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davab said:
Also, after a long day at work,  I am barely putting 2 hours each night and extra hours on the weekends. I am worried that I am not studying enough for this April's tests. What were your study routines like for those of you who passed?
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That same worry persisted for me right up until the exam.  Remember to breathe every now-and-again--you still have about three months of productive study left.  

I studied about 10 hours a week on average, but was able to drag it out over 9 months.  That's just what my schedule permitted from a work and personal standpoint.  The rule-of-thumb that others have suggested in the past is that "adequate" study will amount to about 300 hours for the 16-hour exam.  Your results may vary, of course.  

Agreed with Titleistguy that at this point, working problems and making annotations along the way is a sound approach.  Practice exams are helpful to identify areas of weakness, as well as to get comfortable with the constructed response problems.  You can then go back to the codes to brush-up the weak areas.  I think I took one practice exam about 6 weeks out as a diagnostic, which allowed time for brushing-up on problems I missed.  I took a second practice exam 2 weeks out, to catch any last-minute points that remained.

Best of luck to you, and keep breathing!   

 
The AEI binder/lectures is good in that it points out some more subtle parts of the code that can be easily overlooked during the test. I used the AEI binder to go through and add notes and highlights to my code books as I was more comfortable with finding most of the material in the code books. I only went to the AEI binder when I knew there was an example problem similar to something on the exam that I could reference to for all of the steps. So for me, I spent time to make sure I could reliably find everything I needed in the codes, and mainly used them during the test. I know others have said they used the binder for 90% of the test. 

 
Thanks everyone for your thoughtful responses. Yes, I will remember to breath... Focus on AEI binder for now... and test problems!

When I registered for both exams and spent $1000 on the registration fee, I thought, "of course I can do it if I was able to pass CA PE with one try."

But wait.... I have a 5 month old baby now and started my own practice last year... Crap. I will make sure to breath before I suffocate!!

 
The SE is not easy to get.  But the journey is worth it.  There are fist time passers and 5th time passers on this site.  And what's cool is there isn't any way to know the difference once you accomplish it.  So study hard, don't be afraid to fail, and your baby is only a baby once make sure you don't miss out on those moments to work problems.  The SE will always be there waiting.  Lol.  

 
This is my take. 
 

I would take both days at once. It is A LOT but there is a key component to this test that doesn’t seem to be talked about, luck. If you take them both, you may get lucky and get an easier exam.  What if you decide to take only vertical, and that cycle has a lateral passing rate above 60%?  To me that was worth the chance.  Also, some states offer a slight discount to take them both at the same time (Illinois did). 
 

For classes, I did both PPI and AEI (formerly EET).  I failed after taking the PPI but passed after AEI.  I would recommend AEI by far.  The PPI one includes a lot of books (including the STERM) which is nice.   

That being said, it is not in the same universe as AEI. The binder alone that AEI mails you, is incredible for morning problems.  Especially for us bridge people that are at an extreme disadvantage on the heavily lopsided morning.  The binder has pretty much everything we would need for the building portion in addition to the codes.  The instructors are great, thorough, and responsive.  I actually still can email them now if I have a question on something and they get right back to me.

For books, obviously bring the codes and know them in and out.  Make sure to have the edition specified, NCEES likes to hit you with things that changed.  It’s a cop out and not very practical if you ask me, but that is another subject.  
 

Other than codes, bring the NCEES practice exam, the AEI binder (if you decide to go that route), the STERM (it is really only good for vertical, it’s worthless for lateral.), the laminated Codemasters, the the masonry TEK’s, maybe an old structural analysis textbook, any other practice exams, and hand notes.  Other books you can bring, but you probably won’t have time to use them. 
 

One thing I did that was extremely useful was to create step-by-step notes for specific things. For example, for the afternoon Lateral bridge column problem, I had every step you can have for circular or rectangular columns in seismic zone 4 and all of their checks.  This will really help you learn the topic and will speed things up significantly for afternoon portion.  

I apologize it was so long, but I think I covered everything.  
 

Good luck.  I can tell you that it feels wonderful to see those ACCEPTABLES on your dashboard. 

 
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That is a great advice jmm7200. 

For STERM, what edition would be acceptable?

I guess it is much like being a coach of a football team. I need a playbook for every play!!

 
davab said:
That is a great advice jmm7200. 

For STERM, what edition would be acceptable?

I guess it is much like being a coach of a football team. I need a playbook for every play!!
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For the STERM, the latest edition would be best, but it is very expensive.  You could probably use an edition or two older, just make sure whatever code that has changed you go through and update any changes that may have occurred.  I am almost positive that the 8th edition references the same codes as the 9th edition, which is what the current NCEES SE specification.  The 8th edition is much cheaper.  

 
jmm7200 said:
For the STERM, the latest edition would be best, but it is very expensive.  You could probably use an edition or two older, just make sure whatever code that has changed you go through and update any changes that may have occurred.  I am almost positive that the 8th edition references the same codes as the 9th edition, which is what the current NCEES SE specification.  The 8th edition is much cheaper.  
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Many codes got updated between the 8th and 9th edition including AASHTO, ACI, NDS, IBC and TMS. I would highly suggest spending some extra $$ and getting the 9th edition. It will be very helpful for concrete as well due to the whole reorganization of ACI 318-14.

 
STERM = SERM? If not, what is it?

i.e., SE Structural Engineering Reference Manual by Alan Williams.

 
TheLoneStarEngineer said:
Many codes got updated between the 8th and 9th edition including AASHTO, ACI, NDS, IBC and TMS. I would highly suggest spending some extra $$ and getting the 9th edition. It will be very helpful for concrete as well due to the whole reorganization of ACI 318-14.
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That is good to know.  I was thinking that since the SE specs have not really changed in a while, that the 8th edition was relatively current.    

 
The 9th edition seems to have a lot more materials, and is up to date with the current codes for April 2020. I was able to find a good deal on eBay but yeah, expensive stuff especially when there's many other expenses to this exam.

 
vhab49_PE said:
I have a source.... I'm willing to exploit them.   :) HAHHAHAHHAHA

Also, work pays for exam, but I'd be awful glad to not have to pay the emotional toll again.
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message me your email

 
vhab49_PE said:
My biggest amount of heartburn comes from the AASHTO current edition, since my office has a 6th, and is buying an 8th, but we don't do a lot of bridges, so I'm not sure if they are willing to buy a 7th also. And that is a darn pricy code.
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I went into the exam with the 6th edition and notes from EET and managed to pass - I think you would be OK as long as you aren't doing the bridge exam (sounds like you aren't).

 
vhab49_PE said:
My biggest amount of heartburn comes from the AASHTO current edition, since my office has a 6th, and is buying an 8th, but we don't do a lot of bridges, so I'm not sure if they are willing to buy a 7th also. And that is a darn pricy code.
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There are not a whole lot of significant changes between the 6th and 7th edition.

The biggest one I can think of off the top of my head is the steel resistance factor for tension only went from 0.9 to 0.95.  David Conner’s book, I believe, highlights all of the changes.  This is a must have book for both building and bridge people.

There are significant changes between 7th and 8th.  So if you have to choose between 6th and 8th, go with 6th. 

 

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