PM Geotech

[LakersFreak]

So Lady's and Gentlemen, whats a good environmental / civil dictionary. besides can someone tell me why we need them? Aren't the enviro questions calcs??? Or are they vocabulary question?? IM LOST and only 5 weeks left!!!!!

 

[Anthony]

Does anyone know from previously taking the exam if the NCEES practice problems for the afternoon Geotech module is of the same complexity as the real thing? How does the Lindeburg sample exam and six minute problems compare? Thanks for your reply.

 

[Guest]

^^^ I haven't personally taken the Geotech Depth Section but my friends that did take it had prepared for the exam using Six-Minute Solutions and NCEES Civil PE Practice Exam. They still exclaimed that it was difficult. Each of them indicated that the morning sesison went well (e.g. was able to answer 30-35 questions easily) but come the afternoon they were only able to confidently answer 15-20 questions.

FWIW - I think the battle for the exam is really waged in the morning. I have found that the afternoon just kinda of works itself out.

JR

 

[GTScott]

The sample NCEES exam that I have was not nearly as difficult as the exam. While the material type was greatly different, the difficulty level of the Lindberg exam was a bit more on par with what I took last October.

 

[bks]

^^^ I haven't personally taken the Geotech Depth Section but my friends that did take it had prepared for the exam using Six-Minute Solutions and NCEES Civil PE Practice Exam. They still exclaimed that it was difficult. Each of them indicated that the morning sesison went well (e.g. was able to answer 30-35 questions easily) but come the afternoon they were only able to confidently answer 15-20 questions.
FWIW - I think the battle for the exam is really waged in the morning. I have found that the afternoon just kinda of works itself out.

JR

JR,

Just curious, did your friends pass even answering correctly only 15 to 20 questions in the PM and 30 to 35 in the AM ? Would appreciate your reply.

Thanks,

BKS

 

[Guest]

^^^ I have had two friends take the Geotech depth section. Both of those friends passed the exam on the first try with the feeling that they excelled in the AM but felt unconfident of the PM results. They had both encouraged me to take the Geotech PM because the bulk of my graduate studies are in soil mechanics. However, I felt more comfortable with the Env/WR topics, so I eventually chose to prepare for WR as my depth subject.

FWIW, I believe that if you put a fair amount of time into understanding the different stages for how problems are solved then you will do okay. When you take this exam you will find some problems are easy, so easy that you will be saying .. no way they would post that as a problem - there must be a trick! Other problems you will look at and say ... why in the hell would they ask me that? Why would anybody ask me to solve for that?

I was able to take this exam without any preparation and only a few references and score 69 on the first attempt (back when they provided the score). IMHO, many of us possess the knowledge and skills to solve those problems - I feel as if 80% of my ability to pass the exam was innate and the other 20% was pulled together during my study periods. It is difficult for anyone to just walk into the exam without proper ORGANIZATION or PREPARATION necessary to resolve the breadth of problems you may encounter. For myself, I eventually had to put in solid time towards preparing for the exam, especially with respect to two subject areas I knew little about - structural and transportation. I swallowed hard, bit my tongue, and finally mustered an effort worth of passing.

I hope you find these words something of a comfort and also encouraging. It is tough walking into the unknown, but I will tell you this - if you have been studying and organizing yourself you are doing your best. That is the most anyone can expect of themselves. :true:

Best of luck!

JR

 

[GTScott]

If you are taking the Geotech PM, drop me a msg with your e-mail address. I will upload some of my afternoon PDF references for you if you want them. I just ran across the DVD with them a few minutes ago.

-GT

 

[mano]

If you are taking the Geotech PM, drop me a msg with your e-mail address. I will upload some of my afternoon PDF references for you if you want them. I just ran across the DVD with them a few minutes ago.
-GT

PLEASE send it to me too .. to: [email protected]

 

[Anthony]

I recently read a post from someone on "the other board" which basically scared me to death about the PM Geotech. I have a MS in Geotech so that is the test I had been planning to take. However, the individual posting states that all of the sample exams, 6 minute books, etc. are MUCH easier than the actual exam. Has anyone else found this to be true? Any insight on areas to focus on when studying, aside from those shown in 6-minutes?
I am a bit rusty on my seismic so I plan to start there.

