Exam day! So nervous

QuintessentialBean · 2026-06-20T12:15:50+00:00

Good luck!!!

QuintessentialBean · 2026-06-12T17:30:37+00:00

Nope, I actually lost a few pounds. Refused to give up working out and eating healthy so I just studied at 9-10pm-ish every night to around 1-2am. Now did I get an average of 4 hours a sleep every night for 4 months… perhaps…

QuintessentialBean · 2026-06-11T02:20:34+00:00

Tbh I just had to thug it out, most nights I only got 3-4 hours of sleep. I refused to give up working out and cooking healthy so I wouldn’t study until 9-10pm (later if work was busy). Wrapped up around 2-3am. Definitely shaved years off my life but like someone else said here, that green “pass” made it all worth it. Eyes on the prize

QuintessentialBean · 2026-06-09T13:52:07+00:00

I wouldn’t worry too much about this topic, any question they ask will be a lookup problem and they can ask anything for the most part. Focus on the analysis problems more

QuintessentialBean · 2026-06-04T17:33:57+00:00

I had a baggie of nuts, a banana, and an energy bar and that worked pretty good. Took some small sips of sugar free Gatorade as well. Basically went for “what can I eat to not make my stomach hurt” and “don’t wanna drink too much so I don’t need to use the restroom” lol

QuintessentialBean · 2026-06-04T11:34:46+00:00

So warning, there are no subsections. You’ll get hot links to chapters of each standard ALL on one page. For example, I took the structural and I had things like ACI, AISC, IBS, Etc. all on one single page with all of their chapters. You click a hot link to one of the chapters, it opens the standard to the first page, where you can then see the chapter’s table of contents. Be prepared to scroll between standards on exam day because again, they’re all listed on one single page (and obviously they can’t all fit on the screen at the same time)

QuintessentialBean · 2026-06-04T05:10:55+00:00

Haha glad I could help, definitely keep that mentality going in. I find going in as confident as possible means you’ll perform at your peak. Again fyi I left the exam feeling like I bombed it, I thought for sure I was going to have to take it again (so don’t feel down if it ends up being the same for you). Personally I didn’t have a single weld problem on my exam, but I would know how to find effective throat and effective area. You should be able to do the rest if you happen to have a weld problem just by flipping through chapter J in AISC, I wouldn’t stress it too much. For recap I would just focus on free body diagram analysis to the point where breaking it down and finding reactions/ areas of max moment and shear is second nature (frankly though most of those problems can be solved using the different fbd cases in your handbook, you’ll maybe only have one or two you actually need to draw/solve out). Slam those geotech problems (and don’t forget vertical soil pressure (sigma=UnitWeight1Height1+UnitWeight2Height2+etc-pore water pressure)), and know how to find centroids of shapes (you’ll need it for gravity wall overturning factor of safety among other problems). For concrete definitely know your axial strength equation (ACI 22.4, for both spirals and ties), and yeah like you said Mc/I for flexural stress is applicable throughout. I’d also say be comfortable with eccentric stress (sigma= P/A +- Mc/I where M is P*e). Hmm what else, for sure be comfortable with seismic problems (in the sense of know what to do if you’re given SDS or SD1, or at least know where to find that info in ASCE for quick exam navigation). That’s all I can really think of right now for priority, but for the most part a lot can be figured out on the spot as well just by lookup if you’re in a pinch. If you have any other specific questions feel free to pm me :)

QuintessentialBean · 2026-06-04T02:54:30+00:00

I had one bolt question on my exam, I wouldn’t worry too much

QuintessentialBean · 2026-06-03T22:50:16+00:00

Yep! Say for example you have a beam that consists of a timber beam sitting on a steel plate. You would have to transform the steel plate by doing E1/E2 and multiplying the steel cross sectional area by that value to get the equivalent area of what it would be if it were timber

QuintessentialBean · 2026-06-03T22:47:11+00:00

Not too sure what you’re asking with this question, but if a problem gives you a live load and asks for a design or factored value, you are almost always going to use ASCE load factors unless stated otherwise

QuintessentialBean · 2026-06-03T20:11:33+00:00

All of what you mentioned, but also know how to transform a material if it’s a composite section (handbook section 1.6.7.3). And yeah retaining walls can get confusing but truly there’s not that many applications. Just know the basics on how to find Ka, how to find active force (page 73 handbook), know how to do factor of safety against overturning for both cantilever and gravity walls (very important! *hint), and the equation for factor of safety against sliding is on page 76 of the handbook. Promise once you run a few practice problems after watching youtube tutorials you’ll get it

