PE Exam (passing scores)???
40 questions and solutions from the morning PE Civil specifications 40 questions from the WATER RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENTAL afternoon specifications The morning questions are the same for all PE Civil disciplines; that is, regardless of the PM book you choose, the AM questions will be the same in all books. Dec 03, 2016 Civil PE Practice Exam: Water Resources Depth Version B PE Prepared LLC on Amazon.com.FREE. shipping on qualifying offers. One practice examination for the civil PM water resources and environmental depth portion of the NCEES Principles and Practice of Engineering Examination (PE Exam). Includes 40 realistic civil engineering problems with detailed.
PE Exam (passing scores)???
Hey Everyone,
This will make the 2nd time I have took the pe exam (civil) in NC. I currently have around 7.5 yrs experience behind me (rdwy design and traffic eng). Unfortunately, I am starting to feel as if I am pretty 'dumb'!
I took the exam the first time to just get a feel for how the exam was and the type of questions that would be thrown at me. The 2nd time I signed up for a review class and threw lots of $$$ into many reference books outside of Lindenburg based of the first exam. I studied my --- off based off the first exam and even learned my weakest module 'water resources'. After taking the review class and working numerous problems in 'transportation' out of the Lindenburg problem book, I felt as if I was ready to conquer this test. During the am portion of the exam felt as if I did great, the pm portion I ran out of time and ended up guessing alot at the end (there is no way those afternoon problems are 6 mins each).
After the exam I felt as if the least I could have made was a 48 out of 80 HMMM...not so says my NCEES and NCBELS even though my score went up by 10pts from the previous test. This time I scored a 41.56pts.
I have read sites and they have said that the grey area for the exam is between 48 to 56 or 45 to 50 (out of 80 questions).
Regardless of what the passing number is, I'm not getting something obviously...(lol...the right answers)
Could you guys please take a look at my breakdown and give me some good advice on whether I should retake this test again in Apr or wait until Oct to retake it.
am environmental 25%
structures 50%
geotech 50%
transp 63%
water resources 38%
pm traffic analysis 73%
transp plan/const 43%
geometric design 63%
geotech 60%
water resources 56%
Thanks
This will make the 2nd time I have took the pe exam (civil) in NC. I currently have around 7.5 yrs experience behind me (rdwy design and traffic eng). Unfortunately, I am starting to feel as if I am pretty 'dumb'!
I took the exam the first time to just get a feel for how the exam was and the type of questions that would be thrown at me. The 2nd time I signed up for a review class and threw lots of $$$ into many reference books outside of Lindenburg based of the first exam. I studied my --- off based off the first exam and even learned my weakest module 'water resources'. After taking the review class and working numerous problems in 'transportation' out of the Lindenburg problem book, I felt as if I was ready to conquer this test. During the am portion of the exam felt as if I did great, the pm portion I ran out of time and ended up guessing alot at the end (there is no way those afternoon problems are 6 mins each).
After the exam I felt as if the least I could have made was a 48 out of 80 HMMM...not so says my NCEES and NCBELS even though my score went up by 10pts from the previous test. This time I scored a 41.56pts.
I have read sites and they have said that the grey area for the exam is between 48 to 56 or 45 to 50 (out of 80 questions).
Regardless of what the passing number is, I'm not getting something obviously...(lol...the right answers)
Could you guys please take a look at my breakdown and give me some good advice on whether I should retake this test again in Apr or wait until Oct to retake it.
am environmental 25%
structures 50%
geotech 50%
transp 63%
water resources 38%
pm traffic analysis 73%
transp plan/const 43%
geometric design 63%
geotech 60%
water resources 56%
Thanks
I have been requested from few of my fellow engineers to publish an informative note based on my October 2015 Professional Engineering (PE) exam experience. Therefore, I am writing this note, which I don’t know how helpful would be, but I hope it would be definitely a time saver for the October 2016 examinees. I used some references from the Civil Engineering Reference Manual (CERM) and different public forums to prepare this note. As I have taken geotechnical engineering in the afternoon session of the exam, I assume this note would be best suited for the geotechnical engineers and partially helpful for the civil engineers from all other fields of interest.
The National Councils for Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) PE examination in civil engineering consists of two 4 hours sessions separated by a 1 hour break. The morning (a.m.) session is called “Breadth” session which includes questions from all civil engineering fields. Morning session question paper is the same for all civil engineering examinees. The afternoon session (p.m.) is called “Depth” session and it has 5 different modules:
- Water resources and Environment,
- Geotechnical
- Structural
- Transportation
- Construction
Each civil engineering examinee need to select 1 module from these 5 modules, mainly based on his/her academic background, experience and interest.
