Waiting

[FL_Structural_PE]

The waiting game begins for SE results. It looks like past cycles have gotten results sometime in mid December. What is your over/under on the results release date?

 

[tua85366]

I would say mid-December as well. 

How does everyone feel about their performance on the exam? 

I took Lateral Buildings this go-around (Passed vertical 2017 April). I thought it was tough, but fair. I definitely thought it was harder than both the PPI and NCEES practice exams. Also, timing was a killer for me on the morning portion. I ended up blindly filling in about 6 questions (all AASHTO), which is very discouraging to me at the moment. I am somewhat confident with my performance on the afternoon problems.

I guess we'll see in December.

 

[Civil Dawg]

I took Vertical Buildings.  2nd attempt after failing in April.  I left the April exam 99% sure I had failed and unsure how anyone could pass that test.  I am pretty confident this go around.  I feel like the test was much more "fair" and I don't think I was necessarily that much more prepared this time than last.  In April I had to guess on 11 questions in the AM and didn't have near enough time to do the PM questions and ended up with 24/40, A, IR, U, U.  This time I only had to guess on 4 AM questions and finished the PM with 25 minutes remaining.  I feel like I did as well as I'll ever do so hopefully I passed or else I'm not sure if I ever will!  

 

[David Connor SE]

Best of luck to everyone who took the SE exam this weekend!

Seems like that past few cycles they have gotten the results out earlier than they did 3-4 years ago when I took it.  That being said I put the over/under date at December 12th. 

 

[Trogdor]

First time vertical and lateral exams. I have to say the Friday morning exam was much tougher than I expected, much tougher than the practice exam and I ran out of time and had to guess blindly on 9 problems. The afternoon seemed pretty straight forward and I think I'll do well on each of them. On Saturday I felt like the morning was reasonable, but there was not enough time to complete all the problems so I had to just guess on the last 7. I'm not as confident on the afternoon portion, I think my brain was tired at this point and I could easily get an unacceptable or two. I'm guessing I'll be back in April for at least one of the exams. 

 

[onemanwolfpack]

Took Vertical Bridges for the first time, after passing Lateral Bridges this past April. For the vertical, it felt like the morning portion was a lot easier than the lateral morning. I think I ended up running out of time and guessing on 3 or 4 for the Lateral....but I finished up the morning with ~15 minutes to spare for the Vertical, which gave me time to go back and verify a few questions that I was unsure of. There was only one wood question where I couldn't land on an answer.

The depth seemed very reasonable to me. I put my pencil down with about 30 seconds to go. There was only one part I was a bit confused on what they were really looking for, but I think I ended up putting down something pretty reasonable.

 

[FL_Structural_PE]

I would say mid-December as well. 

How does everyone feel about their performance on the exam? 

I took Lateral Buildings this go-around (Passed vertical 2017 April). I thought it was tough, but fair. I definitely thought it was harder than both the PPI and NCEES practice exams. Also, timing was a killer for me on the morning portion. I ended up blindly filling in about 6 questions (all AASHTO), which is very discouraging to me at the moment. I am somewhat confident with my performance on the afternoon problems.

I guess we'll see in December.

I took vertical buildings in April of this year and passed so this time around I only took the lateral portion. I felt that the morning was fair, I ended up I guessed on two of them. The afternoon was okay but I ran out of time on the last problem that I was working on. I ended up just writing down the equations that I would use to solve the questions on two of the sub-parts. I hope it's enough for a "Needs Improvement".   

 

[TheStructuralEngineer]

December 14th or 15th, I think.

Took vertical building.I did pretty good the morning section. Finished exactly at the time they announced '1 minute remaining'.
Afternoon was not so difficult, but there were just too many questions I think. Did not have enough time. I do not know if the grader will understand my hand writing. 
Hopefully will pass. 
Good Luck friends!!

 

[OCT]

Took vertical and lateral buildings.

 - AM: I had to guess 5 of each of the morning exams because of time. However, the vertical AM was more difficult than the Lateral AM.

- PM: Vertical with OK, lateral was not as easy as i expected.  Not sure how they mark these kinds of exams. I am not sure if grading is based on the final answer or it will be based on the solution steps.

In the order of difficulty: V_AM, L_PM, L_AM, V_PM.

 

[TehMightyEngineer]

I am not sure if grading is based on the final answer or it will be based on the solution steps.

Almost positive it's based on solution steps.

 

[OCT]

Thanks TehMightEngineer. This is good to know. While I think my solution steps should be OK, I am not actually sure if my eyes got the right numbers from tables (steel section dimensions for example) and the same thing for using the calculator. There is no enough time to do calculator operations twice during the exam as in real life.


 

 

[StructEngBrah]

Took the building lateral exam and I think I did ok.  I guessed on two questions on the morning part, but otherwise I finished it.  I spent more time on AASHTO this go around, and I think it paid dividends in being able to answer those questions more quickly then when I took the vertical exam.  I thought the afternoon was harder, but generally I felt like I knew how to do most of it.  I ran out of time on the afternoon and didn't completely finish one part of a problem.  I think dumb mistakes or if I forgot a specific provision will determine if I pass or not.

