Too many References!!!

[Supe]

No.  Just the one that admits to it in writing.

 

[Geoffree McCleansville]

We weren't talking about it like: "What did you get on that such and such problem?"  I don't think that you could if you tried.  I'm pretty sure we don't get the same AM or PM test.  It was more general than that.  More so to do with equations and reference materials.  Then something would click that you biff'd on and you smack your forehead over it...  

 

[Geoffree McCleansville]

For some reason I can't edit my post.  If a member has access, please edit to remove.  I think it's out of context a bit, but I don't want it to seem like I'm trying to pull something off that I am not...

Thanks,

Plus that's my actor name....

 

[knight1fox3]

Post revised.

 

[ptatohed]

So I just took the PE Civil Transportation exam.

First, the morning:

     This was much easier than I expected it to be, but I found out from thinking about the morning section by myself during the break that I made some stupid mistakes;   All in all, I think i got 27/40.  That plus the 25% of the remaining questions equals about a 30/40 which is not terrible.  Again, I made some admitted mistakes.  Go back through all the questions if you have enough time.  They can be tricky and the wrong answer seems so right at the time.

Now for the afternoon:

     This was very frustrating for me.  I took the transportation portion and really struggled.  Not on things like horizontal curves, vertical curves, sight distances, taper lengths or anything important like that.  There were many, many questions referencing materials that I regrettably did not purchase.  I only bought the aashto green book and of course I had my notes from studying.  There were very basic lookup questions that I lost a lot of points on.  They were referencing HCM and MUTCD.  Unfortunately, I didn't purchase either of these.  I think it is unfair to have questions like this on the exam.  I know I'll get smacked for this, but I spent time doing calculation practice and such.  It seems like a money grab to me.  "Buy 500 dollars worth of books, and pass the exam."  I will not make this mistake again.  So my score on the afternoon, (I made tick marks), was a definite 19/40.  That plus 25% of the remainder puts me at 24/40.  

That is a combined score of 54/80.  I doubt I passed with that, and that's even if I was lucky enough to guess 25% correctly.   It is very discouraging that I could have passed this test if I'd just spent more money.  Literally 8-10 easy layup questions in the afternoon.  All you need is the DAMN MANUALS!!!!!!

Anyone else feel this way about the Civil Transpo exam?

1.)  You should have had all (well, most) of the recommended NCEES listed references. 

But 2.)  They may have appeared to be "easy look-up" questions but don't be surprised if there was more involved than just a simple page flip to the conspicuous correct answer.   

 

[jcs372]

You can definitely get the MUTCD for free, and I think I found the HCM free somewhere as well.  May have been the year 2000 edition.  Those are must have references.  I brought a couple others but didn't really need them.  I took this exam twice now and the first time I also had the books but did not review them before the test.  I found myself running out of time due to the amount of lookup problems in the MUTCD.  Get familiar with the types of lookup problems you may need by studying the NCEES practice exams and other practice problems (I recommend Lindeburg because it follows with the CERM).  Then tab the manuals with short descriptions on the tabs.  I found this very helpful in the PM exam.

Good luck if you need to take it again.  Fingers crossed that we don't!

 

[iwire]

I mean come on..you are taking transpo..you need MUTCD at least. Hell I am not in a tranpo engineer but I dealt with a lot ITS stuff....and I have use MUTCD alot

 

[Doyee5]

Chemical References:

Thermodynamics book
Chemistry book

Perry's 7th

Levenspiel Kinetics

FE equations

NCEEES/PPI Pratice tests.

 

[ptatohed]

Chemical References:

Thermodynamics book
Chemistry book

Perry's 7th

Levenspiel Kinetics

FE equations

NCEEES/PPI Pratice tests.

What does chemical have to do with this thread? 

 

[matt267 PE]

What does chemical have to do with this thread? 

Well, it is in the "Anything about the PE Exam" area.

 

[Doyee5]

What does chemical have to do with this thread? 

Ur right sorry, saw the post from jcs372 and thought this was about ChemE

 

[Bcbillings]

1.)  You should have had all (well, most) of the recommended NCEES listed references. 

But 2.)  They may have appeared to be "easy look-up" questions but don't be surprised if there was more involved than just a simple page flip to the conspicuous correct answer.   

There were several questions that pointed you in the direction of a table or a chart only to find out some of the base assumptions used to make the chart had been adjusted in the problem statement. in those instances there was always a simple 2-3 step equation to plug and chug on to get an answer. I was really happy with how this exam worked out to line up with my day to day job and references!