What was your post feelings and results of the exam

[DBC]

I took Civil Transporation for second time, I am different than most and thought the AM was tough. During the lunch break I was really pissed off about it. I took School of PE and thought I was going to destroy the AM. I guessed on 6 and wasn't sure on 4 more. What got me pissed was the fact that I knew they were easy problems, I just could not get a solution on a bunch of the Geotech/structure problems...sooo annoying!
The PM was a different story, I thought it was waaay easier than I remembered it in April (altho I did study around 200 hrs including school of PE, and only 40 hrs the first time). As I was taking the PM I was thinking to myself, when is the problem coming that pisses me off?? It never came, I flew through it confident as could be and when I left I was 99.9% sure I passed the exam (which I did). So I guess I am ass backwards to what most test takers thought of the Civil AM.

I'm with you - while I didn't technically have to guess on many AM questions, I KNOW I screwed up on a lot more than I did on PM. I thought the AM was much more difficult. Particularly the geotech (although the geotech on PM was hard as well. Who are these geotech people?).

I found the AM structures questions "tricky" - a few were disguised as other types of questions.

 

[Johnson]

This is the first time I took PE-Environmental and I passed! I spent lots of time preparing for the exam. My major was water and wastewater which contributed just about 35% of the exam, other than that they are new to me. I didn't take any preparation course. I studied during lunch break at work, in the evening at home on the weekday and all day weekend for about 4 months which was about 800 hrs of study! If I didn't pass I would feel so awful just to think that I have to study again.

The morning and afternoon were not too different for me, just different subjects. There were 50 questions for each section. There were more non-quantitative questions than I expected. The hard part was they asked which answer is not correct rather than which is the correct answer. I felt that I ran out of time and didn't feel too confident but luckily all my study paid off!

 

[Dleg]

800 hours? Damn! I'm with you, though. My strategy was to really learn the stuff, and then passing the exam would come easier. I only put in about 300 hours, though, which seemed like a lot.

Congratulations! Please go into the enviro forum and update the "advice" thread pinned at the top when you get a chance, so you can share your thoughts and study strategy with future test takers.

 

[Johnson]

800 hours? Damn! I'm with you, though. My strategy was to really learn the stuff, and then passing the exam would come easier. I only put in about 300 hours, though, which seemed like a lot.
Congratulations! Please go into the enviro forum and update the "advice" thread pinned at the top when you get a chance, so you can share your thoughts and study strategy with future test takers.

Will do.

 

[BeckfromPA]

I thought I did fairly well on the exam. I knew that it was not a slam dunk but I thought I had a decent chance of passing. I also was optimistic enough that I checked my email about 1000 times since mid-December.

I was a first time test taker.

I passed! arty-smiley-048:

 

[mszekely]

1st timer, took the Civil -WR and Env. After walking out of the building I was really happy just to be done. I felt like I had about a 50-60% chance of passing, but I told everyone I felt about 50/50. I passed. I tend to be a good test taker though. It's amazing how many answers you can get in the last 30 minutes of the test! I'm really glad I don't have to study again.

 

[surferon]

I felt pretty good after the test. Of course, I started comparing answers with a co-worker who also took test and then we both realized we missed some easy questions. As time went on I had some pretty good mood swings. Sometimes I was sure I passed and other times I was sure I failed. I'm just glad to have it over with now. Unless I ever want to get a license in CA, no more PE tests for me!!

Congrats to all that passed and to those of you that failed, keep trying!!! You'll get there!!

 

[jsk]

I took Civil Transporation for second time, I am different than most and thought the AM was tough. During the lunch break I was really pissed off about it. I took School of PE and thought I was going to destroy the AM. I guessed on 6 and wasn't sure on 4 more. What got me pissed was the fact that I knew they were easy problems, I just could not get a solution on a bunch of the Geotech/structure problems...sooo annoying!
The PM was a different story, I thought it was waaay easier than I remembered it in April (altho I did study around 200 hrs including school of PE, and only 40 hrs the first time). As I was taking the PM I was thinking to myself, when is the problem coming that pisses me off?? It never came, I flew through it confident as could be and when I left I was 99.9% sure I passed the exam (which I did). So I guess I am ass backwards to what most test takers thought of the Civil AM.

I'm with you - while I didn't technically have to guess on many AM questions, I KNOW I screwed up on a lot more than I did on PM. I thought the AM was much more difficult. Particularly the geotech (although the geotech on PM was hard as well. Who are these geotech people?).

I found the AM structures questions "tricky" - a few were disguised as other types of questions.

i also took the civil transportation for a second time and i thought it was easier than when i took it in april. i studied about 20-25 hrs for the april exam and maybe 8-10 for october... this time around, i thought that the am section was way more difficult than the pm, mostly due to the ridiculous amount of structural questions. i was surprised at how easily i got through the afternoon section.

 

[jsk]

I took Civil Transporation for second time, I am different than most and thought the AM was tough. During the lunch break I was really pissed off about it. I took School of PE and thought I was going to destroy the AM. I guessed on 6 and wasn't sure on 4 more. What got me pissed was the fact that I knew they were easy problems, I just could not get a solution on a bunch of the Geotech/structure problems...sooo annoying!
The PM was a different story, I thought it was waaay easier than I remembered it in April (altho I did study around 200 hrs including school of PE, and only 40 hrs the first time). As I was taking the PM I was thinking to myself, when is the problem coming that pisses me off?? It never came, I flew through it confident as could be and when I left I was 99.9% sure I passed the exam (which I did). So I guess I am ass backwards to what most test takers thought of the Civil AM.