Both the morning and afternoon sessions contain 40 questions in multiple-choice format. There are no negative marking, and no multiples-answer question. There are no separate minimum pass marks required for morning and afternoon sessions, the exam will be graded based on the total 80 questions. According to different PE forums, you need to correctly answer around 70% of the total questions (56 out of 80 questions) to pass this exam. Based on the April 2015 exam records, the mean pass rate for the first time exam takers is 65% (Construction 57%, Geotechnical 63%, Structural 67%, Transportation 66%, and Water Resources 71%) for different civil engineering fields. Surprisingly, the mean pass rate for the repeat takers is only 27% (Construction 24%, Geotechnical 22%, Structural 23%, Transportation 32%, and Water Resources 34%).
The specifications and the approximate number of questions for the AM exam are describes below which effective beginning with the April 2015 examinations:
Project Planning (4), Construction Means and Methods (3), Soil Mechanics (6), Structural Mechanics (6), Hydraulic and Hydrology (7), Geometrics of Roadway (3), Material (6), and Site Development (5). The specifications for Geotechnical PM Exam are: Site Characterization (5), Soil Mechanics, Laboratory Testing, and Analysis (5), Field Materials Testing, Methods, and Safety (3), Earthquake Engineering and Dynamic Loads (2), Earth Structure (4), Groundwater and Seepage (3), Problematic Soil and Rock Conditions (3), Earth Retaining Structures (5), Shallow Foundations (5), Deep Foundations (5). In general, the question distribution for the morning session is: Construction (20%), Geotechnical (20%), Structural (20%), Transportation (20%), Water resources and Environment (20%), and for the afternoon session is Specific Field (80%), Other Topics (20%). These distributions might change a little every year and the most recent versions are found in the NCEES Website.
PE exam is an open book exam, and there are many references and resources that you should use in the examination. According to CERM,
“It is unlikely that you could pass the PE exam without accumulating other books and resources.”
Loose papers are not allowed in the exam but you can bring your notes, sample examinations, cheat sheets and solved problems if you bind them properly with spiral binder. You must accumulate all of the references needed to support the exam’s entire body of knowledge. The accumulation process is too expensive and time-consuming, and the sources are too diverse.
It took me almost 5 months and it costs me around $1000 to accumulate all the PE books I needed for the exam. I brought almost 25 books to the exam in a white cardboard box. You could also use a plastic milk crater or a carry-on luggage to take them with you. Do not forget to tab your books with color code and page markers. These could save your valuable time in the exam. Other important stuffs I brought with me are: exam authorization from, driver’s license, straightedge, wristwatch and two calculators: Casio fx-115MS and Casio fx-115ES Plus. Do not bring any pen or pencils with you, exam authority will provide you lead pencil. Do not try to write anything anywhere other than the exam paper during the exam!
The list of books which I brought to the examination hall is provided below. I mainly carried all of my books I used for my exam preparation and practices for the past few months. The books I actually used in the exams are tick marked! I did not need unmarked books in the exam.
- Civil Engineering Reference Manual for PE Exam, 11th Edition by Michael R. Lindburg (√)
- Quick Reference for the Civil Engineering PE Exam, 5th Edition by Michael R. Lindburg (√)
- Practice Problems for the Civil Engineering PE Exam, 11th Edition by Michael R. Lindburg
- PE Civil Engineering Geotechnical Practice Exam by NCEES (√)
- Principles of Foundation Engineering, 7th Edition by BM Das (√)
- Principles of Geotechnical Engineering, 8th Edition by BM Das and K Sobhan (√)
- Principles of Soil Dynamics, 2nd Edition by BM Das and GV Ramana
- The Engineering of Foundation, R Salgado
- An Introduction to Geotechnical Engineering, 2nd Edition by RD Holtz, WD Kovacs and TC Sheahan (√)
- Soil Strength and Slope Stability by JM Duncan and SG Wright
- PE Depth Guide Geotechnical Engineering by SJ Spigolon
- PE Depth Guide Water Resources by EU Nzewi
- Practice Exam for the Civil PE Examination: Breadth + Geotechnical Depth by I Goswami (√)
- Sample Civil PE Exam Geotechnical Session by M Frolov (√)
- Civil PE Sample Examination by Michael R. Lindburg
- Six-Minute Solutions for Civil PE Exam Geotechnical Problems by BA Wolle (√)
- Six-Minute Solutions for Civil PE Exam Transportation Problems by NR Voigt
- Six-Minute Solutions for Civil PE Exam Problems Water Resources by RW Schneiter
- Six-Minute Solutions for Civil PE Exam Structural Problems by CA Subasic
- Transportation Engineering Module for Civil PE License by SA Mansour
- FE Civil Exam Review: Construction and Surveying Sample Questions and Solutions by Smartpros Keepsmart
- Schaum’s Outlines: Engineering Economics
- Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering by Kramer (√)
- Geotechnical Aspects of Landfill Design and Construction by Xian and Koerner
- PCA Notes on ACI 318-08 Building Codes Requirements for Structural Concrete with Design Applications
I found two types of questions in both morning and afternoon sessions:
- 60-65% of the total questions are mathematical problem based
- other 35-40% are theoretical knowledge based questions
As I passed my PhD qualifying exams in spring 2014, I assumed to have sufficient theoretical knowledge in geotechnical engineering. Therefore, this time I focused more on mathematical problem solving and mock tests. This strategy proved fruitful for me. However, some of the theoretical questions are so experience based that I could not answer properly because of my lack of job experience in geotechnical field.
