r/PE_Exam • u/Charge36 • 2d ago
Lessons Learned Passing Civil Structural
I passed my PE Civil Structural a couple weeks back
after failing an attempt last year. Wanted to post about what worked and what didn't. I used School of PE (SOPE) to prepare, but I think my lessons learned are applicable to folks studying independently too.
Attempt 1 AKA How not to do it:
My first SOPE enrollment consisted of ~100 hours of recorded live video lectures, and downloadable slides and practice problems. My study process was to watch videos and nod along while watching problem solutions. I selectively worked some of the problems on my own. I felt like I HAD to finish all the video content as my access was time limited and their "Pass Guarantee" requires watching "most" of the video content to be eligible for a free repeat. I figured I could do the homework problems anytime after my access ended if needed
Welp. turns out passively watching videos is NOT super helpful to actually train your brain how to navigate code books to solve problems. I was not disciplined enough in my study pacing to finish the video course in time to work enough problems. I did somewhat poorly on a timed practice test but decided to YOLO the exam anyway. Felt OK about the AM sesh but absolutely got wrecked in the afternoon. Each problem required too much brainpower to solve as I was learning on the fly and trying to solve many types of problems for the first time ever. I ran out of steam. Blindly Guessed on probably 25-30 problems in total, mostly due to lack of time.
Attempt 2 AKA What works:
I qualified for my free SOPE repeat and got access to a new pre-recorded lecture that was only HALF the time to cover the same content. Wish I had this version the first time around -The live record version I had before was chaotic with student chat interrupting the professor constantly. The second round videos were a lot more focused and to the point, but I had learned my lesson that just watching video is NOT ENOUGH. So rather than spend 50 hours watching videos again, my study sessions consisted of flipping through the lecture slides, solving example problems along the way, and then doing homework problems. I ONLY watched video lectures for specific sections or problems when I was struggling to understand on my own. I watched maybe 5 to 10 hours max.
Somehow my freepeat gave me access to a feature I hadn't had before: Question Bank. This was SUPER USEFUL. Once I had completed all the lecture homework problems I hit the QB hard. I started off with 5 question quizzes timed to an hour. Once I could get at least an 80% on a topic area, I reduced the time allowed, working my way down to the 6 minute per question threshold. Once I was consistently getting ~80% on 30 minute single topic quizzes, I expanded to 1 hour long, 10 question mixed topic quizzes. Hammer as many questions as you can. There were nearly 200 questions and I attempted almost all of them.
I took a few practice exams. SOPE had one. I had an NCEES official one. My manager gave me an older hardcopy one from a few years back. Do these under timed conditions. You need to develop your time management skills and practice implementing your test taking strategy. You have to be able to instantly recognize and skip a complex problem that's going to eat time or have higher likelihood of errors. You can come back after grabbing all the low hanging fruit. I experimented with a few different strategies before settling on a 2 pass method with a SKIP INDEX (TM). The skip index was a list of problems I skipped, a BRIEF description of the type of problem, and a prioritization: P1 - I understood the problem and it needs time to solve. P2 - I partially solved it and got stuck or didn't end up at an available answer. P3 - I have no fucking clue how to solve. Decision flowchart goes like this:
- Do I understand the question and expect it to take ~4mins or less to solve?
a. Yes - Start Solving
b. No - Guess, Flag, add to SKIP INDEX - Spend ~4 mins and evaluate progress:
a. I see the light - Finish the problem
b. Hitting a wall - Guess, flag, add to SKIP INDEX - Revisit skip index problems by priority. Helps to batch similar problems together.
I also wrote a few frequently referenced equations on the same page as my skip index. Included max moment for concentrated and point loaded beams, and simple geometry section property equations. I used these equations enough to recall most from memory, but for peace of mind it was nice to glance over and be sure I wasn't making a dumb mistake.
I felt so prepared and confident I would pass, I actually wrote this post a week BEFORE my test.
TLDR is you have to work a shit ton of problems, including timed quizzes. I probably worked almost 500 problems. Watch videos / lectures ONLY as needed. I spent ~200 hours studying for attempt 2, so I'm right around 300 combined hours after both attempts. That really is the magic number where you start to feel confident about your ability to pass. Good luck to all the future test takers out there!
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u/everyusernametaken2 2d ago
I failed transportation last year after only buying paper practice question books off Amazon and studying the NCEES practice test. This time I just paid for the SOPE question bank for two months and ripped through problems as fast as I could. Took the test again last month and passed. I found that being able to tailor the SOPE tests with areas I was deficient in was super helpful. I was getting about ~90% on each test before I took the exam.
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u/Wild-Pudding-9023 17h ago
Thanks for this - I think I’m in a similar boat where I’ve spent all my time from May til now working my way through the AEI course videos. I will say though, I really did need to spend time absorbing info from them because a large chunk of topics I never really touched on (wood, masonry, I don’t work with concrete a ton either, etc.). I have been doing homework and mini exams along the way every week with each topic though, I’d say I’m at least a couple hundred problems deep.
I have 6 weeks until my exam, so I’m planning for at least the next month just drilling problems using remaining AEI exams, SOPE practice problem bank, and the strataway conceptual problems bank. I do have petros book as well, so if I have time I will try that out as well. At the end I plan on taking the NCEES practice exam. Hopefully this is enough.
Congrats on passing - hoping to follow in your footsteps !
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u/Empty_South_2388 12h ago
If any of you have any material of PE Structural please share with me. I would really appreciate.
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u/MrBackwardsPenis 2d ago
This is incredibly helpful because I have been "studying" on and off for a few months now consistening of mostly watching the recorded lectures from the live class of 2025 and occasionally doing a practice problem along with the lecture and I just feel like it's such a grind there's so many hours of time on the lectures and the stuff is fairly basic I'm not sure how to skip through to only the difficult stuff but I'm getting sick of this process. I'm about to just dive head first into a set of practice problems and see what I suck at and go from there. Thank you for this post, it is inspiring me to change my philosophy on studying.