i had the same advice...they never ask medium hard structures problems, transportation morning is easy and all in the CERM, blah blah blah. how do they know? They only took the thing once....
my observations from the exam:
the percentages of each topic are typical, but NOT guaranteed. The exam i took had a TON of environmental in the morning....so its just a guide, not a guarantee.
Take a book or two in each subject area...they have a lot of look-up questions in the morning (which several people had told me), and surprisingly, most are not your "know it off the top of your head" answers. you need the book in that subject to look it up. and if you have the books, like i did for most of them, they are easy. if not, you are guessing in the dark. a lot of these are not addressed by CERM because they are so "random".
dress in layers...our room was FREEZING. if i had/and if they allowed gloves and a hat, i would have worn them.
take some alleve before you go in to avoid the neckache that hits at about hour 5.
tab tab tab your CERM and practice problems (if allowed in your state). this saves a TON of time, and use them when you study so you know what each tab means.
DO as many practice problems as possible, and then do some more. It not only teaches you the subjects, but where they get their numbers from. i learned very quickly that the "typical" design numbers i use always gave me an approximate answer "close" to one of the answers, and sometimes it was closer to the wrong answer. learn to use the tables they use for their solutions, even if you dont like them.
do a practice exam....it prepared me for sitting for 8 hours, taking an hour lunch, and helped me organize and decide what books i wanted to take in my final boxes. i ended up tabbing a few more pages and highlighting a few more things.
pack 3 boxes....1 to sit on the table in front of you. mine had my CERM bible, practice problems, practice exam, and a few other books that were "critical" to me. on the floor to either side i had a box with my look-up books organized by topic.
good luck!
arty-smiley-048:
