Ncees Fe Civil Afternoon Study Guide
I passed.!!: ))) Here is my background. Long story short, I graduated 5 years ago and didn't put effort to pass EIT when I was in school. Now I need to pass this EIT for my career and I decided to take review class.
If you scroll down in this forum, I asked about review class back in January/February. I was on fence between School of PE and EET, and I decided to go with EET. I can't speak of School of PE, but I highly recommend EET FE CIVIL review class. (They have demo sample video if you want to see how it's like, but you need to ask them). I enrolled in Sameh's on demand online class. (Link is here ) because I can't commit class's schedule due to my baby and family.
Here are the reasons why I gave EET's FE review class 4.5 starts out of 5. The class format is very easy to follow and well structured. Sameh goes over a little bit of equations and concepts and he shows you where you can find that equation in NCEES's reference manual. Then follow by examples and quizzes. The class is heavily based on practicing problems than a lot of theories.
Keep in mind that we are not trying to get Engineering Degree here, but we are trying to pass FE exam which you need to do a tons of practice problems. There are a lot of problems available for you to practice. The level of difficulty of the problems is a little bit below Michael R. Lindeburg but harder than actual NCEES’s problems which i found it very well prepared for actual test. It’s mixed with easy, medium and hard questions.
There will be HW assignments for all subjects. Then timed section exams to test your speed and knowledge of subjects.
Finally, you can have timed 110 NCEES’s alike final test. I can’t conclude without talking about Sameh. He’s a very caring and positive person.
I told him that I had to stop studying for 3 months due to my family circumstance and he’s very understanding. His responses are very prompt and you can ask him questions any time any day. The reason I am giving 4.5 is that there are a few things they can be improved on. The lectures are based on NCEES’s reference 9.0 version, not 9.4. Changes from 9.0 to 9.4 are very minor. NCEES just added a few transportation (2 pages) in 9.4 from 9.3, and a few deflection formulas changed in Mechanic of Materials.
Their review is great for someone who got civil engineering background and needed review to recall what you have studied before. It's not designed for someone who needs to understand fundamental of civil engineering from the scratch.
Here are the study materials that I have used to pass my 1 st attempt (with real study): 1. EET FE Civil Review (Approximately 1000 problems with both examples, quizzes, HW, section exams, final exam) 2.
NCEES practice problems 2014 (50 questions) 3. NCEES practice problems 2009 (60 morning / 30 afternoon questions) 4. Utlimate Civil FE practice problems by Isaac Oakeson (110 questions) (Do only after you completed your review to practice your speed) 5. Lindeburg’s FE Civil Practice Problems (I did around 200 problems out of 466 in the book in Math, Hydraulic, Environmental, Geotech, Materials, Transportation, Construction, Computer) (I glanced through Statics, Mechanics of Materials, and Structural and skipped problems that required more than 4 steps which won’t be on test). My Strategies on Exam Day 1. Light review or no study at all on a day before exam.
Make sure you have enough 8 hours sleep on a night before exam. Don’t build up your stress and go into exam room. Just relax and have a little bit of worry to maintain your energy throughout 6 hours. During the exam, if you don’t know how to tackle problems within 15 seconds, flag and skip to next. Save your brain juice for problems that you know how to do. Educated guesses are very critical in the exam.
You will find yourself with 10-20 questions that you have no idea or you are not sure how to do. Try to eliminate 1-2 impossible answers and make a choice of the remaining 2-3 possible answers. You will gain this skill once you did a tons of practice problems. I put in around 200ish hours for the exam. I'm glad handwork pay off finally, and i don't have to do FE again. Now on to the PE and I'm heavily leaning toward EET's review class for my 8 hours and seismic exams.
Finally, I thank engineerboards.com and awesome fellow engineers here for making this happen. Without you, i can't imagine what i'll be studying for FE or how many more times i need to attempt. I'm so glad this forum exists. If any of you have any questions about anything, just ask me here. Edited September 23, 2016 by ayanhein.
