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The Civil-Structural PE exam can be tough, but with these tips, tricks, and trips you will have a better shot at becoming the professional engineer you aspire to be. How do I know these suggestions will help? Number one, they worked for me; and number two, they can't hurt! Breaking your PE exam journey into four "seasons" is where we will begin and where we will end is for you to decide!
You just signed up to take the Civil-Structural PE exam and you are not sure you're ready or, even worse, you're not sure you know how to get ready! Those are the shoes I was wearing the day I started preparing to prepare. Thus began the first season: Preparation Paradise. That leads into the second season: T-Minus 24 Hours. Shortly thereafter, season three begins: Examination Exhilaration. Finally, enter the final, and most joyful, season: Celebration and Relaxation. Each season has its own tips, tricks, and trips to take advantage and beware of. Let's begin.
Season 1: Preparation Paradise
This can be the longest or shortest season depending on your strategy. The first trip to avoid is not studying at all and trusting your current knowledge and skill level. You want this season to last the longest, producing the most fruit and giving you the tools and skills to pass your exam with confidence. Personally, I set aside 180 days for this season (6 months). I would not recommend much longer because you are more likely to forget anything that is older than 6 months in your memory banks. Giving yourself time to learn, study, and practice at a comfortable yet demanding pace is critical. And that all began with signing up for School of PE's Ondemand classes (bundled with the Live Online classes).
The Ondemand courses were perfect to start out with; I could print all the notes at my own pace, listen to lectures at my own pace, and work on practice problems at my own pace. Beware, do not watch lectures when you're sleepy - I tried overcoming exhaustion and it was more harmful than good. I tracked my study time day-to-day setting a goal that would allow me to finish the Ondemand courses a week or so before the Live Online courses began. During that interlude, I was able to comb through the material a few times, finalize my tabs, become familiar with my textbooks, and take a short mental vacation. The most important and helpful task I did during the Ondemand courses was tabbing my notes exactly how I wanted to: color-coordinated, a binder per subject, tabs on the tops of pages for broad categories, and tabs on the sides of pages for specifics. Tabbing my books was less complicated since I decided to only tab chapters/subjects for easy reference.
Before the Live Online course begins, you should be sure you have all the books you plan to have on exam day and all your SOPE notes printed (and hopefully tabbed already). This way you can focus on the lecture, dive into the practice problems, and ask relevant questions that will help you and your classmates during class. It is highly recommended to have your notes tabbed at this point because there is no pausing the videos and you'll fall behind if you are stopping to tab every few pages - don't trip. However, if you do not take the Ondemand, the lectures are available after the live date, and tabbing could be done later.
Exam day is looming, and you've obtained a lot of knowledge and gathered new tools to attack and defeat your exam. But are taking the courses and organizing your notes and book enough? Maybe. But do you want to walk into the exam room thinking you may pass the test? Or would you walk in there knowing you're going to be successful? I'd say the latter option is preferred. So, take a month to do as many practice problems as you can. Whether they be practice exam books, practice exams through SOPE, practice quizzes through SOPE, or some other means of practice quizzes - this will be the hardest hitting preparation you'll do. You'll learn very quickly what you are good at and what you are not-so-good or quite bad at. I remember I set up a quiz through SOPE and answered all the questions incorrectly. Study the solutions, take additional notes, bring the solutions with you on exam day, and be ready to see a question nearly identical to one you've already solved; I had several of them!
You are down to the last weeks and your notes are in order, your books are tabbed, you've solved practice problems, and finished practice exams and quizzes but have you become familiar with your textbooks? You've worked through the notes twice now, but only referenced your textbooks a handful of times (exactly how my experience was). Spend some time in the final stretch becoming familiar with how each textbook is organized, how the index is sorted, and how to navigate the pages to come to a topic or equation you'll need on the exam. ASCE, AISC, ACI, PCI, IBC, ASSHTO, NDS, and others are all sorted differently, and knowing your way around the book (in general, don't read them cover-to-cover) will help on the exam.
