October 2017 Construction Exam
- Thread starter mklee1986
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I thought this exam (my second attempt) was easier than the April exam. I can't giv away specifics about the exam due to NCEES rules, but I'm kicking myself for missing some word/theory/basic knowledge problems that I later found in my references - ugh.... And you are correct, there were some curveballs to see if you know the subject matter or took the time to thoroughly read the question. A simple geotech question nearly got me until I realized my mistake due to rushing. I felt more confident and less stressed on this attempt. If I take it again, I'm adding a couple of reference books that likely would have saved me on a couple of questions. Good luck to all of you.
Civil By Day
Well-known member
Second attempt here as well. Very theory heavy, very reference heavy. I spent a fortune on the additional references this time around and I am SO glad I did. Tricky stuff, but in the morning I went through and had about 5 that I wild-ass-guessed on. Afternoon maybe upwards of 10, can't really recall. But again, the trickery is real with this exam so who knows if I missed necessary details in my anxiety.
But I was running out of space in my cart as I was organizing the night before, pulled out some books I hadn't used too much for reference and then worked the NCEES practice exam one more time. The Construction Planning and Methods book was referenced a lot in that exam so I threw it back in my cart and took out two other references (that fortunately I did not actually need). Thank god I threw it back in because there were at least two gimme answers in that reference. I just hope I did enough to get by. I feel better this time around than the last, but what does that really mean? And now we wait...
Agreed with you Civil By Day. I did the same thing the morning of the exam. I threw in a old reference textbook just because I had space. It saved me on a couple questions. I guessed on about 5 or six questions too.
youngmotivatedengineer
Well-known member
I upgraded to large luggage cart because my crate was way too heavy last time, before adding some additional binders and had plenty of room to spare. Went into the the exam pretty confident, not really sure what to think afterwards. The exam was deffinately strong on theory and trickery. At first look the numerical problems seemed either easy and straightforward, or "what is this crap?" I felt like the areas where I improved on from April and that I felt really good about getting correct this time, had major curveballs added to it.
Civil By Day
Well-known member
I completely agree! I definitely had that moment of thinking, "well, I worked a lot more problems, practice exams and studied more references this time around, maybe that's why they seem too easy?" but let's be real, I probably missed some important info and that's why I thought it was easy... the waiting game isn't as killer this time around just because the devastation minimizes over time. I survived failing once, I know I can survive it again. My only issue will be figuring out what more I would need to do to get this thing in the bag. But I literally followed the previous thread about the person who passed Construction Depth first time around to a tee and I definitely know why I didn't pass the first time. This time I worked SO many foundation/geotech/structure/means and methods problems that it almost felt like they couldn't throw anything at me I hadn't seen. And yet, they did. The theory can be killer.
This was my 2nd time around taking the exam, first was last April. I truly felt the construction depth on this exam was very dumbed down compared to last April. Many problems from last April were more 2 to 3 step problems and majority of October depth were conceptual or 1 step problems. Talking with other disciplines it seemed the level of difficulty got harder, however certainly not construction. When I got through 30 problems with almost 2 hours remaining, I was asking myself, "is this really it?" Let's just say taking the EET class was the best thing I ever did for the exam. Samir's simulation exam was way more difficult than what the board put together for October 17 Construction. Good luck everyone.
@schedengr, did you have any useful resources or practice exams other than eet? I took EET as well, but I still felt like some of the conceptual and other questions were still tricky.
Agree 100% - this exam was more straightforward. Additionally, EET was great. I wonder if the very low percentage of persons passing construction depth in the past (usually the lowest % of any discipline) prompted NCEES to review the difficulty level?
That's a very tough question, as the NCEES scoring policy seems complicated and really involved, with stats people and testing professionals analyzing results. I am fairly confident I got 60/80 for sure, and hopefully guessed at least 25% of the rest correctly.
Spot on jdayrail. I definitely think the board observed the low passing score with the construction depth in the past and made the October '17 much easier. I am about the same as you with being confident of about 60/80 and close on others.
As good as EET is, they can't cover everything. In addition to EET last April, I also took The Ultimate Civil Engineer PE Review by Isaac. He doesn't get into theory much - it's more of practice problems - tons of them and a couple of great practice exams, and it helped very much. Some of the questions just plain require experience. Had I not had a hands-on geotech and materials testing background, I would have been guessing at some of those, as none of my references covered specifics of materials testing.