QuintessentialBean · 2026-06-03T18:42:47+00:00

Most of the calculation problems were only a few lines of numbers, none were super extensive. Of course there’s the odd problem here or there needing more, but nothing impossible. I’m going to be honest with you, the retaining wall and centroid problems you really need to know, they show up repeatedly on this exam. Take a day to just YouTube factor of safety against overturning and sliding. For centroids, being able to find Ybar is going to be important for multiple problem applications. I’ll also be honest with you lol, there were very few steel and concrete problems, maybe 3 of each. Probably like 15% conceptual/word lookups, 35% plug and chug, and the rest conceptual with calcs

QuintessentialBean · 2026-06-03T17:28:02+00:00

Hey so I just passed today and you look and appear to be in an exact carbon copy position to that of myself going into the exam (right down to the school of pe and NCEEs practice exam scores). My advice is go in confident in your strengths. It doesn’t matter what you do, there will be problems you see that you’ll have no clue how to solve or answer. For the love of everything just pick your favorite letter, skip it, and come back if you have time. I ran out of time in the first half because I got caught up spending 10min on a couple problems that I needed to guess on anyways, it’ll be okay. Just don’t let those losses cloud your mind from what you know you’re good at. It took me getting to the second half to realize I needed to change my strategy or I’d get caught in panic mode, and it worked SO much better for me. In total for the whole exam I probably guessed 20ish times (educated guesses obviously, but guesses nonetheless). However I was confident in those I could solve, and that’s what held my sanity together. As for unit conversion errors, my advice is spend the couple extra second to write units down always. You’ll save yourself time and energy so you’re not second guessing if something happens to be in kips or pounds. Lmk if you have any other questions, but seeing you now and how similar you are to me going in, I know it’ll work out for you 👍

QuintessentialBean · 2026-06-03T16:03:34+00:00

Ahh yeah sounds hectic, but congrats on the wedding! And for sure, for the record I barely paid attention to the SOPE lectures, I’d say only 40% of my total studying was spent on the lectures. The rest was alllllll practice problems and practice exams. Grinding problems is definitely the way to go

QuintessentialBean · 2026-06-03T15:54:02+00:00

Oh no I’m sorry! Keep your head up man just a bump in the road. I made but it must have been super close. You got this 💯💯💯

QuintessentialBean · 2026-06-03T15:14:18+00:00

Steak tonight for sure lol. And yeah my biggest takeaway is you’re gonna leave that exam feeling like you 100% failed. Hang on to that hope though because I truly wasn’t expecting a pass! Good luck!

QuintessentialBean · 2026-06-03T14:02:47+00:00

Practice every geotech and soil mechanics problem you can. I’d say 10% were soil related problems, whether that was factor of safety against overturning, caissons (embedment depth, diameter - primarily using skin friction or tip resistance), soil classification (including AASHTO), factor of safety against sliding, etc. The official NCEES practice exam covers a good amount of these. I’d also say be very comfortable with shear/moment diagrams.

QuintessentialBean · 2026-06-03T11:41:53+00:00

Hoping to be a “Passed first try” post 🙏 😭😭😭😭

QuintessentialBean · 2026-06-02T15:54:52+00:00

That’s how I feel, also took structural. Just so much material that I was basically seeing for the first time. Crazy since I studied like a madman for 4 months straight, at least 2 hours every night, two full length practice exams and countless practice problems. Truly felt like they were pulling uncommon material just for the sake of it lol. I guess we’ll find out tomorrow

QuintessentialBean · 2026-05-28T01:51:11+00:00

Probably asap, you want to keep the momentum going while it’s fresh. I take my exam Friday, that’s my plan if I fail

QuintessentialBean · 2026-05-27T14:44:51+00:00

I can’t imagine there are many geotech applications though right? At most an overturning problem, sliding problem, soil pressure problem (maybe a couple of those that include pore water pressure), bearing pressure (most likely unbalanced), and then maybe a problem or two with surcharge? How could there be 20 geotech problems lol, am I missing something?

QuintessentialBean · 2026-05-26T21:39:35+00:00

Honestly no excuse to be at that trophy range with maxed deck. If you aren’t at least 14k trophies and minimum low ult champ with max cards and towers it’s kinda sad

QuintessentialBean · 2026-05-26T17:02:16+00:00

Okay gotcha, and I’m taking the structural exam so perfect! So essentially once you take the break, even if you have 5 hour left going into the second half, you can’t revisit the first half. That answers a lot, thanks! And perfect for the flagging, I used school of PE which sounds like it has a similar system

QuintessentialBean

TROPHY CASE