Also, a general PM question....all of the samples I have looked at had 40 Geotech problems in the afternoon. Am I likely to see a straight Structural/ENV/TRANS problem in the afternoon? If so, are these typically of increased difficulty over those from the AM?

Thanks!

GT

I took the geotech exam last fall and thought the exam was much harder than the 6 minute problems and "the other board" problems. I neglected seismic design (other than loking at the basics) thinking there would not be much of that. Big mistake! There were probably 3 or 4 seismic problems that I really had no idea on how to solve. I ended up flipping through the transpo depth at the end of the exam and wished I had taken that part. Here I sit six months later preparing to take the traspo module. Being you have a MS in geotech you might do just fine, but I only had two classes in undergrad and that was not near enough. Just my two cents.

 

[Guest]

Here I sit six months later preparing to take the traspo module. Being you have a MS in geotech you might do just fine, but I only had two classes in undergrad and that was not near enough. Just my two cents.

You are probably right in you assessment for what it takes to pass the Geotech Depth section.

Good luck passing the exam this time!

JR

 

[luke75]

If you are taking the Geotech PM, drop me a msg with your e-mail address. I will upload some of my afternoon PDF references for you if you want them. I just ran across the DVD with them a few minutes ago.
-GT

Please send them to me if you can. My email is: [email protected]. Thank you.

 

[k33]

If you are taking the Geotech PM, drop me a msg with your e-mail address. I will upload some of my afternoon PDF references for you if you want them. I just ran across the DVD with them a few minutes ago.
-GT

Hi,

I am planning to take PE Exam (geotech) for the first time (I am working abroad now). I will appreciate if you can send me those references too. Thanks,, [email protected]

 

[bcpmiteam]

I took the geotech in Apr of 2008 and it really wasn't that bad. I took 2 courses in my undergrad and I am not a geotechnical engineer. I did all 100 6 minute solution problems, the new NCEES sample exam, the "the other board" sample exam, and used the "the other board" passing zone (a big help). I think I may only of missed 10-14 at the most.

The NCEES 'syllabus' is very accurate...organize your practice problems in an index format using the "syllabus" as a strict guide...you won't go wrong. Oh, and get the 35 dollar OSHA manual!

Good luck....it is passable and not "out of this world difficult" at the "other board" states...

 

[sehad]

I took the geotech in Apr of 2008 and it really wasn't that bad. I took 2 courses in my undergrad and I am not a geotechnical engineer. I did all 100 6 minute solution problems, the new NCEES sample exam, the "the other board" sample exam, and used the "the other board" passing zone (a big help). I think I may only of missed 10-14 at the most.
The NCEES 'syllabus' is very accurate...organize your practice problems in an index format using the "syllabus" as a strict guide...you won't go wrong. Oh, and get the 35 dollar OSHA manual!

Good luck....it is passable and not "out of this world difficult" at the "other board" states...

I agree with bcpmiteam. I gook the Geotech in April and passed on the first attempt. I run a Project Engineer's office and do ZERO design work on anything. I printed out NCEES's syllabus and made sure that I had adequate text books to cover all the materials. I only took 2 other books with me besides the CERM and both of them were from the two foundation classes I had in college. It's not about how many references you have, it's about if you have the RIGHT references to cover what NCEES says is going to be on the exam.

Oh, a good point to Geotech is that there are no codes that are constantly updating!

 

[buckbno]

Did anyone use the modules from ASCE to prepare for the PE. Was it worth the investment?

 

[MC_Engineer]

Hello,

I passed the 2008 April Civil Geotech depth to my surprise. I was demoralized and thought for sure I had failed since I ran out of time and had to flat out guess on about 8 problems

If you are still deciding between depth modules, I recommend Water/Enviro. Geotech is full of complicated subjects that don't necessarily relate to one another and are not covered well in breadth prep. Also, while I'm sure all the depth modules require the use of some engineering judgment, it seems like Geotech is riddled with instances where you have to know when to be conservative beyond the acceptable approach outlined.

