Thank you for these videos, I have recommended it to all of my coworkers who are also preparing! (shoutout to my nitsches) Started watching these about 2 months before my exam and just found out today I passed on my first try :D I swear I could literally hear your voice in the back of my head on certain problems since you went over all the concepts so well
I would recommend including some BOD questions from the environmental section, I had about three of them on my exam that had me stumped. Pretty much everything else you had covered in a video
Thank you for the thorough videos and for sharing your material/problem sets. The walkthrough of the reference handbook is the best I've come across and your problem sets are better and more involved than the NCEES FE Practice exams. You have well-thought-out lessons and the design of your problem sets has been engineered into a great deliverable!
Good afternoon Mark. Thank you for posting these videos. I recently took my FE and failed by approximately 4 questions (based on a spreadsheet I created). My worst subject was transportation, possibly due to all of the fine details I had forgotten since taking the course. You do an excellent job explaining each step and the thought process behind them. We actually had an FE prep class at the beginning of this year but we used the PPEHQ software which I feel is overwhelming. These problems you are working are much more similar to the test questions. I take the exam again on the 5th of January and feel that I will do much better after watching your videos. Thank you again!! Forrest Dangerfield CE Student, Citadel Military College
Yo Mark, Question 9, Adjustment for lane width. 11 feet lane width is included in the average lane width for range 10-11 feet and also 11-12 feet (they both read greater than or equal to). I used the average adjustment for lane width between 1.9 and 6.6, equal to 4.25. Answer for FFS results in 62.6 mph.. close call but i still have to go with 65mph (Answer B). I've watched this entire playlist twice, my test is in 10 day. Thank you for restoring my memory.
Hi Mark! Finally I paaaaaaseeeed the FE civil exam from the second try 😍😍 I am soooo happy and want to thank you for all your videos I watched it several times Also I want to recommend the book of “ Islam “ which contains 800 questions it was also amazing and let me understand many additional things that not included in the yellow book So it was great knowledge from your videos, the yellow book, and Islam book after completing it I passed the exam 😍😍😍
Thanks again for these great videos! In Q10 the concept of FFS =/= S., in this case, was equal in value due to the freeway conditions. The Handbook has an equation for S that depends on FFHadj and the BreakPoint value (BP). FFHadj depends on FFS and SAF
Question 11-B is false because you can enter the intersection on a red light when turning right - unless I'm misunderstanding something. Nice vids Mark! Taking my test in 3 weeks!
Hi mark thank you very much for these videos. I think that you have something wrong in question 7. You should add the 5 percent grade and not subtract it. Because you need to consider cars coming from both directions and entering the curve not leaving the curve. So the 5 helps cars to stop easier. so you add it to the deceleration to get a smaller S. The correct answer is 3100.
Did anyone else by chance get YPVI=798ft for the problem 4? I believe x=L/2 on both sides of the equation; therefore, on the right side the term (x-L/2) will cancel out and we get that YPVI=YPVC+g1x, which I have is equal to 798ft.
I might be wrong but for Question 10 The fhv I got was 0.4807. Instead of the 0.926 value that was shown in the video. The issue I think was that the (Et - 1 ) in the denominator wasn't accounted for. That ultimately changes the LOS to D instead of B.
just kinda assuming from knowledge, but a freeway typically has lanes in both directions. so 6 lane freeway will have 3 lanes in two directions. this is what i thought atleast.
