I just took my PE Civil: Structural exam on March 29th, and your video popped up in my recommended videos! I agree that 4 months is a good amount of time to study - my personal goal was to reach 300 hours of studying, which I achieved in 3 months. I wanted to share some wisdom I wish I had known going into the exam (apologies if this information has already been emphasized in previous videos): 1. The design references (ASCE 7-10, ACI 318, etc) are separated by chapter and are not one entire pdf. So you really need to know where certain topics are located, I used the index and table of contents best I could. 2. The NCEES practice exam provides a good indicator of the level of difficulty, but your actual exam questions will be nothing like them. 3. Unfortunately, there will be several conceptual questions that you did not prepared for. 4. Sometimes, questions will include a diagram or equation not found in the reference handbook, requiring you to solve them using your common sense. 5. The afternoon section is generally more difficult and complex. If you finish the morning portion early (in under 4 hours), try to reserve some of that time for the afternoon. I had 4.5 hours for the afternoon portion and still could have used more time. 6. Try practice problems from several different exam providers. I only used the School of PE's practice exam and their online question bank (which has about 750 questions) and felt I could have benefited from more exposure to different types of questions. Should be getting my results this week and REALLY hoping I passed lol
I just took my PE Civil: Structural exam on March 29th, and your video popped up in my recommended videos! I agree that 4 months is a good amount of time to study - my personal goal was to reach 300 hours of studying, which I achieved in 3 months. I wanted to share some wisdom I wish I had known going into the exam (apologies if this information has already been emphasized in previous videos):
1. The design references (ASCE 7-10, ACI 318, etc) are separated by chapter and are not one entire pdf. So you really need to know where certain topics are located, I used the index and table of contents best I could.
2. The NCEES practice exam provides a good indicator of the level of difficulty, but your actual exam questions will be nothing like them.
3. Unfortunately, there will be several conceptual questions that you did not prepared for.
4. Sometimes, questions will include a diagram or equation not found in the reference handbook, requiring you to solve them using your common sense.
5. The afternoon section is generally more difficult and complex. If you finish the morning portion early (in under 4 hours), try to reserve some of that time for the afternoon. I had 4.5 hours for the afternoon portion and still could have used more time.
6. Try practice problems from several different exam providers. I only used the School of PE's practice exam and their online question bank (which has about 750 questions) and felt I could have benefited from more exposure to different types of questions.
Should be getting my results this week and REALLY hoping I passed lol
Thanks for your comment! I think the 3-5 month timeframe is ideal when studying for the PE exam. I hope you passed, let me know how it goes!