Belated Congratulations on passing the exam. How many questions did you see from the NCEES FE Reference Manual version 4.0, especially those new content from those two pages in transportation engineering, and updated deflection formulas in Mechanics of Materials, that NCEES just conveniently decided to include into the new exam? Where did you acquire quick refresher on the new material that is in NCEES FE Reference Manual version 4.0? I see that you had opted in to use the services of a private individual's services, but for me the price is too high.
Are there any better, and cheaper options other than the one mentioned in your post in terms of acquiring study material that has new content covered from NCEES FE Reference Version 4.0? If so, please list them in your reply. I am looking invest around $60 to $80 range. Belated Congratulations on passing the exam. How many questions did you see from the NCEES FE Reference Manual version 4.0, especially those new content from those two pages in transportation engineering, and updated deflection formulas in Mechanics of Materials, that NCEES just conveniently decided to include into the new exam?
Where did you acquire quick refresher on the new material that is in NCEES FE Reference Manual version 4.0? I see that you had opted in to use the services of a private individual's services, but for me the price is too high. Are there any better, and cheaper options other than the one mentioned in your post in terms of acquiring study material that has new content covered from NCEES FE Reference Version 4.0? If so, please list them in your reply. I am looking invest around $60 to $80 range.
No questions was asked from updated version. For 2 pages of transportation, i googled and found some good study materials for it. If you budget is around $70, i recommend these 2 books from Michael Lindeburg: currently around $70 for used books. Hey Ayanhein, Is it possible for you to share this above quoted content to others? If so, I would like to attempt at those 1000 problems if you share them with me.
Thinking about taking the FE CBT Civil exam, my cumulative third attempt, in November / 2016. Please help out the fellow failed examinee. Thanks in advance.
I would like to help but those review books has copyright by EET. Like i suggested above, you could buy review books and it should be more than enough to pass. I also recommend you to buy NCEES's online practice exams: version 2014 and 2009. A question about the raw/scaled passing score Can I be guaranteed of a pass if I correctly answer over 60-70 out of the 110 questions? I was reading a blog and I came across the number of questions to answer correctly. Apparently, a Professor who volunteers teaching students to pass the FE Civil Test stated that ' To pass the exam, you need to get about 77 questions right or 70% of the whole test.' I have also read from other posts, including NCEES website, which state that scores are scaled/curved for the 70%.
My thought is that he wants his students to work harder that may be the reason why he said so. Can this be true. It seems pretty high (about 80/100). Thanks for any remarks. Congrats on passing and goodluck on the PE. I plan on taking the FE exam but I have to attend a review class next month. I graduated 20 yrs ago so I really need a good refresher on the theories.
I have only inquired with School of PE and based on my conversation with the representative, they structured their review to about 60% lecture (theories, principles, etc) and 40% workshop. Based on this, I thought this will be the best option for someone my age. Do you think the EET class format will be OK with someone like me who's been out of school for more than 10 yrs? I checked EET's website for the price and not sure if I understand it correctly. I saw 2 separate pricing for Webinar version and On-demand version. Does that mean I have to pay double to get both? Also noticed their last class that ended in Nov.
Was a morning class. They dont have the next schedule yet but do you know if they have the evening classes? Thanks a lot. Really appreciate the it. A question about the raw/scaled passing score Can I be guaranteed of a pass if I correctly answer over 60-70 out of the 110 questions? I was reading a blog and I came across the number of questions to answer correctly.
Apparently, a Professor who volunteers teaching students to pass the FE Civil Test stated that ' To pass the exam, you need to get about 77 questions right or 70% of the whole test.' I have also read from other posts, including NCEES website, which state that scores are scaled/curved for the 70%. My thought is that he wants his students to work harder that may be the reason why he said so. Can this be true. It seems pretty high (about 80/100).
Thanks for any remarks sorry for the late reply. NCEES never release the passing score. But according to my research, you are most likely to pass with 70% (77 questions out of 110) with 65% would be a very close to either pass or fail.
Congrats on passing and goodluck on the PE. I plan on taking the FE exam but I have to attend a review class next month. I graduated 20 yrs ago so I really need a good refresher on the theories.