In Question 4 you use the numeric value (%/100) for "g1" and "g2" ("0.02" / "-0.03") to plug into the Tangent EL. Can you explain why "A" in Question 5 is a whole number percent ( "12%" instead of "0.12") even though it's calculated from "g1" and "g2"? As opposed to the SSD where it explicitly tells you to divide the grade percent by 100 and calls that "G" Thanks! :)
Hi Mark, I have been following your videos along as well as doing practice problems from a book I got. There's a question in the book that I wanted to ask you about. This specific question is on horizontal curves. The question stated: A horizontal circular curve has an intersection angle of 14.5 degrees. The station of point of curve is 12+00. The external distance E is 24ft. The point of tangent is most nearly what? Going into the reference book I used the E=R((1/cos(I/2))-1) equation and got R=31.5457 I then used the R=(LC/2sin(I/2)) equation and got LC=52 I took my station of 12+00 and added the 52 and got a final answer of sta 12+52 The book, however, used the (R/(E+R))=cos(I/2) equation, solved for R and got R=2,977.9 ft Then did L=RI(pi*rad/180) and got L=753.61 ft which they then added back to the 1200 and got a final answer 1953.61. This question has driven me nuts because I feel like regardless of what equation I used I should've at least gotten the same R. Also, thank you for the awesome videos!!
Idk if you ever got back to this one but seems like you miscalculated your R I used the formula you used and got 2977.85 as well. Cos(I/2[14.5/2]) comes to 0.992, inverse of that comes to 1.008 … subtract one from it 0.008. When you divide E by 0.008 gives 2977.85 for me… Does it make sense??
Hi Mark, I am confused with question number 4. In the tangent elevation, it gives YPVI but while doing solution, You wrote YPVT. I am kind of lost. If you help me in this problem, I would be grateful.
Does not really change the final answer, but on question 5, I think you should be using +5% for SSD calculation. For crest curves its the smallest positive grade and for sag its the largest negative grade. But really appreciate these videos, helping me out a bunch. Cheers!
For vertical curves, the longest stopping sight distance is generally used since it's the most restrictive. If you use +5% you get an SSD of 747' and if you use -5% you get an SSD of 905'. The longer SSD gives the greater length of curve. That said, someone could make the argument that a -7% grade should be used for two-way traffic on that problem. I probably should have written the problem more explicitly to indicate one-way traffic as shown in the diagram I drew. Using a -7% grade would make the length of curve even longer. Since I indicated enter and exit, one-way traffic could be assumed, but the problem could have been more explicit. For a detailed explanation of vertical curve formulas, see th-cam.com/video/bU2dnjBj2YM/w-d-xo.html
Hi Mark, for Q10 you use the free flow speed (Sf=60mph) when calculating your density to determine the LOS. However, in the handbook is states that S should be the mean speed of traffic stream under base conditions, which of course, is not the free flow speed (unless in a perfect world). I believe this leads to an answer that is not conservative (lowers LOS), and is not representative of true conditions.Thoughts? @MarkMattsonPE
Hey Mark, When looking at the new reference handbook the "Basic Freeway Segment Highway Capacity" section has changed to appear more complex (from the simple equation)... Can you explain how to use the version from the latest handbook?
in Q4: I think you assumed x=300, and L/2=300, looking at the right side of the equation (x-L/2) , that should =0. then we get a different answer (800)???
Thanks, @Chase Higdon. Thanks for the comment. With the absolute value, you're just finding the positive difference in grade between the two, so the order doesn't make a difference in the final answer for this case.
Studying for the FE for the third time (third time is charm?? ahaha). anyway, I got the similar question to 6 where I was asked to find a layer coefficient of a subgrade, but I WAS NOT GIVEN Structural number. what do we do in this case?
Hey Mark I have the newest version of the civil reference handbook v 1.1 and it seems to be a lot more condensed and missing a lot of the tables and some equations from the previous versions for example on question 5 there isn't anything on sight distance to curve length. Do you think that questions like that won't be on the test then?
Hey Mark, I think you are working with an older version of the reference manual. the Peak hour volume is actually on page 299. Thanks for the great tutorial!
For Question 4, i calculated and got 807 ft for Ypvi, and i wonder if we can just get the answer right away cos we have 792ft and it going up so it will increase so we can just get 804
To those who have taken the test, is there a search feature for the handbook on the testing computers or would I have to be able to find everything by scrolling through and knowing its location?
If you have not taken the exam yet, there is a search engine on the top left. But I really don’t like how it works because it shows whole paragraphs in a very small space. Again I personally prefer to know where things are and just go to the table of content and just click on the subject matter and scroll down. If the problem has a unique word where you know by heart that there is only one in the whole manual, then that’s a perfect time to use the search engine. Good luck on your exam!
