Why does Construction have a low pass rate?

[cuatona1]

i have multiple contractor licenses. none of those exams tested in engineering concepts

i have passed multiple engineering exams in various disciplines. none of those exams tested in construction concepts.

construction experience has nothing to do with engineering or examinations, in case you were confused... you need to do your research on what NCEES tests prospective licensees

lol  

 

[youngmotivatedengineer]

Sayed, I couldn't disagree more with your various posts above. If you are not familiar with some of the famous civil engineering failures, you should look them up, especially the hotel walkway. Many failures are due to field changes that don't get proper engineering review. Not sure what kind of jobs you work on, but when doing major civil engineering projects, concrete mix is important to the success of the project. The concrete company and/or engineer can not just change the concrete mix on their own, it has to go through the engineer to make sure the concrete will have the required strength. 

 

[youngmotivatedengineer]

Any theories?

59% Pass Rate for first time takers, I think only Mining and Mineral Processing at 57% was lower.

I think construction is also the go-to for people who don't fit well into the other categories,  which is kind of how I ended up in the Construction depth. 

I have about 5 years of hands on construction management experience not working under a PE. Afterwards I got back into engineering design and spend most of my time on residential and smaller commercial site plans, and light structural design for footings, foundations and beams/girders. 

Based on this, I felt the construction was closest to my experience and work I do on a regular basis. I looked into the water resources depth, but I felt there were more topics on there beyond my experience and beyond what I see myself doing in the future. 

 

[Wade_TX]

a construction PE also needs to know what a hammer and power drill is. Yet this knowledge isn't engineering and not tested on NCEES examinations.

NCEES exams test you on engineering concepts, not minor details on what you do at work. I'm not sure how this is hard for some people to understand

NCEES has"Means and Methods" as an entire subject matter in the breadth section.



I, along with most engineers, would consider concrete mix design a major engineering concept, especially considering there are several civil engineering courses specifically devoted to it. Out of all of the Civil PE test, I would hope that the Civil Construction test would contain construction methods.  Study what you want sayed, but with all of your contractor licenses and various experiences in other disciplines, it sounds like you don't need to.

 

[Bellavita]

I would be curious to know how many people take Civil: Construction because they think it will be easier than the other exams.  

lol  

I am a female engineer with MS in Structural Specialty, and yes, I NEVER passed PM (Afternoon Session) for the PE despite the fact that I've worked for Caltran's Construction Division for almost 3 years (built Rte-57/60 Interchange, Rte-105/605) and I knew exactly which part of the concrete "form-work" layout on my shop-drawing. The thing is, on the NCEES PM-test (Construction Specialty), most of the contents were neither taught at school nor from any existing Textbook. I presume we all need to attend some sort of the "Prep Class" or "Review Class" which help you to "summarize" certain calculation procedure and concept of those CPM (Critical Path Method), Geotech foundation design (probably occupied 15% of the 100% exam content). Just my second opinion after working in the real world for many years yet never give-up

 

[emeschew]

I am a female engineer with MS in Structural Specialty, and yes, I NEVER passed PM (Afternoon Session) for the PE despite the fact that I've worked for Caltran's Construction Division for almost 3 years (built Rte-57/60 Interchange, Rte-105/605) and I knew exactly which part of the concrete "form-work" layout on my shop-drawing. The thing is, on the NCEES PM-test (Construction Specialty), most of the contents were neither taught at school nor from any existing Textbook. I presume we all need to attend some sort of the "Prep Class" or "Review Class" which help you to "summarize" certain calculation procedure and concept of those CPM (Critical Path Method), Geotech foundation design (probably occupied 15% of the 100% exam content). Just my second opinion after working in the real world for many years yet never give-up

I also have an MS in structural, but have many years working as an RE and in design with underground utilities and roadways. My feeling when I took the construction PM exam was that it encompassed many portions of the other depth sections. For example, as an RE you need to know how to troubleshoot if the soil borings from design are inaccurate, shoot grade, adjust grades that make sense (always seems like there's blown grades somewhere), change traffic control if necessary or required, adjust concrete mixes or HMA (in some cases), know the critical path from the contractor's schedule so you know when they are ahead of or behind schedule, understand cost take off if pay item quantities need to be adjusted, redesign in the field if the designer made mistakes or conditions are different, check designs if the contractor has a performance based pay item etc... There were "field" specific questions, but I felt that everything was pretty close to what I dealt with as a consultant. This exam is more of applying concepts from each of the other depths to a job-site. 

