This is my second time and I passed the survey and Seismic. First time I self studied Hiner notes and did Mansour. However I did not nearly have enough time to study as I should have!
Thus second time I devoted my heart and soul into studying for these two. I signed up for EET Seismic course (excellent notes and cheat sheet by Dr. Ibrahim!). I took three months to study every day after work and on weekends. I did all practice problems twice (there are like 300+) and his four simulated exams including those CBT style ones were a life saver. I was able to practice time management. I was going to do more problems at the end with Hiner and that one book by...Bajaldar(sp?). Only did a handful of those cause I ran out of time, but it didn't matter bc the problems from EET was better matched to the level of difficulty and type of problems on the exam. I knew going in that there would be at least 9-10 that I don't recognize and wouldn't have enough time to thoughtfully solve out. So I focused my time on the ones that were the easiest and almost 80% of the test I felt like was covered in some form in EET. Cheat sheet they provide is insanely helpful.
Surveying. I took EET course for surveying and I thought it was average. The cheat sheets were terrible and the layout was inconsistent. However, combined EET with studying ALL problems in Reza Mahallati's book, Mansour, and a few from Cuomo and the Board's LS workbook, I felt like I was prepared enough. Seemed like EET covered things the other material didn't and vice versa. I didn't feel super confident during the test but I was able to narrow it down to 10-15 educated guesses.
The tests are doable if you're smart about doing easy problems first and then saving hard or medium problems to the end. I never did this before until now and it helped me pass. If I can pass...I seriously think anyone could!