There were some technical difficulties with the stream for the first couple of problems, so I had to restart the stream. Here's a link to the first two problems th-cam.com/video/zi7JXmrDmIs/w-d-xo.html. In the original stream, I was responding to a comment and incorrectly stated the formula to get PT. I cut the error from the recording to limit confusion. I've included the formulas (not in the Handbook for PC and PT for horizontal curves). The stationing follows the road. PC = PI-T PT = PC+L
Hi Mark, just wanted to say thank you for your videos, I used them as well as the NCEES practice test as my main materials for the second attempt at my FE and passed. I am incredibly grateful. Please keep helping young engineers move onward and upward! (ps. loved the jokes/puns)
Thank you for these videos, I have recommended it to all of my coworkers who are also preparing! (shoutout to my nitsches) Started watching these about 2 months before my exam and just found out today I passed on my first try :D I swear I could literally hear your voice in the back of my head on certain problems since you went over all the concepts so well
I would recommend including some BOD questions from the environmental section, I had about three of them on my exam that had me stumped. Pretty much everything else you had covered in a video
did you oONLY use the videos as a studying resource? Or did you study using additional resources to prepare you for the exam?
@@marleypeterson925 I think with BOD the big thing to remember is BOD is how much oxygen has been consumed and L is how much oxygen is left
Thank you for the thorough videos and for sharing your material/problem sets. The walkthrough of the reference handbook is the best I've come across and your problem sets are better and more involved than the NCEES FE Practice exams. You have well-thought-out lessons and the design of your problem sets has been engineered into a great deliverable!
Good afternoon Mark. Thank you for posting these videos. I recently took my FE and failed by approximately 4 questions (based on a spreadsheet I created). My worst subject was transportation, possibly due to all of the fine details I had forgotten since taking the course. You do an excellent job explaining each step and the thought process behind them.
We actually had an FE prep class at the beginning of this year but we used the PPEHQ software which I feel is overwhelming. These problems you are working are much more similar to the test questions. I take the exam again on the 5th of January and feel that I will do much better after watching your videos. Thank you again!!
Forrest Dangerfield
CE Student, Citadel Military College
Did it go well?
Thank you so much for doing these videos! The problem sets and solution videos are so helpful.
Yo Mark,
Question 9, Adjustment for lane width. 11 feet lane width is included in the average lane width for range 10-11 feet and also 11-12 feet (they both read greater than or equal to). I used the average adjustment for lane width between 1.9 and 6.6, equal to 4.25. Answer for FFS results in 62.6 mph.. close call but i still have to go with 65mph (Answer B). I've watched this entire playlist twice, my test is in 10 day. Thank you for restoring my memory.
Hi Mark! Finally I paaaaaaseeeed the FE civil exam from the second try 😍😍
I am soooo happy and want to thank you for all your videos I watched it several times
Also I want to recommend the book of “ Islam “ which contains 800 questions it was also amazing and let me understand many additional things that not included in the yellow book
So it was great knowledge from your videos, the yellow book, and Islam book after completing it I passed the exam 😍😍😍
Thanks again for these great videos!
In Q10 the concept of FFS =/= S., in this case, was equal in value due to the freeway conditions.
The Handbook has an equation for S that depends on FFHadj and the BreakPoint value (BP). FFHadj depends on FFS and SAF
Question 11-B is false because you can enter the intersection on a red light when turning right - unless I'm misunderstanding something. Nice vids Mark! Taking my test in 3 weeks!
I had earphones when u dropped the calculator @7:07 😭I got so scared
Hi mark thank you very much for these videos. I think that you have something wrong in question 7. You should add the 5 percent grade and not subtract it. Because you need to consider cars coming from both directions and entering the curve not leaving the curve. So the 5 helps cars to stop easier. so you add it to the deceleration to get a smaller S. The correct answer is 3100.
Thank you so much for your hard work and excellent help!
