So, how did the October 2013 SE go?

[kevo_55]

So, I assume that everyone survived the SE this time around.

How did it go?

Be sure not to discuss specific exam questions. The NCEES will be looking around this board!!

 

[CRNewsom]

I took a break from this one and am going to hit it again in April. To say this test and the preparation for it try ones patience is an understatement.

 

[bhenning]

This was my first attempt at the SE (I took both days). I did all of my research, and knew it was going to be one hell of an exam. I studied a ton for it, but it was even harder than I imagined. I think I have about a 50/50 shot at passing each day. Now the waiting begins.

I'm not sure if it's typical, but we had 7 people taking the exam on Friday, and 16 on Saturday. Most of the people that I spoke with on Saturday were taking the Lateral for the 2nd or 3rd time. I guess that explains why there were so many more people that day.

 

[JDstruc]

Quick background:

• California Structural Building guy, doing design work on buildings in our office. Specialty is steel buildings
  
• Studied for a little over 4 months. 3 months of weekends only, 4 weeks of weekends + weekdays after work, and then 1 full week off of work, studying the entire week during the weekdays
  
• Studied approximately 185 hours
  
• Solved ~360 SE problems TWICE, 80+ PM "parts" once (20 'big' problems), and went thru the Hiner problems once, which was 500 seismic problems
  

Rolled into the exam feeling confident, even though I could have used about 2 more weeks, ideally...and the results were:

GRAVITY Morning (multiple choice):

Nailed it. Everything seemed very straight forward. No surprises. The bridge questions were very reasonable, which was nice of them. All of my answers had a matching solution in the multiple choice selections, which is good! Of course it doesn't mean its right, but its better than not having a matching answer at all lol. Finished this one early, and felt fantastic during the break.

GRAVITY Afternoon Buildings (constructed response):

Was waaaay more difficult than I would have expected. Most of the problems were WEIRD, in my opinion...not the problem types I was expecting, except for one of them. The other 3 were...well, weird. Not normal. I scanned through the 4 problems looking for the "easy" ones first...and immediately realized none of them satisfied that criteria lol. Time was a huge factor, for sure (as I had heard from everyone). Even though the problems were weird, I felt I did a reasonable job working thru most of the questions nicely, however a few parts my solutions were questionable. Even though they looked really weird, some of the parts weren't so bad, once you really saw what they wanted, and how to achieve it...but some fo the parts were really, really weird. It sucked, imo. As time was running out, I completed the last problem with some pretty sloppy writing. I hope they don't hold it against me too much. Time was really running out fast :-/ No one finished early. After this part was over, I felt pretty devistated, as did most people around me. It was pretty brutal...

LATERAL Morning (multiple choice):

As a California structural guy, I was expecting this lateral to be a complete slam dunk....but it was actually more difficult than the Gravity morning, which really surprised me. I felt the bridge questions were more difficult/weird than I would have hoped for. I'm not a bridge guy, and many of the problems were regarding items I had not seen in my studies, at all. Bridge problems were a struggle with this one. The "building" lateral stuff was straight forward for the most part, except for probably about 5 problems. Some of the problems had very un-clear information provided, or un-clear question of what EXACTLY they were asking...I was pretty annoyed by it on at least 2 problems. It was like, I knew exactly how to solve the problem, but it wasn't clear if they were asking for THIS or asking for THAT...and unfortunately, both of the answers were listed! *facepalm* It was surprising, because usually NCEES is extremely clear as to what they are asking for, and what "given" information is provided. Some of the wording on what they were asking was really terrible, too. Like I said, I was really annoyed in these cases. But, overall, I still felt very good with the results, just not nearly as solid as the Gravity morning.

LATERAL Afternoon (constructed response):

After the brutal Gravity afternoon, I was expecting another nightmare for this PM exam. Luckily, they spared us! These problems were way more "normal", in nature. The types of problems were the types I had studied for, and felt confident with. I was extremely relieved when I looked thru the booklet at the start, ha. I pretty much nailed these problems, except for probably 1 "part" of each problem, which had a possibly questionable solution/response on my part. Even with the straight-forward problems, I still spent the entire time allowed (no one left early, as expected), altho a lot of time was spent over-providing information on the solutions that I knew extremely well. Should have probably saved that time for the last part of the last problem, which again, my sketch/detail got really sloppy as we were under the timer gun! ****. Overall, really felt great with this afternoon session, and felt even better that I was finally done with the exam!

