazrul (very accurate review) and the EB guys. (NJMike, Ram, etc) Your support and comments after my defeat last April helped a lot. I hope to rejoice this time.

Side Note: Saturday I was beyond sloshed.

 

[Ramnares P.E.]

All the best louisianapipeline. Hope you passed this time around!

 

[maryannette]

I hope you passed, pipeline. Your preparation this time sounds very similar to my prep when I passed. Praying for good results!

 

[louisianapipeline]

Thank you! Saint Joseph of Cupertino may be tired of me chatting with him. Ha.

 

[gb25]

Good afternoon you guys,

This was my third run at the Civil/Construction exam. Compared to the last two times the morning was a lot tougher and the afternoon a lot easier in my opinion.

My breakdown for the exam would be something along these lines

Morning: 23 (feel good about)

8 (50/50 I was able to narrow down to two answers and picked the one that made the most sense)

9 (outright guess)

Afternoon: 34 (feel damn good about)

3 (50/50)

3 (outright guess)

I studied over 180 hours and did somewhere around 850 problems including 5 practice exams ( scoring between 75 - 90 on each). I feel I would have felt better in the morning but midway through I had a group of proctor's camp beside my desk and would not shut up talking ( I know I should have brought ear plugs). Having that distraction really threw off my concentration and I know I slipped up on some.

The EET class notes helped a great deal in the afternoon though, I was done with the afternoon section with an hour and a half to go ( at that point I was pretty numb ) I tried to go through and research the ones I guessed but ended up not having much success.

Afterwards I proceeded to go to the Hotel bar chug 2 beers then went and took a shower. I then proceeded with more heavy consumption of alcohol on a very slow bar crawl. I spent the rest of the weekend trying not to think about the exam much and just resting.

 

[maryannette]

Sounds like you're good, gb25. I hope so.

 

[Ramnares P.E.]

If the proctors weren't talking about something exam specific I would have definitely politely asked them to shut the hell up.

 

[DontStopBelieving]

Anyone on here take HVAC afternoon? I'd love to hear your thoughts

I took the HVAC afternoon... #Challenge. Was mad about electrical question showing up on the PM section though. I had to guess on about 4 or 5. Heat transfer problems took me for a loop. Who calculates composite wall systems by hand anyways????

 

[NJmike PE]

Took the Civil/Transpo Depth. Morning session was not what I expected at all. Thought that at least 30% of the session involved concepts that required more than a "breadth" knowledge of civil engineering. I still think I did "ok" but it wasn't anything like the practice exams I took (lindeburg, goswami, ncees and mikes morning). On the problems I didn't know - coming up with an answer was more about eliminating wrong answers. Scouring the CERM for clues on the right one was near impossible.

I'd be curious to see what geotech and water resources folks thought of the morning, as just about everyone I talked to was pretty frustrated after the morning except for one of my buddies who now specializes in WR/Geotech.

As for the afternoon, I think I did pretty well - but I would say being familiar with the resources (Green Book, MUTCD, HCM and Roadside Design Guide) was a necessity. The problems were not easy, but at least coming up with a confident answer was possible if you knew where to look, whereas in the morning I was convinced at times that NCEES was making up words.

Also had a guy with a leaf blower during the morning. Pretty sure he duct taped it on and left it right outside the window while he took a 45 minute poop break... Just glad i had earplugs.

Fooz,

I was a WRE depth and I agree with you that the morning seemed to have some unexpected questions.

Edit:

It's somewhat comforting to know that I'm not the only one to have trouble in the AM. Hopefully this helps the bell curve in our favor.

so you're saying that the cut score will be low then?