I'm with you - while I didn't technically have to guess on many AM questions, I KNOW I screwed up on a lot more than I did on PM. I thought the AM was much more difficult. Particularly the geotech (although the geotech on PM was hard as well. Who are these geotech people?).

I found the AM structures questions "tricky" - a few were disguised as other types of questions.

i also took the civil transportation for a second time and i thought it was easier than when i took it in april. i studied about 20-25 hrs for the april exam and maybe 8-10 for october... this time around, i thought that the am section was way more difficult than the pm, mostly due to the ridiculous amount of structural questions. i was surprised at how easily i got through the afternoon section.

oh, and i did pass the second time.

 

[Asha]

I find that the worse I feel coming out of an exam hall, the more likely I had passed the exam. Coming out of the hall on Oct. 29, I felt like death warmed up. So, of course, I passed the exam.

 

[maximus808]

The waiting period is brutal! I forgot how tough it was. Being a second time taker I felt so confident I passed this time. Us in Hawaii didn't get our results yet (tomorrow I believe) but as time goes on, I start to doubt myself. I don't know why.....is it human nature to do so? Is it because we start forgetting the problems that we did? The minute the test was over, I was filled with Joy cause I knew I did a lot better than the time I took it in April. In April I missed it by 4 points.

 

[HerrKaLeun]

I passed HVAC/R at the first try. I studied about 300-400 hours. I had a very good feeling in the morning (actually was done after 2 hours). For afternoon I took the full 4 hours. but there I also felt i knew how to do all the problems. for many questions I calculated in 2-3 different ways and still came up with the same result. there only was one question i resolved in different ways and always had the same result, but that wasn't close to any of the 4 choices. Maybe it was an NCEES error...

My feeling was there were only 2-3 questions in total I had to "guess". Mostly something I didn't find a reference (code question etc.) for.

Anyway, despite having a good feeling, i wasn't confident till yesterday when my "pass" letter came.

Edit: the NCEES sample exam was close to what the real exam was. It maybe was a bit harder than the sample exam, but not much.

 

[UCDChemE]

First time taking the exam so I really didn't know what to expect. Not too much prep stuff out there for Chemical. Ended up studying 100 hours. The exam was really tough. The first half of the exam I ran out of time, and the half I finished with 75% of the time remaining because the problems were either too hard or too easy to solve.

I'm very pleased that I passed because I hear you need to study between 300-400 hours to pass according to the PPI book. One issue I had was that the sample exam was nothing like the real exam for Chemical. I'm glad I don't have to take it again because they're changing the Chemical exam again for April 2011.

Why can't they leave good enough alone!

 

[RobertR]

I had taken the Mechanical exam before and not passed. I pretty much knew it as soon as I finished--I had to guess too much, and ran out of time. This time was completely different. I finished the morning session 75 minutes early, and had enough time to correct mistakes. The afternoon session felt easy as well. I walked out feeling very confident.

 

[ptatohed]

On October 29 after the exam, did you think you did well, poor, or just borderline pass/fail? And what was your result?
This is my second time taking the exam and I remember the during the April 2010 Exam, I felt that I wasn't sure of over 20+ questions and if I passed or failed it would've been close. The result, fail - 52/80 according to the percentage diagnostic breakdown.

As I'm still waiting on the results for the October 2010 Exam, I felt much better both morning and afternoon compared to last April. I would say maybe 16 total questions at most I believe that I was not sure of....and I a majority of those were educated guesses where I could result in an A,B,C, or D answer using calculations/dimensional analysis breakdown. The others I believe I got it. We get our results at the end of next week. I have to hope and pray

What was your thoughts and result of the exam? Were your feelings right?

maximus, check this out. In early November (2010), I predicted I got a "64.4%" on the 8-hour (Oct '10 exam). I ended up getting a 63.75%. I also stated that I failed the CA Seismic and passed the CA Survey. I did.

Link to original post.

To quote myself from Nov 02:

[SIZE=8pt]" What I do is put a check mark next to the ones I feel really, really good about. Even if I only felt fairly good about a question or felt like I was able to eliminate an answer or two, it does not get a check mark. I give myself full credit for the checkmarked questions and then, I give myself 25% for all of the remaining problems. I hope that the problems I felt fairly good about but didn't checkmark will balance out the few that I checkmarked but still got wrong. With that said, here are my scores:[/SIZE]

Survey: 75.5% Seismic: 35.5% 8-Hour (Transpo): 64.4% "

 

[maximus808]

ptatohed, wow great analysis and prediction. That's exactly how I felt the first time I took the exam. If you walk out the exam feeling you did well giving yourself some room for trick problems, you should be able to pass. 65% is really close and you are definitely zeroing in on that passing target.

Try getting better at your weaker subjects while mastering the subjects you are already good at. For instance, you should be able to do horizontal and vertical problems with ease. Those will be your "bread and butter" or gimme problems. Be sure to scan the exam for all the easy/gimme problems and do those first. I highly recommend this. You will build confidence by answering these questions and this will calm you down to focus on the later harder problems. Don't spend too much time on a problem even if you feel like you can answer it. Every problem is worth the same. During the second exam, I spend a lot of time on some structural problems when I actually skipped over an easy trans problem. With one minute left, I realized I forgot to do a gimme problem and it bothered me during lunch. So be sure to get those gimme ones out of the way first