If you must take Geotech though, I found Das Fundamentals of Geotech engineering to be very very helpful. In addition to that, I became a community borrower and raided the univeristy's engineering library for texts on everything not covered in Das. Here's the list of Geotech references I took in:

DAS Fund of Geotech 2nd

Geotechnical Materials In Construction 1996 (Rollings & Rollings)

Groundwater Lowering In Construction 2001 (Cashman)

Handbook of Temporary Structures In Construction 1984 (Ratay)

Fundamentals of Earthquake Resistant Construction 1993 (Krinitzsky)

Engineering Principles of Ground Modification 1990 (Hausmann)

Geotechnical Engineering of Embankment Dams 1992 (Fell, MacGregor)

Practical Dam Analysis 1999 (Herzog)

Geotechnical earthquake engineering / Steven L. Kramer 1996

Seismic Design of Bldg. & Structures

They all got used during the exam and all yielded helpful information. I'm sure each one was worth a problem that I would have had to guess on otherwise.

The university had even more and more useful Geotech texts available but someone beat me to those. If I didn't read through the book, I at least tabbed the TOC, Index, and pages that contained topics on the NCEES geotech depth module list.

Spend the majority of your time preparing for depth. Breadth is cake, you just have to print out the breadth NCEES list of topics and know where to look in the CERM. Solving all the breadth 6 minute solutions seals the deal. For depth, print out the list of NCEES topics covered for your specialized discipline and delve delve delve into them. Theory, problems, 6 minute solutions, lengthy essay type problems anything you can find. You will not regret OVER-PREPARING for the depth module especially Geotech!!!

 

[jbar]

If you are taking the Geotech PM, drop me a msg with your e-mail address. I will upload some of my afternoon PDF references for you if you want them. I just ran across the DVD with them a few minutes ago.
-GT

GT, if you would please (as you find time) send your references to jbar at oz-online.net

 

[Kea_Kapono]

While it is not what you want to hear this close to the exam, I found the 6-minute solutions to be fairly unrelated topic-wise to what I saw on the exam. When reading through the 6m problems for the first time my level of confusion was much less than that of reading through the actual exam problems. I was familiar with 95% of the topics presented in the 6M and probably only 50-55% familiar with those on the exam.
That being said, I was fairly positive I had bombed it when I left and what do you know...I passed.

My advice, bring the older reference text books and not just the standard modern texts. I found that I relied heavily on some of the more basic books to get a feel for some problems.

What where your stats?

new here.

you in cali ?

pass all three?

 

[Kea_Kapono]

^^^ I have had two friends take the Geotech depth section. Both of those friends passed the exam on the first try with the feeling that they excelled in the AM but felt unconfident of the PM results. They had both encouraged me to take the Geotech PM because the bulk of my graduate studies are in soil mechanics. However, I felt more comfortable with the Env/WR topics, so I eventually chose to prepare for WR as my depth subject.
FWIW, I believe that if you put a fair amount of time into understanding the different stages for how problems are solved then you will do okay. When you take this exam you will find some problems are easy, so easy that you will be saying .. no way they would post that as a problem - there must be a trick! Other problems you will look at and say ... why in the hell would they ask me that? Why would anybody ask me to solve for that?

I was able to take this exam without any preparation and only a few references and score 69 on the first attempt (back when they provided the score). IMHO, many of us possess the knowledge and skills to solve those problems - I feel as if 80% of my ability to pass the exam was innate and the other 20% was pulled together during my study periods. It is difficult for anyone to just walk into the exam without proper ORGANIZATION or PREPARATION necessary to resolve the breadth of problems you may encounter. For myself, I eventually had to put in solid time towards preparing for the exam, especially with respect to two subject areas I knew little about - structural and transportation. I swallowed hard, bit my tongue, and finally mustered an effort worth of passing.

I hope you find these words something of a comfort and also encouraging. It is tough walking into the unknown, but I will tell you this - if you have been studying and organizing yourself you are doing your best. That is the most anyone can expect of themselves. :true:

Best of luck!

JR

I am interested

[email protected]

or

[email protected]

I will be taking the geo depth