PE Civil Design Standards: What Do You REALLY Need?

[Alderson163]

I'm preparing for the April '14 PE Civil exam and would appreciate advice regarding the need (or not) to purchase the NCEES-recommended design standards. I'm sitting the Construction PM depth exam and figure I'll definitely need the standards for this. What I'm less sure about is the need for the AM breadth exam. Can anyone advise on this? Most of the info. on the web seems to be sales-driven with lots of strong suggestions that candidates buy everything...part of me wonders if this is a somewhat cynical marketing ploy to maximize sales of reference materials. Is it credible to attempt the AM breadth armed just with CERM and other broad reference materials, or are design standards necessary?

 

[ptatohed]

You will need absolutely no standards at all for the AM.

 

[Lomarandil]

Agreed... I might have used my steel book a few times in the AM, but that was because I'm more familiar with it than with the CERM for things like beam deflection equations.

 

[palvarez83]

I'm preparing for the April '14 PE Civil exam and would appreciate advice regarding the need (or not) to purchase the NCEES-recommended design standards. I'm sitting the Construction PM depth exam and figure I'll definitely need the standards for this. What I'm less sure about is the need for the AM breadth exam. Can anyone advise on this? Most of the info. on the web seems to be sales-driven with lots of strong suggestions that candidates buy everything...part of me wonders if this is a somewhat cynical marketing ploy to maximize sales of reference materials. Is it credible to attempt the AM breadth armed just with CERM and other broad reference materials, or are design standards necessary?

I'll admit, I didn't purchase any of them. I had most, but found them as pdf's online using google search and printed them. I referenced several of them in the afternoon. Depends on your depth section, but I had to use the ACI 318 and OSHA handbook a few times for construction depth. I think you can get most of them using CERM (enough to pass), but not a perfect score.

 

[desantmf]

Yes, for the AM you are not required to have any design standards. You just need to know the basic formulas for each module/section that NCEES calls out. The CERM covers all the AM parts, you just need to tab out the sections because the CERM also covers a lot of what you don't need too. But it is recommended to buy or acquire all the design standards for the PM portions.