I also see many engineers on here that work for contractors or are contractors. My personal thought is that design mixed with field experience bolsters your own resume and will only help you prepare for the construction depth. I don't have any experience in vertical structures or new development/real estate, so I don't know how that industry works (I'm in municipal and transportation/bridge work). Typically in transportation the RE is not a contractor, so my thought is many people miss out on this side of engineering, which I believe is invaluable experience. It seems like that might be why people miss the mark on the construction exam: either they have a lot of experience as a contractor, for example they know a lot about the PM side i.e. scheduling, cost take off, job efficiency which makes sense to me after working with contractors of all sizes or they don't have enough experience on a job-site in which case they have a wide range of design experience, but don't identify in one of the other depths. Just my opinion after reading through some of the replies here, on this thread and in past threads, and why people assume the test might be easier than the other modules.

 

[civilrobot PE etc etc]

I also have an MS in structural, but have many years working as an RE and in design with underground utilities and roadways. My feeling when I took the construction PM exam was that it encompassed many portions of the other depth sections. For example, as an RE you need to know how to troubleshoot if the soil borings from design are inaccurate, shoot grade, adjust grades that make sense (always seems like there's blown grades somewhere), change traffic control if necessary or required, adjust concrete mixes or HMA (in some cases), know the critical path from the contractor's schedule so you know when they are ahead of or behind schedule, understand cost take off if pay item quantities need to be adjusted, redesign in the field if the designer made mistakes or conditions are different, check designs if the contractor has a performance based pay item etc... There were "field" specific questions, but I felt that everything was pretty close to what I dealt with as a consultant. This exam is more of applying concepts from each of the other depths to a job-site. 

I also see many engineers on here that work for contractors or are contractors. My personal thought is that design mixed with field experience bolsters your own resume and will only help you prepare for the construction depth. I don't have any experience in vertical structures or new development/real estate, so I don't know how that industry works (I'm in municipal and transportation/bridge work). Typically in transportation the RE is not a contractor, so my thought is many people miss out on this side of engineering, which I believe is invaluable experience. It seems like that might be why people miss the mark on the construction exam: either they have a lot of experience as a contractor, for example they know a lot about the PM side i.e. scheduling, cost take off, job efficiency which makes sense to me after working with contractors of all sizes or they don't have enough experience on a job-site in which case they have a wide range of design experience, but don't identify in one of the other depths. Just my opinion after reading through some of the replies here, on this thread and in past threads, and why people assume the test might be easier than the other modules.

I'm currently working as an RE as well (consultant firm) for a state government and the experience I'm getting here is so different than when I worked as a Project Engineer for a CMAR (Construction Manager at Risk) firm. I manage architectural renovations, new construction, road improvements, electrical, mechanical improvement projects, and FLS (fire life safety) projects. My projects are typically pretty short so I have to take in a lot of information about the intent of the design, site conditions, and the Contractor's schedule and budget as quickly as possible to solve problems quickly. When I was working as a Project Engineer on large scale projects, I wasn't required to understand the design too much. Instead, I just managed the contractors and pushed around the paper (RFIs, submittals, etc). I'm not saying the exam will be easy or harder for me but I think that my job as an RE has definitely given me more real world experience. 

 

[Platypus Engineer]

I chose construction because it was the closest to what I do on a daily basis. I have taken exam twice so far. It has been 25 years since I graduated college. The primary focus of my job is corrosion control, and nobody offers a corrosion PE. Construction or Geotech were closest to what I do.  I have extensive experience on construction sites working on underground tanks and pipelines. I used to work 70-80 hrs a week, with being on road 100+ nights a year. It wasnt until I got a new job working for a utility where I could even consider taking PE.

Some of the topics  came back fairly quickly, others took longer to come back. Crane stability is basically statics and/or trigonometry. Even marking up MUTCD and OSHA is a challenge the legalese in those documents is difficult to interpret.

The construction depth is almost a second breadth session.

 

[Dsnow0987]

My degree is in Construction Engineering and I had a lot of construction courses in my course work (Estimating, Scheduling, Labor Relations, Construction Law, Systems and Processes i.e.- Equipment Effiency, Crane Placement, Etc.  That and lots of practical experience made that Depth section a no brainer for me.  IMHO, the Construction Depth Section have less equations based questions and more qualitative concept type questions that you cannot find in the CERM and have to think through.

Also, you are screwed if you don't bring all your required resources and miss easy code look up questions (MUTCD, SP-4, OSHA).       

do you happen to have the following reference materials for the Construction Depth portion of the exam that you are willing to sell? i am needing CMWB, ACI MNL-15, ACI 347R & ACI SP-4.