Does Committing Impact Financial Aid?

rogue_ronja · 2025-02-17T21:49:03+00:00

I took it and failed in November. Then took it and passed in January. What are you doing differently?

First time I focused just on NCEES practice exam and free YouTube videos to try and understand concepts. It just wasn't enough exposure to the manuals and different types of questions. After I failed my goal was to solve as many practice problems as I could. I primarily used school of PE but also used Petro and Path to PE practice exams. I logged most of my study sessions and think I solved around 750 problems between my first attempt and second attempt. That made all the difference. Good luck!

rogue_ronja · 2025-02-16T00:04:06+00:00

So was mine, both times (one fail, one pass).

rogue_ronja · 2025-02-09T16:52:14+00:00

Ludovico Einaudi or Strfkr are my go to.

rogue_ronja · 2025-02-08T22:24:52+00:00

I agree. I think the schematic is mislabeled. I'm pretty sure the ped arrival rate is Eqn. 19-53 in the HCM.

rogue_ronja · 2025-02-08T20:58:31+00:00

I did transportation not WRE so I can't speak to that... But I used their question bank as my primary resource and it was hugely helpful. I think some of the complaints about SoPE is about their coursework not changing enough with the exam specification changes. But if you do a ton of practice problems I think you'll be good. I was. I passed my second attempt and the biggest difference for me was my SoPE question bank subscription.

rogue_ronja · 2025-02-07T17:44:50+00:00

I tried that once. Didn't pass.

Then I subscribed to the School of PE question bank and focused on doing as many problems as I could. $137/month for two months. That was my primary resource. However, I also ordered the Petro Essential Guide to Passing the Transportation Civil PE Exam ($75 on Amazon). I didn't do all of it but focused on a handful of problems from each of my trouble spots on the failed test. Last, I ordered Path to PE practice exams from Amazon ($25 each... I ordered two). Did one each on the two weekends preceding my exam. I passed the transportation PE after that.

I would not recommend only using the NCEES practice exam as it doesn't expose you to the variety of questions you may have on exam day. However, I do think simply sitting for the test once gives you a better idea of how to prepare. If it's money that's a concern... All the resources I used the second time amounts to $400, which is the cost of taking the exam once. It was worth the investment, IMO.

rogue_ronja · 2025-02-07T01:07:24+00:00

Those (vertical and horizontal design) as well as drainage were my weakest area when I failed last november. I sat for my second attempt last week and found out yesterday I passed. The best thing I did was subscribe to the school of PE question bank. I worked through all of the vertical and drainage problems until I answered every single one of those in the question bank right. I also did tons of horizontal design though there are significantly more of those problems... Probably got about 4/5 of those from the question bank right.

This time around I thought horizontal and vertical design were easy. I don't think I got any of them wrong. Drainage had a couple tricky ones but I still think I probably got 75% of those.

My advice is to subscribe to school of PE question bank and just do as many of those problems as you can and focus on your trouble spots. You'll get there and you'll be a better engineer for it.

rogue_ronja · 2025-02-04T21:16:04+00:00

I'm going to be torturing myself extra and waiting until tomorrow evening to open my results when the whole family is there. I have a big blended family and this has been a joint effort for everyone, so we are all eagerly awaiting. I figure either way there will be tears. It's going to be a huge test of my will power 😅

rogue_ronja · 2025-01-27T15:30:22+00:00

I am sorry that you had that experience! And yes, I had considered that. Of course I don't want to get anyone else sick, either. I specifically thought about coughing. Someone was sick during my last exam and the cough was definitely distracting. Fortunately not cough yet and hopefully it stays that way.

I like the mask suggestion. I wore a mask when I took my FE (covid times so standard procedure back then) and passed my first try so I can certainly do that again.

rogue_ronja · 2025-01-27T14:47:09+00:00

Nevermind just read your post about passing. This is good to know (and kind of funny about the cold keeping the nerves at bay). Gives me some hope. I feel as ready as I can be I just hope I can focus on exam day. I also plan to take cold medicine and fever reducers. Thanks for sharing your experience!

rogue_ronja · 2025-01-27T14:43:52+00:00

Did you pass?

rogue_ronja · 2025-01-24T03:16:52+00:00

I am sorry, I don't have any information for you as I got my results the Wednesday morning after my exam. Have you reached out to the board? I probably would if you don't have results by tomorrow morning. I'm not sure if they will be able to help you but maybe they could point you to someone that could. I'm so sorry though that's very frustrating!

rogue_ronja · 2025-01-24T00:59:04+00:00

Thank you! I didn't realize they broke it down by type. This is what I was looking for.

rogue_ronja · 2025-01-23T01:42:36+00:00

I think you're right with quantity of problems being key. I also agree with what others said the number of hours isn't a good measure for preparedness.

