SE April 2024

[KentBrockman]

I didn't see a thread for it, so I thought I'd make one. (I'm done with mine, but am curious to see how the April CBT version went.)

How did it go?

 

[illini8993]

Took both lateral breadth and depth - bridges in April. I had previously taken lateral October 2023 and failed. Lateral breadth felt much easier than the pen and paper multiple choice and I passed. For lateral depth exam was very tight on time and questions were difficult. Probably didn't pass lateral depth, but we will see. *Fingers Crossed*. My guess is results will come out tomorrow or Wednesday.

 

[KentBrockman]

Took both lateral breadth and depth - bridges in April. I had previously taken lateral October 2023 and failed. Lateral breadth felt much easier than the pen and paper multiple choice and I passed. For lateral depth exam was very tight on time and questions were difficult. Probably didn't pass lateral depth, but we will see. *Fingers Crossed*. My guess is results will come out tomorrow or Wednesday.

Congrats on the lateral breadth results. Have you seen the depth results yet?

There is a rumor that there is a lawsuit over the depth administration in NJ (which would explain the lack of results), but I can't find any proof of this.

 

[Reverse Polish]

Took both lateral breadth and depth - bridges in April. I had previously taken lateral October 2023 and failed. Lateral breadth felt much easier than the pen and paper multiple choice and I passed. For lateral depth exam was very tight on time and questions were difficult. Probably didn't pass lateral depth, but we will see. *Fingers Crossed*. My guess is results will come out tomorrow or Wednesday.

Congrats on passing the lateral breadth! I know you can't say *too* much, but can you describe in general terms how your experience on the CBT depth problems compared to the pencil-and-paper depth problems in 2023? Similar format? Any noticeable difference in difficulty?

 

[illini8993]

Tomorrow will be 14 weeks from the lateral exams and it sounds like results won't be posted this week either. I've heard the same rumor about a lawsuit in New Jersey and I'm starting to think it's true. If I didn't pass I'm worried it will be too close to the next test date to register and will be stuck waiting until April 2025. NCEES has already said they aren't holding seats for people who can't register again until results come out.

For the breadth I felt the questions were slightly easier than the pen and paper versions. I did fail the October 2023 lateral so I had two prep cycles for the lateral breadth. Not being able to bring examples or tabbed references sucks, but may have helped me by forcing me to really read through all references. I'm curious to see the pass rates.

 

[KentBrockman]

Pass rates and results released. Those buildings depth scores are wild.

 

[Hamilton_PE]

Pass rates and results released. Those buildings depth scores are wild.

View attachment 29099

The screen shot says that it is for October 2023. Is this October 2023 or April 2024?

 

[Reverse Polish]

The screen shot says that it is for October 2023. Is this October 2023 or April 2024?

I had the same question, but figured it had to be for April 2024... October 2023 was pencil-and-paper and did not utilize separate Breadth and Depth modules.

Those pass rates for Buildings Depth are abysmally low. Do we think it was the format, a slew of unprepared examinees, or a little bit of both?
Note that the number of Depth examinees is higher than Breadth examinees. Given that this was the first administration in the new format, perhaps there were a greater number of unprepared examinees trying to knock out the Depth before they were ready?

In any event, I'm glad that NCEES has maintained rigorous standards.

 

[Zestyclose_Bath]

Here is another typo from NCEES - the above screenshot (and the website still to-date) says the depth exams offered once per year which is incorrect. Depth exams are offered twice (Apr and Oct)

I don't think the issue was primarily due to slew of unprepared examinees. It is just hard for me to imagine that a 100+ or 200+ engineers (most probably the majority of them are already PEs) would be unprepared and waste $350 and almost a full day (for each component; vertical and lateral) to go and take an exam that is well-known to be very hard with last pass rate of 25-30% (Oct 2023 round).

How would anyone explain the fact that the same number of examinees took the breadth exams and the pass rate is like 3x that of the depth (i.e., 45% vs. 16% for the lateral, and 51% vs. 14% for the vertical)?!!! For me, that simply says there was something fundamentally wrong and/or inconsistent with the building depth components!!

Between unbookmarked references, single screen to handle full design problems of multi-story buildings with variable plans at each floor, the fact that you can only open one reference at a time, no second screen for references (everything is shown on a single 24" or 27" screen, which btw is not large enough for such task), system freezing for a few seconds multiple times while switching between references, missing dimensions in some problems, and one unscored scenario that may or may not come into your area of expertise ((for example, those who do professional steel design at work would have extra perks if two our of the five scenarios are steel design)), I would say it was a big mess!

Fortunately, I need to do this again for the vertical depth only as I was lucky enough to pass the lateral component in Oct 2023 before this whole CBT crap started!

 

[Reverse Polish]

Here is another typo from NCEES - the above screenshot (and the website still to-date) says the depth exams offered once per year which is incorrect. Depth exams are offered twice (Apr and Oct)

I don't think the issue was primarily due to slew of unprepared examinees. It is just hard for me to imagine that a 100+ or 200+ engineers (most probably the majority of them are already PEs) would be unprepared and waste $350 and almost a full day (for each component; vertical and lateral) to go and take an exam that is well-known to be very hard with last pass rate of 25-30% (Oct 2023 round).

How would anyone explain the fact that the same number of examinees took the breadth exams and the pass rate is like 3x that of the depth (i.e., 45% vs. 16% for the lateral, and 51% vs. 14% for the vertical)?!!! For me, that simply says there was something fundamentally wrong and/or inconsistent with the building depth components!!

Between unbookmarked references, single screen to handle full design problems of multi-story buildings with variable plans at each floor, the fact that you can only open one reference at a time, no second screen for references (everything is shown on a single 24" or 27" screen, which btw is not large enough for such task), system freezing for a few seconds multiple times while switching between references, missing dimensions in some problems, and one unscored scenario that may or may not come into your area of expertise ((for example, those who do professional steel design at work would have extra perks if two our of the five scenarios are steel design)), I would say it was a big mess!

Fortunately, I need to do this again for the vertical depth only as I was lucky enough to pass the lateral component in Oct 2023 before this whole CBT crap started!

Valid points. I don't know that there's a hard-and-fast answer, but I agree that it seems a bit (for lack of a better word) suspicious that pass rates were essentially cut in half for Depth in the new CBT format. It's not reasonable that passing the exam depends on technological limitations--or lack thereof.

Do they allow you scratch paper during the Depth exam on which you can sketch-out your approach to a problem? Just curious.

 

[Hamilton_PE]

Valid points. I don't know that there's a hard-and-fast answer, but I agree that it seems a bit (for lack of a better word) suspicious that pass rates were essentially cut in half for Depth in the new CBT format. It's not reasonable that passing the exam depends on technological limitations--or lack thereof.

Do they allow you scratch paper during the Depth exam on which you can sketch-out your approach to a problem? Just curious.

I know for the CBT PE exam they were given a dry erase notebook and marker. I assume the SE would be similar.