hello there, I am enrolled to give PE civil/ with water resources, along with CA seismic and surveying. I could not seriously start my study due to work commitments. can someone please help me, as to how to make use of the two months left to pass the exam. I am concerned about morning session, but do not want to waste too much time studying un necessary topics either. any recommendations.
I passed the civil/WR exam last April in FL and my advice is to just work problems, focusing mainly on the AM section. The AM problems are usually more straightforward than the PM problems. Because of this, you can do really well on this section and relax for the PM. You should have an outline in the CERM for what to study but here is a breakdown:
AM:
1. Construction: 8 problems, relatively easy so they try to trick you. You probably won't need any references for this section.
2. Geotech: 8 problems, focusing on retaining walls, shallow foundation design and soil classification.
3. Transportation: 8 problems, focusing on geometric design.
4. Structural: 8 problems, focusing on loadings, shear and bending moment diagrams.
5. WR/E: 8 problems, focusing on open channel and closed conduit flow. You probably won't see any environmental questions here.
PM:
1. WR: 20 problems. Focus on bernoulli equation, open channel and closed conduit. Questions are a little more involved than AM
2. ENV: 19 problems. Most are just drawn out unit conversions. A few are straight lookup.
3. Eng. Econ.: 1 problem. Nothing too hard here as long as you know how to use a cash flow diagram and the charts in the appendix of the CERM.
Another note, the questions are grouped together by section. You can probably get by with one week for each of the breadth sections and then 2 weeks for the depth, then use a week to review everything. Two months is not really enough time to do a thorough review but I bet it's been done by someone successfully.