PE Civil , First Session
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Ken PE 3.1
It's wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man
I have seen many people who were confident going into the exam but never have I seen someone who thiught they will pass the AM section just because they went to college.
That test is the FE, not the PE.
That test is the FE, not the PE.
ptatohed
Licenced to Spell
To this day, I still don't know how I passed the FE. I signed up for it and took the exam (and passed) basically after doing my general education classes (Jr. College) and before most of my engineering classes (University).
Ken PE 3.1
It's wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man
Passing the FE out of school and thinking the PE is a cake walk in the morning are completely different animals. At least it was to me. Maybe civil is different for the AM.
My intent isn't to undersell the test difficulty, I genuinely want people to be overprepared for the PE and breeze through it, but I've made this argument in other threads. Just the way the Civil PE exam is set up, there are 5 different "areas" structural, geotech, water resource, construction, transportation that have essentially no correlation between them. In general, any practicing Civil only does one of those areas or at most 1.5, meaning the other 4 are untouched and our only knowledge/exposure was 1 or maybe 2 college classes. The test makers understand this... sort of, and so they tailor the Civil AM difficulty to somewhat represent a test in which you have no experience or exposure with 80% of the AM questions...
The result is exactly what you think it would be: An exam whose intent is to test things you know nothing about, has its difficulty skewed so that you can answer questions that you know nothing about.
The result is exactly what you think it would be: An exam whose intent is to test things you know nothing about, has its difficulty skewed so that you can answer questions that you know nothing about.
For the record, I did think the afternoon portion was relatively difficult. I'm sure I underprepared for that aspect of the exam (even though I spent essentially all of my limited studying on that portion). I passed so that's all that matters, but I'm guessing my AM grade helped offset a more mediocre PM grade in my case.
But that's why I think the OP is on the right track. I'd recommend taking a practice exam to make sure you are relatively fluent in the layout of the CERM, but otherwise focus your studying time on the PM portion of the exam. In the AM, the test makers expect you to know virtually nothing about the material. However, for the PM portion of the civil, the test makers (presumably) expect you to have some understanding and exposure to the material... and the questions reflect that I think.
Anyways, good luck to those taking it tomorrow.
But that's why I think the OP is on the right track. I'd recommend taking a practice exam to make sure you are relatively fluent in the layout of the CERM, but otherwise focus your studying time on the PM portion of the exam. In the AM, the test makers expect you to know virtually nothing about the material. However, for the PM portion of the civil, the test makers (presumably) expect you to have some understanding and exposure to the material... and the questions reflect that I think.
Anyways, good luck to those taking it tomorrow.
ptatohed
Licenced to Spell
I think the level of the exam was very close to the NCEES practice exam. Actually I didn't do bad in the exam, I was able to solve most of the questions in the morning section except questions related to hydraulics and hydrology since I wasn't good at these topics in undergrad. Afternoon questions were easy, but some of them took more than 6 min. so at the end I ran out of time.
Spaghetti_PE
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I'll mark that in my win column.
ptatohed
Licenced to Spell
Why? That wouldn't make sense unless Shaltoof passes. If he passes, I'll be happy to say that you were right and I was wrong. If he doesn't pass, I won't say "I told you so" (but I'll think it
)SeminolePE
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lobsters :blink:
Guys my result is out and I PASSED . I was worried thinking about doing it again but thankfully I passed from first try. :thankyou: Thank you all guys, this website was really helpful for my preparation and I enjoyed the trolling while waiting for the results.
. I was worried thinking about doing it again but thankfully I passed from first try. :thankyou: Thank you all guys, this website was really helpful for my preparation and I enjoyed the trolling while waiting for the results. Spaghetti_PE
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Congratulations Shaltoof. I hope Shaltoof's experience helps out other people in the future that are wondering how much time/effort they have to put into preparing for the civil PE exam. Yes it should be taken seriously and one should study in earnest. No, its not exceedingly difficult if you put some effort into preparing. No, not EVERYBODY needs a thousand dollar review course and a box full of books and 300+ hours of studying. If that is what YOU need then more power to you, but don't try to scare other people off or build yourself up by exaggeration. There is a tendency in this forum to upsell the difficulty and I think that is unfortunate. I knew this kid would pass, because he sounded at least half-intelligent and at least somewhat academically-inclined. People like that are probably qualified to be engineers and aren't likely to be weeded out by NCEES.
ptatohed
Licenced to Spell
Very nice. Congrats.
gpoli111
PE
I'm bumping this thread to agree that you can get by with no studying and the CERM alone in the AM. I didn't study for the AM at all, used only the CERM as a reference and scored a 32/40. We'll see how the actual test goes in a week of course. But I found the PM to be much more complex (28/40 here) and chose to study harder on the structural PM topics.