I have only inquired with School of PE and based on my conversation with the representative, they structured their review to about 60% lecture (theories, principles, etc) and 40% workshop. Based on this, I thought this will be the best option for someone my age. Do you think the EET class format will be OK with someone like me who's been out of school for more than 10 yrs? I checked EET's website for the price and not sure if I understand it correctly.
I saw 2 separate pricing for Webinar version and On-demand version. Does that mean I have to pay double to get both? Also noticed their last class that ended in Nov.
Was a morning class. They dont have the next schedule yet but do you know if they have the evening classes? Thanks a lot. Really appreciate the it. Sorry for my late reply. Please don't get confused between Webinar and On-Demand version. Webinar (Live) is a live class and On-Demand is the recorded videos from previous term (it'd be the recorded videos from last class which ended in Nov.).
I took On-Demand class which fit my schedule. Instructor Sameh responds your questions very prompt, and he's a very knowledgeable teacher. The class isn't focused on the theories, but more on practice problems. I can't speak of School of PE since i've never taken their class. But if i were you, not only i'd take a review class, but I'd also buy 2 books (Review Manual and Practice Problems) from Michael R.
Lindeburg EET review covers almost all the materials that you need to know, but i felt like it was good to see more practice problems to have fully understanding on some concepts. 2 books from Michael Lindeburg would take care of it. Another resources i'd like to suggest is 'Google' and 'Youtube': there are tons of examples on subject matter if you are not clear on one topic. Bottom line is EET course to get you set up on a structured review course with an instructor who you can ask questions anytime.
But you also want to do extra study materials from outside of class notes. Don't give up you can do it! Edited December 27, 2016 by RyanM. @AyanHein Still on the passing score of the Civil FE Exams.
From my little research and a critical review of the sample diagnostic CBT report by NCEES; there are as many as 10 nonscoring questions among the 110 questions. Candidates are assessed on 100 of the 110 questions. Scores are adjusted for a passing score ( 55-60) and the adjusted passing score is then scaled as at least 70%, which is the required passing score by the Professional Engineering Associations. The scale to adjusted score depends on specific discipline and also from administration to administration.
Furthermore, Wikipedia on Fundamental of Engineering Exams states ' A scaled score of 70 is required to pass the exam.citation needed This does not mean one needs to answer 70% of the answers correctly to pass, however. A portion of previous exam questions are then given on subsequent exams. After the exam, a statistical analysis of these questions is used to equate the new test to the benchmark test. This makes all of the tests more or less equal in difficulty.' Though still working to meet at least 70% of the question.
@AyanHein Still on the passing score of the Civil FE Exams. From my little research and a critical review of the sample diagnostic CBT report by NCEES; there are as many as 10 nonscoring questions among the 110 questions. Candidates are assessed on 100 of the 110 questions. Scores are adjusted for a passing score ( 55-60) and the adjusted passing score is then scaled as at least 70%, which is the required passing score by the Professional Engineering Associations. The scale to adjusted score depends on specific discipline and also from administration to administration.
Afternoon Study
Furthermore, Wikipedia on Fundamental of Engineering Exams states ' A scaled score of 70 is required to pass the exam.citation needed This does not mean one needs to answer 70% of the answers correctly to pass, however. A portion of previous exam questions are then given on subsequent exams. After the exam, a statistical analysis of these questions is used to equate the new test to the benchmark test. This makes all of the tests more or less equal in difficulty.' Though still working to meet at least 70% of the question Correct. 10 questions won't be counted toward final total scores. But since they don't identify those 10 problems, it's safe to assume you need to answer 70 (70% of 100 questions) to 77 questions (70% of 110) correctly.
You Need a Plan Six weeks until the PE exam. Have you organized your study plan? If not, here is one I put together for future examinees, already registered, six weeks out from their PE date (next exam date: April 17, 2015). Note: NCEES changed the reference books for the 2015 exams. The correct books are listed on the bottom of the page on this article for. The first thing you want to do is take a full.
You need to know where you stand. Even if you have not yet prepared a detailed plan of study, you have most likely been studying various topics and double checking your reference books. Whatever you have done up to now, from nothing to a military-style study campaign, you need to assess your strengths and weaknesses. First, let's be sure you know which topics are covered on the PE exam.