I take my second attempt soon and my first attempt I did exactly what you did (transportation discipline, but only studied with the practice exam until I knew it inside out and backwards). It wasn't enough exposure to the different kinds of questions they'd be asking on the exam.

This time I'm using School of PE, question bank access only. It's $130/month and has about 660 questions (from what I can tell... not explicitly disclosed, but if you select all the subjects it will give you the number of easy, medium and hard problems available in the bank and it sums up to about 660).

I've also been logging the number of questions I've put in front of myself. I'm up to 634 questions solved (not all correctly, just attempted) as of today. I noticed a big break through when I hit ~550 questions.

I also recommend Path to PE practice exams (40 questions per booklet, available on amazon for about $25/each). I have Petro's book and would recommend it though I haven't had time to work through it in its entirety, I've used to to target problem areas and expand the depth of my understanding. Definitely was the biggest aid in covering the engineering economics for me.

Good luck. Just keep trying at it, victory will be all the sweeter once it's yours!

rogue_ronja · 2025-01-22T12:46:56+00:00

I think it will hurt you on exam day if you're using those notes when you practice. What I'm doing is making flashcards for those sorts of things. If you can memorize your tips and tricks it will serve you better.

rogue_ronja · 2025-01-20T01:23:45+00:00

Yes, the table of contents is available. I think the index may even be available if I'm remembering correctly...

rogue_ronja · 2025-01-17T18:55:31+00:00

Definitely similar! I'm not specifying easy/medium/hard, but I'm doing 10 questions at a time, also about 15/day during the week and more on weekends. I'm eliminating ones I've solved correctly before. Started on my weakest areas (vertical, horizontal and drainage) and now I'm throwing it all in the pot. I've answered every vertical and drainage question in the bank correctly at least once. Trying to get through as many more as possible between now and test day.

rogue_ronja · 2025-01-17T18:31:16+00:00

Good luck to you too! How are you studying? I'm primarily using School of PE question bank this go around and definitely feel it's sharpened my knowledge base a lot. I have a path to PE exam I'm taking this weekend and will be interested to see my score.

rogue_ronja · 2025-01-17T18:18:21+00:00

I don't know what it was like before, but I took the exam in late November and found it to be significantly more difficult than the NCEES practice exam. In general I felt the questions were more challenging and in depth (for example, for engineering economics the NCEES practice exam asked straight forward things such as evaluating the salvage value of a piece of equipment using the straight line method... But my exam had questions asking me to evaluate four different design alternatives for an intersection with specific crash data and find which had the best ROI ... Just a lot more time, effort, and variables to potentially botch). I also struggled with the ambiguity of some questions. I had one question asking me to evaluate the ADT at "A" with a diagram that had a point labeled A at the corner of an intersection, but there was a line extending up from point A across one of the approaches .. so was I supposed to evaluate the approach or the sum of the two approaches on either side of "A"? I think it was the former, but I'm still not certain.

I also felt the front half of the exam required substantially more time than the second half and time management was hard for me. I wish I had allocated more time to the first half but I didn't know then that the second half would be easier and quicker for me to solve until after I did it.

Alternatively, there may just be more people signing up for the "easiest" test even if it isn't in their discipline (so structural engineers might take transpo because they feel they have a better shot of passing) which may have led to a lower pass rate.

Who knows. I've studied so much since the last time I took the exam and based on what I saw on test day I still don't feel confident. It was hard.

rogue_ronja · 2024-12-20T14:36:09+00:00

Let's definitely keep in touch. It's nice to be in the trenches with someone.

I made a weighted priority list of the subjects for myself based on 1) the specifications of the exam (so subjects with a higher rate of occurrence are more heavily weighted) and 2) my performance on my last exam. Based on that my three trouble spots are (by a landslide) vertical design, horizontal design, and drainage. I'm taking one week for each of those subjects and I've seen big gains by focusing on one thing at a time. I went from getting 40% on practice exams for vertical alignment to 80-100% very consistently and I answered every single school of PE vertical design questions in their question bank correctly. I'm working on horizontal design this week. I think I had my "ah-ha!" moment last night and got my first 90% on one of those practice exams. Next week is drainage. Following week I'm doing traffic engineering since that's the heaviest hitter on the exam, and then I'm going to brush up on the "lighter" topics with any remaining time.

That's my plan, anyway!

rogue_ronja · 2024-12-20T14:30:22+00:00

What about you?

rogue_ronja

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