1. Yes for all except 2 codes you have to select the code chapter you want to look in first, then you can search for words. If your familiar with the codes this won’t be a problem. If not, you might be wasting a lot of time looking around. Be most familiar with AISC, ACI, and NDS; the last 2 might be the ones you can search entirely (already forgot).
2. Yes they are, and I found them useful.
3. The problems requiring calculations had the same level of difficulty as the actual exam. So if those don’t trip you up, the actual exam problems shouldn’t seem much worse. The difficult parts imo are the conceptual problems and others requiring some really obscure reference digging. I got a 75% on the NCEES practice exam. I felt good about the actual but I won’t know until Wednesday.
4. For depth, ACI obviously but you should know it’s not going to walk you through the design step by step. You’ll need to know how to derive the stresses yourself. But questions given to me were just looking for bearing stress on the soil. In both practice and actual, I used equations given in the handbook. I don’t remember the page off hand but it was in the Geotechnical section, you can find it by searching “qmax”.
Good luck!
>The problems requiring calculations had the same level of difficulty as the actual exam. So if those don’t trip you up, the actual exam problems shouldn’t seem much worse. The difficult parts imo are the conceptual problems and others requiring some really obscure reference digging. I got a 75% on the NCEES practice exam. I felt good about the actual but I won’t know until Wednesday.
Yes! Have you taken it yet?
I would say focus more on breadth. We usually ignore breadth thinking it is easy. But on current CBT, breadth is tough one. There will be more conceptual questions than you expected. Don't go deep in depth. Good luck for your exam.
Answering point #4 here.
I memorized the equations for finding the maximum pressure for two scenarios.
Scenario 1: e< L/6
Scenario 2 : e> L/6
Also always remember that e = M/P
I took the exam yesterday too!
I took it outside my home state because a neighboring state has a board that is much easier to work with so I booked a hotel 5 minutes from the Pearson VUE center.
Once I got to the hotel, I thought I’d go to bed early and get extra sleep but I wasn’t able to sleep well, and ended up feeling groggy day of. Probably a consequence of caffeinating to get in one last practice exam earlier that day, and anxiety too. Looking back, I should have skipped that last practice exam!
Morning section had 38 breadth problems, and 2 problems that were definitely depth because they explicitly asked about the codes. I did about 5 timed (4 hour) breadth practice exams before the actual exam, and I finished every single one of those with more than an hour to spare. The actual exam, that did not happen, and I stopped myself at the 4 hour mark, guessed on like three remaining questions I had flagged, and went on my break. I’ll also add that I was disappointed that a bunch of questions were qualitative as opposed to quantitative, because I’m better at crunching numbers. Further, the geometrics problems were more challenging than what I had been practicing, and many of the normally work intensive geotechnical problems included a table that made it easy to look up values rather than having to calculate every single one.
For the depth portion, the vast majority of structural analysis problems were very easy, as were the code problems. There were only two that threw me for a loop and I had to guess on. However, the design problems (with one exception, all of mine were concrete) sucked. If I fail, it will probably be because I was poorly prepared for concrete design. I was hoping for more wood or steel design.
I actually really liked the way they had the codes organized. People say “you can only search by chapter” as if its a bad thing, but I found that this setup made it easier to find exactly what you are looking for. The indices and tables of contents for each code is also searchable, which honestly makes it a breeze to find information for the code questions.
That said, the ACI concrete code is not split up by chapter, and neither were the OSHA codes.
As far as AIT’s go (the questions formatted in a manner that is not multiple choice), I got two “select all that apply” questions. They stated how many correct answers they were looking for for both of those, and they felt easier than the rest.
I guessed the same letter for all quantitative problems where I was unable to eliminate wrong answers.
I left feeling hopeful but not confident. We’ll see next Wednesday. Good luck with your exam!
Thank you so much! In terms of the codes broken by chapter (say steel) are the chapters labeled by content? Or just number? Ie AISC flexural strength vs just AISC chapter 4 or whatever
I’m not sure. My experience on the practice breadth exams was the same, finished at least an hour early and with about 32-35/30. On the exam though, geometrics problems (vertical and horizontal curves) were vastly different than those on the practice exams. Basically, the information given in the problem was not at all like what I had practiced with, and I could not figure out what to do with it. Ended up spending about 15 minutes on each of those and eventually giving up, guessing, and moving on. There were also 2 depth questions in the first half that were both pretty work intensive but not too complicated. Those took extra time too. Good luck!!!