Did anyone else by chance get YPVI=798ft for the problem 4? I believe x=L/2 on both sides of the equation; therefore, on the right side the term (x-L/2) will cancel out and we get that YPVI=YPVC+g1x, which I have is equal to 798ft.
I was wondering about this myself.
@52:01 we can read Dj = jam density (veh/hr). This handbook unit seems to be incorrect. Jam density has units of “veh/mi” instead.
I might be wrong but for Question 10
The fhv I got was 0.4807. Instead of the 0.926 value that was shown in the video.
The issue I think was that the (Et - 1 ) in the denominator wasn't accounted for.
That ultimately changes the LOS to D instead of B.
For question 9, how do you know that 3 out of the 6 lanes go in the same direction? The problem did not state that. Thank you.
just kinda assuming from knowledge, but a freeway typically has lanes in both directions. so 6 lane freeway will have 3 lanes in two directions. this is what i thought atleast.
In Question 4 you use the numeric value (%/100) for "g1" and "g2" ("0.02" / "-0.03") to plug into the Tangent EL.
Can you explain why "A" in Question 5 is a whole number percent ( "12%" instead of "0.12") even though it's calculated from "g1" and "g2"?
As opposed to the SSD where it explicitly tells you to divide the grade percent by 100 and calls that "G"
Thanks! :)
Hi Mark,
I have been following your videos along as well as doing practice problems from a book I got. There's a question in the book that I wanted to ask you about. This specific question is on horizontal curves.
The question stated: A horizontal circular curve has an intersection angle of 14.5 degrees. The station of point of curve is 12+00. The external distance E is 24ft. The point of tangent is most nearly what?
Going into the reference book I used the E=R((1/cos(I/2))-1) equation and got R=31.5457
I then used the R=(LC/2sin(I/2)) equation and got LC=52
I took my station of 12+00 and added the 52 and got a final answer of sta 12+52
The book, however, used the (R/(E+R))=cos(I/2) equation, solved for R and got R=2,977.9 ft
Then did L=RI(pi*rad/180) and got L=753.61 ft
which they then added back to the 1200 and got a final answer 1953.61.
This question has driven me nuts because I feel like regardless of what equation I used I should've at least gotten the same R.
Also, thank you for the awesome videos!!
So glad the information is helpful! Also, I'm glad that there's a real Savior in Jesus that can save us from more than just the FE exam!
Idk if you ever got back to this one but seems like you miscalculated your R I used the formula you used and got 2977.85 as well.
Cos(I/2[14.5/2]) comes to 0.992, inverse of that comes to 1.008 … subtract one from it 0.008. When you divide E by 0.008 gives 2977.85 for me…
Does it make sense??
I live for the jokes at the end, its like a reward
Hi Mark, I am confused with question number 4. In the tangent elevation, it gives YPVI but while doing solution, You wrote YPVT. I am kind of lost. If you help me in this problem, I would be grateful.
Does not really change the final answer, but on question 5, I think you should be using +5% for SSD calculation. For crest curves its the smallest positive grade and for sag its the largest negative grade.
But really appreciate these videos, helping me out a bunch. Cheers!
when I worked it out, I got L=3111' which would be answer C. Let me know what you think
For vertical curves, the longest stopping sight distance is generally used since it's the most restrictive. If you use +5% you get an SSD of 747' and if you use -5% you get an SSD of 905'. The longer SSD gives the greater length of curve.
That said, someone could make the argument that a -7% grade should be used for two-way traffic on that problem. I probably should have written the problem more explicitly to indicate one-way traffic as shown in the diagram I drew. Using a -7% grade would make the length of curve even longer. Since I indicated enter and exit, one-way traffic could be assumed, but the problem could have been more explicit.
For a detailed explanation of vertical curve formulas, see th-cam.com/video/bU2dnjBj2YM/w-d-xo.html
@@MarkMattsonPE Cool. Thanks for the response!
great response@@MarkMattsonPE
Hi Mark, for Q10 you use the free flow speed (Sf=60mph) when calculating your density to determine the LOS. However, in the handbook is states that S should be the mean speed of traffic stream under base conditions, which of course, is not the free flow speed (unless in a perfect world). I believe this leads to an answer that is not conservative (lowers LOS), and is not representative of true conditions.Thoughts? @MarkMattsonPE
Thank God you went over the gravity model.