If I asked to compare the difficulty levels of the morning and the afternoon session, I would say morning session is much easier than the afternoon session. CERM is the most helpful reference for the morning session, and I used only CERM and some other practice exam books to answer the morning session problems. It took me 3.5 hours to finish my morning session. However, I used 10 different books and I spend almost full 4 hours to answer the afternoon session. Among all the practice exams currently available in the market, I would highly recommend to buy PE Civil Engineering Geotechnical (different for other fields) Practice Exam by NCEES. This practice exam resembles most the original PE exam but I found the original exam little bit tougher than this book!
Here are some question patterns my advisor Dr. Sarah Gassman, PE prepared from her exam back in 2005. I also found similar trends in October 2015 exam. I would certainly not reveal any questions herein, as it is completely forbidden to share the questions in any public forum. I hope the following information is still very helpful and could give a good idea to the future examinees.
Morning Session (General): Environmental: Landfill capacity (assume unit weight of waste), Geotechnical: Soil classification, F.S. overturning concrete wall, Borrow pit: weight-volume, Weight volume (phase relations), Find maximum dry density, Bearing capacity (using Terzaghi factors), Structures: Moment diagram, given beam loading, Punching shear capacity, Tension in a cable, Reactions for a bridge truss, Transportation: Traffic capacity, Geometric design Bearings, chord, back tangent, Water Resources: Pump problem, Unit hydrograph analysis, Hydraulic radius of pipe, Flow in pipes (given pressure head, velocity) use Bernoulli, Hydraulic jump. Management: Critical Path Method.
Afternoon Session (Geotechnical): Heave of excavation, Critical gradient under sheet pile, Location of well for draw down, Classic Borrow pit, Weight-volume, Phase relations, Structural Number for pavement design, Concrete mix design, Retaining Walls, F.S. overturning, F.S. sliding, Axial capacity of a steel pile, Tension capacity of a drilled shaft, Axial capacity of a steel pipe pile with liquefaction, Soil classification (USCS and AASHTO with group index), Consolidation (rate and magnitude), Lateral load on pile group with p-y multipliers, Durability of metal and geosynthetic reinforcement (resistivity, pH, gradation or temperature), Type of foundation for a given subsurface condition, Load on buried pipe, Stress at depth (use influence value charts for square and circular footings), Shear strength of concrete slab, Lateral earth pressure on walls and excavations, Cyclic stress ratio and shear stress ratio (from CRR-N, qc1 plot, find F.S.), Find consolidation settlements based on a change in effective stress, If use non-standard sampler or larger split spoon, how will correction factor change field value, Pressure under a footing with 2 column loads, Change anchor from horizontal to inclined effect, Active and passive earth pressure, Find Q allowable from load test data, given failure criteria, Given transmissivity, T, ne, find K, find seepage velocity, Consolidation settlement under a pile foundation using 2:1 method.
Finally, I would suggest about how much study is adequate for passing the PE exam. I actually start my study after I registered for the PE exam on June 2015. I consulted with couple of my friends who already successfully passed this exam. Both of them recommend me to prepare at least 100 hours with a regular schedule. As a civil engineer, I always used to apply factor of safety! Therefore, I studied 200 hours, mainly based on CERM book and other geotechnical references. In addition, I solved thousands of practice problems and did multiple mock tests a week before the exam in some crowded atmosphere. I always bring all my reference books and used the same calculator during the mock test to better replicate the original exam scenario.
Here are my average time distributions for the last 5 months before the exam (little different for the weekdays and the weekends): June (30 minutes a day), July (40 minutes a day), August (40 minutes a day), September (2 hours a day), and October (3 hours a day). My exam was on October 30th at 7:30 am. I therefore, practiced to go to bed early for the last couple of weeks and also visited once the exam site to be familiar with the battlefield beforehand! Last but not the least; I also used to browse in different PE preparation forums in my smart phone before I go to sleep.
Note: I have many preparation materials and PDF books which I am willing to share with my friends who are interested in taking part in April or October 2016 PE exam (in first come first serve basis)! Let me know if you need more information about this challenging exam. Thank you.
Best Wishes!