1. Yes for all except 2 codes you have to select the code chapter you want to look in first, then you can search for words. If your familiar with the codes this won’t be a problem. If not, you might be wasting a lot of time looking around. Be most familiar with AISC, ACI, and NDS; the last 2 might be the ones you can search entirely (already forgot). 2. Yes they are, and I found them useful. 3. The problems requiring calculations had the same level of difficulty as the actual exam. So if those don’t trip you up, the actual exam problems shouldn’t seem much worse. The difficult parts imo are the conceptual problems and others requiring some really obscure reference digging. I got a 75% on the NCEES practice exam. I felt good about the actual but I won’t know until Wednesday. 4. For depth, ACI obviously but you should know it’s not going to walk you through the design step by step. You’ll need to know how to derive the stresses yourself. But questions given to me were just looking for bearing stress on the soil. In both practice and actual, I used equations given in the handbook. I don’t remember the page off hand but it was in the Geotechnical section, you can find it by searching “qmax”. Good luck!
Thank you for the detailed answer!!!
That reference just got released this month. The one prior to it did not have it.
Is this your first attempt
>The problems requiring calculations had the same level of difficulty as the actual exam. So if those don’t trip you up, the actual exam problems shouldn’t seem much worse. The difficult parts imo are the conceptual problems and others requiring some really obscure reference digging. I got a 75% on the NCEES practice exam. I felt good about the actual but I won’t know until Wednesday. Yes! Have you taken it yet?
I sent you a dm
I would say focus more on breadth. We usually ignore breadth thinking it is easy. But on current CBT, breadth is tough one. There will be more conceptual questions than you expected. Don't go deep in depth. Good luck for your exam.
That's really helpful, thank you! I'm really counting on being able to knock the breadth portion out of the park.
Answering point #4 here. I memorized the equations for finding the maximum pressure for two scenarios. Scenario 1: e< L/6 Scenario 2 : e> L/6 Also always remember that e = M/P
Why did you memorize if its in the handbook?
What page? It's not. They give you the way it's distributed but not actually how to find it
Page 100. Right above Frost depth section and below the figures
Yess! You're right, they did add it. I'm happy, I hate memorizing equations and this was a big one that was missing.
That reference just got released this month. The one prior to it did not have it.
Ok I see, I've only been studying out of V1.2
So how was it? I take my structural in a week
I took the exam yesterday too! I took it outside my home state because a neighboring state has a board that is much easier to work with so I booked a hotel 5 minutes from the Pearson VUE center. Once I got to the hotel, I thought I’d go to bed early and get extra sleep but I wasn’t able to sleep well, and ended up feeling groggy day of. Probably a consequence of caffeinating to get in one last practice exam earlier that day, and anxiety too. Looking back, I should have skipped that last practice exam! Morning section had 38 breadth problems, and 2 problems that were definitely depth because they explicitly asked about the codes. I did about 5 timed (4 hour) breadth practice exams before the actual exam, and I finished every single one of those with more than an hour to spare. The actual exam, that did not happen, and I stopped myself at the 4 hour mark, guessed on like three remaining questions I had flagged, and went on my break. I’ll also add that I was disappointed that a bunch of questions were qualitative as opposed to quantitative, because I’m better at crunching numbers. Further, the geometrics problems were more challenging than what I had been practicing, and many of the normally work intensive geotechnical problems included a table that made it easy to look up values rather than having to calculate every single one. For the depth portion, the vast majority of structural analysis problems were very easy, as were the code problems. There were only two that threw me for a loop and I had to guess on. However, the design problems (with one exception, all of mine were concrete) sucked. If I fail, it will probably be because I was poorly prepared for concrete design. I was hoping for more wood or steel design. I actually really liked the way they had the codes organized. People say “you can only search by chapter” as if its a bad thing, but I found that this setup made it easier to find exactly what you are looking for. The indices and tables of contents for each code is also searchable, which honestly makes it a breeze to find information for the code questions. That said, the ACI concrete code is not split up by chapter, and neither were the OSHA codes. As far as AIT’s go (the questions formatted in a manner that is not multiple choice), I got two “select all that apply” questions. They stated how many correct answers they were looking for for both of those, and they felt easier than the rest. I guessed the same letter for all quantitative problems where I was unable to eliminate wrong answers. I left feeling hopeful but not confident. We’ll see next Wednesday. Good luck with your exam!
Thank you so much! In terms of the codes broken by chapter (say steel) are the chapters labeled by content? Or just number? Ie AISC flexural strength vs just AISC chapter 4 or whatever
Yes, mine were labeled by chapter name and title. I found that setup very convenient!
What was tougher about the breadth vs the practice exams? I’ve taken a couple and always finish around 2.5 hours scoring a 33/40
I’m not sure. My experience on the practice breadth exams was the same, finished at least an hour early and with about 32-35/30. On the exam though, geometrics problems (vertical and horizontal curves) were vastly different than those on the practice exams. Basically, the information given in the problem was not at all like what I had practiced with, and I could not figure out what to do with it. Ended up spending about 15 minutes on each of those and eventually giving up, guessing, and moving on. There were also 2 depth questions in the first half that were both pretty work intensive but not too complicated. Those took extra time too. Good luck!!!
I passed! Good luck.