Thoughts on PE - Civil/Structural

[Max Power]

Morning:

Overall I just felt so-so about the morning section. There were definitely a few transportation and soils questions I had to guess on. There was one water question where I thought two answers could have technically been correct. There were a few others I thought were pretty tricky as well.

Afternoon:

I felt a little bit better about the afternoon portion than the morning. I feel like I was able to figure out all but a few of the structural questions. My answers were listed in the choices for most of them... I guess that doesn't mean much though. I did struggle with a couple of the soils and transportation questions though. There was one question that I thought was either very poorly worded or had a ver poorly drawn diagram (or both). I had a hard time even figuring out what they were asking me. I must have spent 25 minutes on it, but I'm still not sure what they were wanting me to do.

Overall I feel like I have a decent chance to pass. Being able to find most of my answers among the choices may be giving me a false sense of security though. I now wish I would have spent my extra time at the end checking over all of my answers instead of trying to figure out the few I didn't have a clue on. I was to the point where I don't think more studying would have done me a whole lot of good. I think most of the ones I missed were random things that I would probably not spend time studying anyways. But the more I think about it, the more I start to second guess my answers. I've already realized a couple of easy ones I missed. It's going to be a long two months...

So... what are your thoughts? How many do you think you got right in each section?

 

[GCracker]

Just the opposite. I feel like I did real well on the morning section. I had to completely guess at 2 questions and had about 4 others that were 50/50.

In the afternoon I thought two of the questions were very tricky. On the first pass I answered about 25. On the second pass I got 3 or 4 more. The rest were complete guesses.

I feel like I will pass, but I'm not sure.

 

[McEngr]

I counted all the problems that I finished correctly in the morning. I counted 29. I counted all the problems that I finished correctly in the evening. I counted 30. I think that I passed, and I felt really good on that Friday Night. However, NCEES has been known to throw out some trick questions. We shall see.

 

[Road Guy]

if they throw out a question, and say you got it right, do they still throw yours out?

 

[DVINNY]

good question RG,

cause if they throw out questions that you get right, then your percentage of wrong answers goes up. hmmmmm.

 

[Road Guy]

I am pretty sure thats what happend to me the last time

 

[GCracker]

I agree with snapper. They get the raw score for everyone, then a cut score. You will never get lower than your raw score.

 

[Max Power]

However, NCEES has been known to throw out some trick questions. We shall see.

Yeah, the trick questions are what really have me worried now. Who knows how many times they got me with those... I was reading some of the posts from 6 months ago and a lot of the people that ended up failing seemed pretty confident right after taking the exam.

 

[McEngr]

However, NCEES has been known to throw out some trick questions.  We shall see. 

Yeah, the trick questions are what really have me worried now. Who knows how many times they got me with those... I was reading some of the posts from 6 months ago and a lot of the people that ended up failing seemed pretty confident right after taking the exam.

Wow. I hope I'm not one of those that gets hosed. I felt confident only because I counted all the problems that I was very, very sure about at about 15 minutes before the time was up. I also reworked about 2/3 of the problems before time expired.

If I didn't pass, I will be REALLY disappointed because that would mean that the problems were aimed at tricking examinees. I don't think that trick questions should be a measure of competency. Do you agree?

 

[DVINNY]

I don't think that trick questions should be a measure of competency. Do you agree?

[SIZE=21pt]I don't think that trick questions should be a measure of competency. [/SIZE]

I agree!!!!

 

[Max Power]

Wow. I hope I'm not one of those that gets hosed. I felt confident only because I counted all the problems that I was very, very sure about at about 15 minutes before the time was up. I also reworked about 2/3 of the problems before time expired.
If I didn't pass, I will be REALLY disappointed because that would mean that the problems were aimed at tricking examinees. I don't think that trick questions should be a measure of competency. Do you agree?

Yes, I agree 100%. I had a pretty good feeling right after the exam. Since then, I have thought of 4 or 5 problems that I missed (that I thought were right at the time) so my confidence is dropping. Some of them were easy, so I have been kicking myself over those... a couple I thought were pretty tricky and would be easy to miss.

Do we have any idea how many problems NCEES typically "throws out" and deems them unfair or unclear? I wouldn't think it would be more than a couple, but I have no idea.

 

[MetroRAFB]

I don't think that trick questions should be a measure of competency.  Do you agree?

[SIZE=21pt]I don't think that trick questions should be a measure of competency. [/SIZE]

I agree!!!!

LMAO!!!

I'm pretty sure NCEES wouldn't consider any of their questions tricks. I agree with you guys, that some of them were tricky, (ME anyway) but only because we have a tendency to jump to conclusions about what they're asking in a problem before we've finished reading the damn thing. That's my tendency anyway. If you read the entire problem statement all the way through, then reread just the specific part where they ask you for something, often times I was surprised. Many times they sort of steer your train of thought one way in the first part of the problem statement, then ask you for something a little unrelated.

In that sense, I don't think they're really official "tricks", I just think they're trying to see how well you can pick out individual trees without being confused by the entire forest. That's a pretty important trait to have as an engineer in my opinion.

Of course, if you've read any of my posts on this site since Friday you'll see that I'm not terribly confident I"ll be receiving a passing letter in December either, so you should probably take all I've said above with a big-ass shaker full of salt.

 

[3gorgesdam]

I feel compiled to add a reply since I have been hanging out here for a while before the exam.

As far as the morning section concerned, I think the exam was really easy. I have three questions I couldn't figure out. The rest I was pretty confident. But like others mentioned, I might not know what some of them were aiming, I still expect 35 assuming two others could be misleading. All along I kept thinking about Road Guy's post saying all he needs is 35 in the morning.

Afternoon was challenging. I was tired. I spent more time on the first ten questions than I should, I was just trying to make sure I did right. I did good on first 10 and the last 10, well I try to say maybe another 5 to 10, that makes it total of 25-30 in the afternoon. I was told 56 (70%) is passing score. If I could get 31 in the morning, 25 in the afternoon, I should be okay.

During review process, I couldn't put in enough hours coz of my two and a half year old boy. I had to spend time after work taking care of him till the last month my hubby helped a lot. But I definitely didn't put in 200 hours.

If I failed the exam, I think my focus would still be on understanding theories and getting familiar with the basic stuff. :true: :engrish: