I'm looing at taking the test in October 2020 (yes a year out). As I'm going through the CERM most of the equations I've seen back in my college days but there's a lot of equations that are completely new to me. Also I haven't covered Structural cause I'm not doing the In depth of that topic and know I will have problems with it but how much should I focus in that section? Another is Transportation and I see a lot of comments saying reference this boo from the PE Depth exam book, do I get to skip the entire section if I'm not going in transportation? I've read on other forums to follow the testing guide which isn't out for OCT 2020.
PE AM Section
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john813_PE
Well-known member
Just do a bunch of problems. You won't know if you'll get some easy Structural questions in the AM or a few vague or miscellaneous topics there. You got plenty of time to study, so I would hit each section with tons of problems.
Write down the equations that are new to you. Throw them in a binder for the off chance you see a similar problem on the exam.
What problems are you doing for Transportation? I never had to reference any book other than the CERM for practice tests studying for that AM section.
Horizontal/vertical curves, SSD etc.
Write down the equations that are new to you. Throw them in a binder for the off chance you see a similar problem on the exam.
What problems are you doing for Transportation? I never had to reference any book other than the CERM for practice tests studying for that AM section.
Horizontal/vertical curves, SSD etc.
leggo PE
Straight Waffle-izer
You don't get to automatically skip the morning breadth section of structures/transportation/any other discipline, even if you're not doing the afternoon depth in that discipline. If you were to skip those questions and not answer them at all, you'd be losing out on possible points on the exam. If you were to guess on all of them, you might get some right (say, 25% of them right if you choose the same letter answer for all of the questions).
I agree with @john813. You have a lot of time before the exam in October 2020, which should give you plenty of time to visit the disciplines you're less familiar with and do lots of practice problems.
I agree with @john813. You have a lot of time before the exam in October 2020, which should give you plenty of time to visit the disciplines you're less familiar with and do lots of practice problems.
Fisherman504
4 times P.E. test taker champ
You are asking the right questions. https://ncees.org/engineering/pe/civil/ The testing specifications usually do not change much unless a new book, code or standards have been implemented. Even then, it takes a few testing cycle to change. It took a while for the Transportation depth to incorporate HCM 2016. If I remembered correctly, the last HCM (2010) was still being used for the 2017 testing cycle. As for the depth portions, if you are not taking Transportation, you really do not need all those books. Just the basic charts and data from the CERM should get you by.
As for the CERM, you probably have not encounter those equations before. That is probably why it seem new to you. There is more than one way to slice and dice a tomato, so the same equation might just be different variations of what you see. Do not let this test be that intimidating to you.
As for the CERM, you probably have not encounter those equations before. That is probably why it seem new to you. There is more than one way to slice and dice a tomato, so the same equation might just be different variations of what you see. Do not let this test be that intimidating to you.
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