Gravity AM: felt like an A

Gravity PM: felt like a C+

Lateral AM: felt like a B

Lateral PM: felt like a B+

combine each AM/PM part as a whole, and I'm feeling pretty good. we'll see how it goes though lol. at least the study time is OVER. now the wait begins ^^

good luck all!

 

[bassplayer45]

I felt the morning was very difficult. I am a bridge engineer and felt the bridge questions were very detailed and not broad enough for those outside the field. Plus their problem statements didn't give enough information to answer some of the questions 100% accurate. In addition, there were many building questions that were so specialized, unless you worked in that field regularly, you may not have a clue where to start looking up the information. I had 29 - 40 questions answered when she called 15 minutes, was able to answer 2 more, had to educate and guess the rest.

I felt the afternoon was very fair for bridges. I think I did enough to get acceptable on all the essays, but they may be picky on my foundations answer and give a needs improvement. I really felt they were pretty vague in a lot of their problem statements, so I found myself writing a lot of stuff before my comps stating what I was assuming and working with. I am keeping my fingers and toes crossed until December.

At least I wasn't the guy from Ohio who drove through the night, showing up 5 minutes before they began, only to realize the PS test was on Friday, not Saturday...FAIL

 

[captaincaution]

At least I wasn't the guy from Ohio who drove through the night, showing up 5 minutes before they began, only to realize the PS test was on Friday, not Saturday...FAIL

Oh man, that sucks. That reminds me of when I took the FE exam in Illinois. They had signs all along the hallway up to the room telling you what calculators were allowed, and someone sitting behind me still brought their TI-89, and no other calculator. Major Fail.

 

[pwilliams]

Quick background:

• California Structural Building guy, doing design work on buildings in our office. Specialty is steel buildings
• Studied for a little over 4 months. 3 months of weekends only, 4 weeks of weekends + weekdays after work, and then 1 full week off of work, studying the entire week during the weekdays

Studied approximately 185 hours
Solved ~360 SE problems TWICE, 80+ PM "parts" once (20 'big' problems), and went thru the Hiner problems once, which was 500 seismic problems
Rolled into the exam feeling confident, even though I could have used about 2 more weeks, ideally...and the results were:

GRAVITY Morning (multiple choice):

Nailed it. Everything seemed very straight forward. No surprises. The bridge questions were very reasonable, which was nice of them. All of my answers had a matching solution in the multiple choice selections, which is good! Of course it doesn't mean its right, but its better than not having a matching answer at all lol. Finished this one early, and felt fantastic during the break.

GRAVITY Afternoon Buildings (constructed response):

Was waaaay more difficult than I would have expected. Most of the problems were WEIRD, in my opinion...not the problem types I was expecting, except for one of them. The other 3 were...well, weird. Not normal. I scanned through the 4 problems looking for the "easy" ones first...and immediately realized none of them satisfied that criteria lol. Time was a huge factor, for sure (as I had heard from everyone). Even though the problems were weird, I felt I did a reasonable job working thru most of the questions nicely, however a few parts my solutions were questionable. Even though they looked really weird, some of the parts weren't so bad, once you really saw what they wanted, and how to achieve it...but some fo the parts were really, really weird. It sucked, imo. As time was running out, I completed the last problem with some pretty sloppy writing. I hope they don't hold it against me too much. Time was really running out fast :-/ No one finished early. After this part was over, I felt pretty devistated, as did most people around me. It was pretty brutal...

LATERAL Morning (multiple choice):

As a California structural guy, I was expecting this lateral to be a complete slam dunk....but it was actually more difficult than the Gravity morning, which really surprised me. I felt the bridge questions were more difficult/weird than I would have hoped for. I'm not a bridge guy, and many of the problems were regarding items I had not seen in my studies, at all. Bridge problems were a struggle with this one. The "building" lateral stuff was straight forward for the most part, except for probably about 5 problems. Some of the problems had very un-clear information provided, or un-clear question of what EXACTLY they were asking...I was pretty annoyed by it on at least 2 problems. It was like, I knew exactly how to solve the problem, but it wasn't clear if they were asking for THIS or asking for THAT...and unfortunately, both of the answers were listed! *facepalm* It was surprising, because usually NCEES is extremely clear as to what they are asking for, and what "given" information is provided. Some of the wording on what they were asking was really terrible, too. Like I said, I was really annoyed in these cases. But, overall, I still felt very good with the results, just not nearly as solid as the Gravity morning.

