I recently received notification that I passed the 8-hr portion of the PE exam, which is the first of three exams required to obtain professional licensure as a civil engineer in California. In light of this, I thought I would share with you some of my thoughts on preparing for and taking the PE exam.
1. The first step is taking the EIT exam prior to graduation, preferably soon after taking the core civil engineering classes (i.e. CE 130, CE 123, CE 128, CE 142, and CE 150). Passing the EIT is required to be eligible to take the PE exam and will help in securing your first job.
2. The State of California recently changed its eligibility requirements for the 8-hr exam such that it may be taken before you have acquired the two years of professional experience that is necessary to sit for the seismic and surveying portion of the exam. In deciding when to take the exam you will want to weigh the fact that the morning (general) session will likely be easier the sooner you take it, while work experience may be helpful for the afternoon (discipline specific) session.
3. Schedule studying time into your schedule leading up to the PE exam. E.g. set aside 1 - 2 evenings per week for the months leading up to the exam. It's important that you put this on your calendar and stick to it. Otherwise, it is too easy to put off studying.
4. I started my studying by taking a NCEES practice exam (without any references) to identify areas of weakness. During each study session, I addressed one of these areas by reviewing the corresponding sections of the Civil Engineering Reference Manual (CERM) (for morning topics) or applicable reference manual (for afternoon topics). I then solved questions pertaining to that area using the reference materials until I felt confident. (NCEES also publishes a list of topics for the exam, which you could use to establish your study schedule.) For topics you have difficulty mastering, reach out to a friend or colleague with knowledge of that area and ask them to tutor you for a few hours. This was one of the best things I did.
5. Whatever you do, get a copy of the CERM, tab it, and bring it to the exam. It was the only reference that was helpful on the morning session and it covered almost all of the content on the exam. For many problems for which I had no idea how to solve, I identified a key word in the problem, looked it up in the CERM index, and located the section that related to the topic. The information in the CERM was sufficient to figure many of these problems out. For the afternoon session, NCEES provides a list of the applicable code documents (e.g. NDS, AISC, etc.). I brought all of the listed references, but realistically, only the ones you are familiar with will be of any help. More important than remembering every formula is knowing how to find the formulas quickly, so tabbing all of your references is important.
6. The 8-hr test is going to be an test of mental endurance, so be sure to take care of yourself. The night before the exam, relax and get plenty of sleep. Eat a good breakfast and pack plenty of food for lunch.
7. On the exam itself, I went through the test and answered all the questions that I knew how to answer. If I ran into a snag, I moved onto the next problem. For any problem that was skipped, I left a mark next to it if I thought I would know how to figure it out given a little time. Once I solved all the problems I knew, I went back to the ones I had marked. After getting answers for those, I went back to the ones for which I had no idea. Basically, my strategy was to get as many questions as I could answered early so that I would be less stressed when working on the more difficult questions. It also helped to get more questions answered earlier in the exam because towards the end of a four hour session (especially the afternoon), basic computations become increasingly difficult.
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