 

[Civ/StructENG]

This is my first time taking the Vertical/Lateral - I thought the morning sections were pretty tough (harder than the practice exams/problems that I studied from), and I found myself running out of time both mornings and guessing at the end.  I thought the afternoon sections were much more reasonable and fair.  Good luck to everybody...hopefully we get some early holiday presents!

 

[MIPE]

I have the same impression about the exam. There were lots of tricks too, too many for a single exam. We have to wait and see.

 

[OCT]

I think there is now one more reason that everybody wish to pass as new exam codes are in affect .

 

[Phil Clark]

Hey everyone.  It seems like there is a wide variety of opinions on how difficult the exams were.  I took lateral buildings this time.  I passed vertical building in April.  I felt like the lateral exam was about the same as the vertical in the morning in terms of difficulty.  I answered 32/40 vertical and 34/40 lateral.  However, there was an afternoon problem that was really hard for me to get through, I couldn't really figure out what was being asked for.  In hindsight I should have come back to this problem last and worked more on the other problems.  It seemed in general the lateral exam was more difficult to understand than practice problems I had worked from PPI material and NCEES material.  This was especially true for the afternoon.  It wasn't for lack of study as I spent about 425 hrs for the vertical and about 300 hrs for the lateral.  There was some stuff in the morning and afternoon lateral, that I did not see at all in my study, so I was hazy on where to look in the code.  In hindsight (again) the topic wasn't that tough, but when you see it for the first time, and more than once...well, I just got a little flustered.

I felt like I got a little lucky on the vertical afternoon problems, where I seemed to have a pretty good handle on most of the items, but for the lateral afternoon, it was a perfect storm of several items I just wasn't great at all showing up (my worst fear for the test).

So, seems like I could get there in the morning, but no so sure about the afternoon.  I honestly cant remember what I wrote down at this point.  I think I could have gotten acceptable, acceptable, needs improvement/acceptable and the last one was somewhere between unacceptable/needs improvement.  No one know where those threasholds are, but I will find out in about 6 more weeks.  I'm thinking Christmas will be a little blue this year, but you never know!

I too worry about the code changes and not passing.  This could be a real bummer as all my study material will have all old references and who knows if we'll be able to buy study material with the correct code references for the 18 exams but you would hope so... 

 

[FL_Structural_PE]

Hey everyone.  It seems like there is a wide variety of opinions on how difficult the exams were.  I took lateral buildings this time.  I passed vertical building in April.  I felt like the lateral exam was about the same as the vertical in the morning in terms of difficulty.  I answered 32/40 vertical and 34/40 lateral.  However, there was an afternoon problem that was really hard for me to get through, I couldn't really figure out what was being asked for.  In hindsight I should have come back to this problem last and worked more on the other problems.  It seemed in general the lateral exam was more difficult to understand than practice problems I had worked from PPI material and NCEES material.  This was especially true for the afternoon.  It wasn't for lack of study as I spent about 425 hrs for the vertical and about 300 hrs for the lateral.  There was some stuff in the morning and afternoon lateral, that I did not see at all in my study, so I was hazy on where to look in the code.  In hindsight (again) the topic wasn't that tough, but when you see it for the first time, and more than once...well, I just got a little flustered.

I felt like I got a little lucky on the vertical afternoon problems, where I seemed to have a pretty good handle on most of the items, but for the lateral afternoon, it was a perfect storm of several items I just wasn't great at all showing up (my worst fear for the test).

So, seems like I could get there in the morning, but no so sure about the afternoon.  I honestly cant remember what I wrote down at this point.  I think I could have gotten acceptable, acceptable, needs improvement/acceptable and the last one was somewhere between unacceptable/needs improvement.  No one know where those threasholds are, but I will find out in about 6 more weeks.  I'm thinking Christmas will be a little blue this year, but you never know!

I too worry about the code changes and not passing.  This could be a real bummer as all my study material will have all old references and who knows if we'll be able to buy study material with the correct code references for the 18 exams but you would hope so... 

Phil,

I wonder if the afternoon problem that tripped you up was the same one that got me. Without getting into any details about the problem. Was it the first one presented in the afternoon?

 

[McEngr]

Having been an SE grader in the past, I think it's more important that you show your work clearly and write down the quick/necessary steps to get to the final answer if you don't have time.  Just my 2 cents. 

 

[DoctorWho-PE]

Come wait at the SPAM board... I know you aren't PE folk, but the wait is just as bad for the SE. 

 

[Phil Clark]

Phil,

I wonder if the afternoon problem that tripped you up was the same one that got me. Without getting into any details about the problem. Was it the first one presented in the afternoon?

Yes it was!  Glad I wasn't the only one...