LATERAL Afternoon (constructed response):

After the brutal Gravity afternoon, I was expecting another nightmare for this PM exam. Luckily, they spared us! These problems were way more "normal", in nature. The types of problems were the types I had studied for, and felt confident with. I was extremely relieved when I looked thru the booklet at the start, ha. I pretty much nailed these problems, except for probably 1 "part" of each problem, which had a possibly questionable solution/response on my part. Even with the straight-forward problems, I still spent the entire time allowed (no one left early, as expected), altho a lot of time was spent over-providing information on the solutions that I knew extremely well. Should have probably saved that time for the last part of the last problem, which again, my sketch/detail got really sloppy as we were under the timer gun! ****. Overall, really felt great with this afternoon session, and felt even better that I was finally done with the exam!

Gravity AM: felt like an A

Gravity PM: felt like a C+

Lateral AM: felt like a B

Lateral PM: felt like a B+

combine each AM/PM part as a whole, and I'm feeling pretty good. we'll see how it goes though lol. at least the study time is OVER. now the wait begins ^^

good luck all!

JDstruc: I prepared very similar to you and felt the same as far as the Vertical PM questions. I literally SMH while looking at the 2nd or 3rd problem. However, I feel my approach to all was a good approach and worked through them.



I felt exactly the same way you did as far as the level of difficulty for each part of each day. The last problem on the lateral gave me fits on the 2nd or 3rd part and also got sloppy with my sketch while running out of time. Hopefully they won't count off too much for this.



My expectations was that the level of difficulty would match the sample exams and it sure did, possibly exceeded for a few problems.



I would say:



Gravity AM: felt like an B+ (got some bridge questions right, some guessed at.)

Gravity PM: felt like a B-

Lateral AM: felt like a B

Lateral PM: felt like a C+

 

[McEngr]

When I took the exam, in a general sense, I felt that the gravity afternoon was just as tough as the lateral afternoon. Nonetheless, I passed both with the passing rates being right about the same for both afternoons (approx. 35-40% at that cycle).

 

[dakota_79]

I felt the morning was very difficult. I am a bridge engineer and felt the bridge questions were very detailed and not broad enough for those outside the field. Plus their problem statements didn't give enough information to answer some of the questions 100% accurate. In addition, there were many building questions that were so specialized, unless you worked in that field regularly, you may not have a clue where to start looking up the information. I had 29 - 40 questions answered when she called 15 minutes, was able to answer 2 more, had to educate and guess the rest.

I felt the afternoon was very fair for bridges. I think I did enough to get acceptable on all the essays, but they may be picky on my foundations answer and give a needs improvement. I really felt they were pretty vague in a lot of their problem statements, so I found myself writing a lot of stuff before my comps stating what I was assuming and working with. I am keeping my fingers and toes crossed until December.

At least I wasn't the guy from Ohio who drove through the night, showing up 5 minutes before they began, only to realize the PS test was on Friday, not Saturday...FAIL

At least I wasn't the guy from Ohio who drove through the night, showing up 5 minutes before they began, only to realize the PS test was on Friday, not Saturday...FAIL

Oh man, that sucks. That reminds me of when I took the FE exam in Illinois. They had signs all along the hallway up to the room telling you what calculators were allowed, and someone sitting behind me still brought their TI-89, and no other calculator. Major Fail.

Yikes! I don't feel an ounce of sympathy for either of them. Part of being a professional (and a Professional) is taking the responsibility to understand the most basic of instructions and requirements. If their heads are so far up their rears that they don't know what day the exam is or what calculators are acceptable when NCEES has pounded that over their heads, I don't want them designing anything I find myself standing on.

JD - based on your feedback, you're probably good to go. I felt worse than you did, but passed both on the first try. Hope that's not jinxing it for you though!

bassplayer - I think the vagueness is intentional. They're looking to test your judgment and how well you can boil things down to the fundamentals given the types of "open to interpretation" problems that comprise a vast majority of what we do, not necessarily test your ability to follow the cookbook code recipes as you'd expect of an entry/FE level engineer. Tough to simulate in an exam though. Sounds like you handled it appropriately as long as your rationalizations were sound. Good luck to you and everyone else! If you fail, so what. Get up and try again.