It is one week until your exam and you are fully prepared, right? Have you driven to the test site? Have you driven to the test site at the exact day and time you plan to on test day? A major trip would be to map out your route on a Monday evening only to find out it takes twice as long on a Friday morning when you drive to your test. Do a test run - wake up early exactly 1 week before your test, go to the place you plan to get breakfast, park at your test site, walk inside, and locate the room you will be testing in. If your test were today, would you be late, early, or right on time? I'd suggest arriving on the early side. Maybe not as early as me, being the first one there was not worth the two hours of thumb-twiddling.
Season 2: T-Minus 24 Hours
Don't study the day before the test. If you've followed all the tips and tricks (and not the trips) up to this point you don't need to. Get your bag/s packed, relax, do something fun, and eat/drink well to ensure you are healthy for the day to come. This season is short, stressful, and sensitive. I tripped during this season by not realizing how many resources I was bringing - they didn't fit in the bag I was going to bring! Suitcases work well, backpacks are decent, and many people used boxes on a dolly. I'd recommend bringing all your notes and books (of course), earplugs (to get yourself into the zone), two approved calculators (that you are familiar with!), a sweatshirt (AC could be out of order), and a straight edge (in case you don't have time to interpolate, and a graph is provided).
Be confident on this day. Double-check your bag/s, pack your vehicle, and enjoy the rest of the day. Tomorrow begins a new season and you are fully prepared to come out victorious.
Season 3: Examination Exhilaration
Your vehicle has all your tools in it, your mind has all the skills, and you've driven the route before in these exact conditions. You're ready. Make sure to eat a good breakfast and arrive at the testing site early with the items you need (ID, testing papers, etc.). As you walk into the testing room and to your seat, take inventory of the space you are provided for yourself and your references. It is important for the morning half of the Civil-Structural PE exam to have all subjects accessible. I decided to have all books in a suitcase on my left and all notes in a suitcase on my right; it was easy during the test to find whatever it was that I was looking for. Listen and follow the instructions given and as soon as you open the exam do not answer the first question...
The first thing you should do (and I thought everyone was crazy who suggested this to me) is rank each question 1-4 based on personal difficulty. You know your strengths and weaknesses: use this to your advantage! Quickly read each question and write the number you decide with a circle around it on the corner based on the following:
- This question is very easy: I don't even need reference material to solve it
- This question is easy: I know exactly where to look in my notes/books to solve it
- This question is tough: I know where in my notes/books this topic may be
- This question is very tough: I have never seen this before; I will have to dig into a book
Once all the questions are ranked, start solving all the 1's - well, you got all those correct. Now, work on the 2's - pretty sure all of those are correct also. Start working on the 3's; some of these may be harder than you thought. If that is the case, mark them as a 4 and move on. Finally, start chipping away at the 4's; if a 4 is taking longer than 10 minutes move on. Once you have answered all the questions that you could solve, see how much time is remaining. Remembering that you may not have answered a few 4's you'll want to come up with a plan:
i) If you have ample time: take the test again! This is what I did, and I caught a few "silly" mistakes. Before time runs out, be sure to give those few 4's your best shot and select an answer.
ii) If your time is running low: select the best answer for those few remaining 4's and double-check as many 2's and 3's as you can.
The same technique should be used on the evening exam, but I can assure you that there will not be enough time to take the test over again. This portion of the exam will have more 4's and 3's than the morning half and may take you to the last 30 seconds to answer that last question. "Pencils down." Time for the final season.
Season 4: Celebration and Relaxation
Drive home excited, you passed (if you followed these tips and tricks). Set up a day to celebrate with your parents, a loved one, a friend, or a colleague. Let all the stress evaporate off your shoulders and await your results (even though you know what it is going to be). If you avoid the trips while following these tips and tricks you can change your email signature to "P.E." before you know it! Best of luck.
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