PE exam morning session topics: Each of five topics receives equal emphasis: Geotechnical Transportation Structural Water Resources and Environmental Afternoon Session Modules: 40 Questions in 4 hours. You will choose one module for the afternoon session. The module options match the morning session topics: Geotechnical, Transportation, Structural, and Water Resources and Environmental. Most important study topic: The module you select will become 60% of your exam.
The afternoon section is 50% (obviously) and the morning portion of this topic accounts for another 10% (.20 x.50 =.10). Your study schedule and PE practice exams will need to emphasis the topic of your afternoon exam. Resource: Week 1 Study 6 days and take 1 day off. If you don't schedule relaxation, you will steal it wherever you can.
Trust me, when you know you have down time later, it is easier to focus during scheduled study sessions. This first week, take a full 8-hour practice exam. If you start on a Saturday or Sunday, take the full 8 hour exam in 9 hours. Start at 8 a.m., take a 1-hour lunch from noon to 1, and work the 4 hour afternoon Depth Exam from 1 p.m. Analyze Results of Your PE Practice Exam: Tabulate your results topically. Generate a score for each of the 5 topics. Rank them 1 to 5, with #1 being your strongest subject and #5 being your weakest topic.
For the first week of study, emphasize #1 and #5. Forget the other topics for now. Here is why: First, your brain needs to get back up to pace in intensity.
Your brain actually requires increased blood flow to operate at increased levels. The PE exam tempo requires an increased level. You must slowly work your brain back up to the high performance levels required in college. Second, these two subjects have the greatest potential to produce a strong score on exam day.
Your strongest subject area score on the first practice exam may not remain strongest on future practice tests and self-quizzes. The reason is that each subject has a wide variety of subtopics. I took 6 full practice exams, at 2-week intervals, with moderate study in between. My score on each topic varied up and down test to test (but trended upward overall).
The subtopics randomly presented in each PE practice exam will vary. And, your resultant score will also vary. This variance should be greater in subjects with the greatest number of subtopics- Structural has the most material (subtopics) and self-tests will produce results similar to statistical sampling. Variation of results will diminish as you progress along your study schedule. However, if you score high in Environmental and low in Structural (common), it is because your mind likes the topic of environmental, or you work in environmental. For some reason, you and environmental just get along.
Build your strength in this topic to ensure you continue to produce strong results in all practice exams- and on the day of your PE exam. In your weakest area, there is the greatest room for improvement.
You will rapidly improve in this subject. It is likely your low score is due to two factors, both easily corrected with a little time: 1.
You need to become familiar with variables. You need to become familiar with the reference materials (to find the necessary equations). Study 4 hours each day, in the following format: Study the topics of the day for one hour.
Next, take a 66-minute (maximum) self quiz. This is 7 problems. Take 4 questions from your strong area (#1), and 3 from your weak area (#5). For the remainder of the time, review the solutions for the questions you chose. To create these practice quizzes, divide up a sample exam book. For example, using 80 morning questions:.
Quiz #1: Numbers 1, 12, 23, 34, 45, 56, and 67. Quiz #2: Numbers 2, 13, 24, 35, 46, 57, and 68.
etc. That will create eleven 7-question quizzes. How many questions for a self-quiz? Create quizzes using 7 questions. This way, 5 correct gives you 71.4%, which you should expect to be a passing score. Week 2 In a 3-month duration of study, I recommend taking a practice exam every other weekend. However, with a shorter timeline, you will benefit from taking more practice exams.
As you experienced during the first week's quizzes, learning is more effective under the intensity of taking a test. So, test yourself. You will find you performed much better on this second exam.
Likely this is primarily attributed to having become accustomed to intense focus from taking quizzes, and more so due to familiarization with your reference books. Between my first practice exam (40%) and my second exam (58%), I saw my greatest improvement. I attribute this to the two reasons mentioned above. This week, you also want to spend some time reviewing and familiarizing yourself with required reference books, and especially with the CERM. Tab your index pages. I listed the for this purpose at the other end of the preceding link-test. Or, you can pick some up at the local office supply.
