Hello everyone,
I found this thread extremely helpful while preparing for Environmental CBT. I gave it last Thursday, however found out that I did not pass today. I felt the exam was not that hard. For me The first part was easier than the second and I found the qualitative questions fairly easy. I got really stuck in about 10-15 questions in the second part of the exam and that really threw me off. For preparation, I mainly used the PPI Schneiter practice problems and practice exams and the NCEES sample exam. Iam looking for advice on strategies to crack it the second time round? Should i take a School of PE course to get access to more questions. Would really appreciate any suggestions. Thanks again!!
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Hi there , Env01, sorry to hear you did not pass. I also failed on my first try, gave myself a few months before starting to study again, took it again and I passed! The qualitative questions are extremely hard to study for. Most of them, unfortunately, you either know it based on experience or you don’t. I spent a lot of time reading the EERM, water/wastewater and air pollution text books, reading through EPA Title 40 Regulations (I read the sections pertaining to water, air, solid and hazardous waste) and I still had a hard time with the qualitative questions. There is so much information you have to remember as it is that even if you read about it, you might not remember it on test day!
I think the key to passing is being extremely comfortable with the quantitative problems - solve as many problems as you possibly can, do multiple practice exams and become an expert in navigating the handbook. If you can do really well on those (I mean really really well), you will likely still pass even with getting a number of the qualitative problems wrong. For the qualitative questions, I had some “freebies”, a few I could make a good educated guess on based on eliminating answers I knew were definitely wrong and then others I literally chose whatever sounded the nicest because I just had no idea.
Also, you should always remember you’re not going to be able to know absolutely everything and should focus on your strong areas. Based on your post and looking at your diagnostic, you’re much more comfortable with the water, wastewater and air portion of the exam - use this to your advantage, study this until you can do all these problems forward and backwards, the better you do in the morning the more leeway you’ll have with the items you struggle with. After you’ve mastered the morning topics, start with an afternoon topic you find more interesting (easier to learn) and try to learn it really well, then move to the next one and the next one, this helps build up your confidence in those topics. My last topic of choice was the associated engineering portion because I HATE probability/statistics and engineering economics so I did not want to waste too much time on it because those topics discourage me and don’t even have that many questions on the exam. Focus on topics that will give you the most points!
I’ll probably write a more detailed post about my study plan and experience on the other CBT thread later. Reading through everyone’s experience and general feedback was really helpful and encouraging.
One last thing - I highly recommend creating a study plan (or use PPIs learning hub, it’s awesome) to keep yourself accountable, study hard and you’ll pass it next time!!! Best of luck!