@Mark is the Jesus of FE(EIT) our savior
i thank God for you brother
The jokes at the end really just help me make it through the whole video.
Hey Mark, thanks for this, I really appreciate it. On problem 3, isn’t the stationing along the curve (L)?
@Mark Mattson, you did A=g1-g2. But in the handbook it is A=g2-g1. Could you please explain?
That is Question 5
Hey Mark, When looking at the new reference handbook the "Basic Freeway Segment Highway Capacity" section has changed to appear more complex (from the simple equation)... Can you explain how to use the version from the latest handbook?
in Q4: I think you assumed x=300, and L/2=300, looking at the right side of the equation (x-L/2) , that should =0. then we get a different answer (800)???
These questions are different than the ones on the 2022 FE practice Exam?
On question 5 Would A not be 2? The eqn. in the handbook is g2 - g1. This was flipped during the solution. Thanks.
Thanks, @Chase Higdon. Thanks for the comment. With the absolute value, you're just finding the positive difference in grade between the two, so the order doesn't make a difference in the final answer for this case.
@@MarkMattsonPEok but why isn’t it 12%? I don’t get it.
Studying for the FE for the third time (third time is charm?? ahaha). anyway, I got the similar question to 6 where I was asked to find a layer coefficient of a subgrade, but I WAS NOT GIVEN Structural number. what do we do in this case?
the length of the curve is 100 m and the change in grade is 4% and 1%. What is the highest point of this curve?
Hey Mark I have the newest version of the civil reference handbook v 1.1 and it seems to be a lot more condensed and missing a lot of the tables and some equations from the previous versions for example on question 5 there isn't anything on sight distance to curve length. Do you think that questions like that won't be on the test then?
Hey Mark, On question 13, is the 2.5% growth based on the 2498. Is it growing 2.5% every year (62.45 veh/year) ? or is that a wrong assumption ?
The growth per year should change because it is compounded. Does that help?
Hey Mark, I think you are working with an older version of the reference manual. the Peak hour volume is actually on page 299. Thanks for the great tutorial!
You are correct. A newer version was published since I made these videos. You should always use the latest version. Best!
Onward and upward 💪
For Question 4, i calculated and got 807 ft for Ypvi, and i wonder if we can just get the answer right away cos we have 792ft and it going up so it will increase so we can just get 804
For question 5, I got the S = 901.92.
What numbers did you use?
To those who have taken the test, is there a search feature for the handbook on the testing computers or would I have to be able to find everything by scrolling through and knowing its location?
If you have not taken the exam yet, there is a search engine on the top left. But I really don’t like how it works because it shows whole paragraphs in a very small space. Again I personally prefer to know where things are and just go to the table of content and just click on the subject matter and scroll down. If the problem has a unique word where you know by heart that there is only one in the whole manual, then that’s a perfect time to use the search engine. Good luck on your exam!
Yes
There were some technical difficulties with the stream for the first couple of problems, so I had to restart the stream. Here's a link to the first two problems th-cam.com/video/zi7JXmrDmIs/w-d-xo.html.
In the original stream, I was responding to a comment and incorrectly stated the formula to get PT. I cut the error from the recording to limit confusion. I've included the formulas (not in the Handbook for PC and PT for horizontal curves). The stationing follows the road.
PC = PI-T
PT = PC+L
Hi Mark, just wanted to say thank you for your videos, I used them as well as the NCEES practice test as my main materials for the second attempt at my FE and passed. I am incredibly grateful. Please keep helping young engineers move onward and upward! (ps. loved the jokes/puns)
PT = PC + ( L or LC )?
@@ibra6505 L
Did anyone do the curve elevation math? my value was 794' can someone confirm if it was correct?
Question 6 "pavement system design" with the answer 6.28, do you have to round up to 7 in this case? Thank you