I bought some excellent tabs in Office Depot. Your local office supply should have the same.
Be sure to find tabs with a clear sticky base. This way, once attached, they will not cover any text. I found several options like this, which have good widths and assorted colors, or with wider tabs. The multiple colors will help you locate your favorite sections quickly. I used a red tab to mark the structural section of the CERM, for example. Also in Week 2, start a Quick Reference Folder.
This is a binder you will create to hold all the most referenced tables, charts, and solutions you find valuable. This week, study the #2 and #4 subjects from your Week1 practice PE exam. However, on the fourth day, study last week's topics. This forces you to recall the data, and to recall the location of formulas and tables in the reference material.
Strengthen Recall- a Key to Exam Success No matter which exam you are taking, from grade school to college to professional life, during an exam, you must recall. Recollection is a specific ability of the mind. The more you recall something, the easier and faster it becomes.
This is another reason taking practice quizzes and practice exams is a very effective study method. Week 3 This week, take a break from the 8-hour exam. Instead of using a new exam to determine the two focus topics for this week, combine the results of the previous two tests, and make a judgment call about which topic to add to #3 from Week 1. #3 is the one topic you have not yet focused on.
Week 4 Practice test time! Make this week's quizzes comprehensive. By this time, you should receive a score of 70% or better. Most of these points will come in the Morning Breadth Exam.
In my first practice exams, I scored double on the morning exams as I did on the afternoon portions. As I began to score higher, this ratio dropped. Don't worry where you earn the points. Just focus on the total. In my own practice exams, I steadily improved, with less increase in later weeks. I always scored more in the morning section.
I took the structural afternoon exam. I passed both NCEES exams on the first try using this system.
Week 5 Take another comprehensive exam. This may seem like a lot of practice exams. However, this is where the lion's share of your improvement will come. Psychological studies have proven that people forget lecture material like their minds are leaky buckets. But, put something on an exam, and they might remember it for years. The added stress increases recall. Effectively, testing yourself on practice exams and on quizzes is like amplifying your time investment.
Assessing the effectiveness of time invested into each topic, plan your study time accordingly. Do not stress your brain by studying more than 4 hours per day. Be sure to get to sleep on time (not later than 11 p.m.) to allow your body to refresh and restore and regenerate. People who work with their minds require more sleep than people who perform physical labor.
Force your Mind to Recall Previous Learning Mix up your quizzes, but continue to emphasize topics each day, no more than two per day. Review all the questions you miss on your quizzes. Because your mind was heightened when you looked at it the first time, there is a good anchor in your memory onto which you can attach the correct solution. For questions you almost solved, or which you understand very well, but missed, write out the solution and add it to a section of your Quick Reference Folder. I solved three questions on my module using solutions in my quick reference binder.
Week 6 This Friday is PE exam day. The brain operates like a muscle. You have trained it up.
Now, like professional athletes, you want to taper it down. Tuesday Take a practice exam on Tuesday. If you can't get the day off (comp time, maybe?), at least take a 4-hour morning or afternoon practice exam.
Wednesday Study for 2 hours. Review problems from previous tests, especially the previous day's practice exam. Collect all your books into one place.
Double check your. Thursday Take a 1-hour practice quiz. Review your results. Get to bed on time. Friday Wake feeling refreshed. On the drive to your exam site, drink a half cup of coffee without sugar. Find a place before your exam to exercise for 5 minutes before entering the exam room.
The coffee and exercise will increase your blood circulation. These two techniques have been shown to improve test results by 5%. Don't forget: calculator, exam documents, photo ID. Before you begin your exam, give thanks to God for preparing you. Ask for calm, focus, wisdom, and understanding.
Concluding Notes: Many suggest a minimum of 300 hours study. I believe this can be decreased using the intensity of self-administered practice exams and quizzes.
If you have just six weeks to study, this is my suggestion. If you are planning when to begin, I recommend 12 weeks. The longer time frame permits the brain to develop its capacity to meet the challenge. For more great tips like this one, I recommend. It is an e-book, available for instant download from Amazon.com. Best wishes for a successful career!