PE Exam Prep Guide - How You Can Pass The PE Exam Without Having To Study "Everything"

7/31/2017 PE Exam Prep Guide: How You Can Pass the PE Exam without Having to Study “Everything”
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“Everything”
July 22, 2014 By Anthony Fasano
The following PE exam post is a guest post by TEM member Andy Lin, PE, SE. I was so blown
away by its depth and detail that I have also added it to our Guides section on the website.
Here at The Engineering Career Coach, we highly recommend our friend and sponsor, PPI, for
your PE exam review. As an exclusive bene t to our supporters, PPI has extended a 20%
discount on their exam review materials. All you need to do is enter promo code COACH at
checkout at ppi2pass.com.
Here it goes:
It’s that “exciting” moment in your engineering career again.
After obtaining your Engineer in Training (EIT) and working for a few years, you are ready to
Too small!
take on the next challenge—the Principles and Practice of Engineering exam (PE exam).
As you start studying for the PE exam, you’ll probably notice that there are dozens of prep
courses out there—most of which teach you “everything you need to know” about the exam.
For example, on a Civil PE exam, “everything” consists of topics such as construction,
geotechnical engineering, structural engineering, transportation, water resources, and
environmental engineering. Many of the courses out there offer great lessons that go into
detail about every single one of these topics.
Now, say that you have a background in structural engineering (like me) and have no plans to
pursue other civil engineering disciplines in the future. You must be wondering, “Why would I
spend hundred of hours studying for something that I probably won’t ever use?”
https://engineeringcareercoach.com/peexamprepguidecanpasspeexamwithoutstudyeverything/ 1/11
I am going to go out on a limb here and say that, based on my own experience, you don’t really
Too small!
need to know “everything” to pass the exam.
For those who are planning to study on their own without taking any courses: I have developed
a study strategy that worked very well for me. Following my own plans, I was able to pass the
PE exam on my rst try. In this post, I will show you how you can apply the same method to
fast-track your PE exam study routine and pass the exam.
My Background CATEGORIES
First, let me give you a quick glance at my engineering background so you can see how you and Blog
I might share similar experiences.
Business Development
I graduated from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) with a bachelor’s of Business/Entrepreneurship
science (BS) in structural engineering (note: no master’s of science (MS) and not civil Career Goals and Challenges
engineering). Communication/Public Speaking
While I was in school, I interned for nine months ( ve to 10 hours a week) at a civil Credentials
engineering rm designing miscellaneous structures like ag poles and fence posts. Enlightenment
After graduating, I worked at a structural engineering rm (designing mostly buildings) for Ethics & Integrity
two years before taking the PE exam. Job Search/Salary/Relocation
Leadership/Management
As you can see, nothing out of the ordinary. If your background is somewhere along the same
Mentoring
lines (even if it’s in a different discipline), the following study strategy very well might work for
Networking/Client Relations
you as it worked for me.
News and Events
Organization/Productivity/Time
PE Exam Prep: The Basic Strategy Explained Management
Personal Development and
There are a few things I should point out up front:
Professionalism
Program Management
Disclaimer # 1: This strategy offers a way to speed up your studying and shorten your study time
Project Management
overall—it is not a shortcut that skips studying altogether! You still need to put in the hours and hard
Travel
work to learn the necessary materials. If you are here looking for the magic bullet, you probably won’t
Work Life Balance
nd it.
Disclaimer # 2: I have never been a PE exam grader and I personally do not know how the exam is Engineering Career TV
scored. Anything I am describing here is based on my own successful experiences, so follow at your
TCEP-The Civil Engineering Podcast
own risk.
TECC Podcast-The Engineering Career
Coach Podcast
Okay, now back to studying. Here is the basic premise for the strategy:
Uncategorized
1. Familiarize yourself with the exam speci cations and know the related sections in your
reference materials (I’ll talk about a technique I call “Spec & Ref”).
2. Make sure that you can locate the topic you are looking for in your reference materials
fairly quickly (I’ll explain the “Tabs & Highlight” technique).
3. For the depth—you should know “nearly everything” you possibly can based on the spec,
which shouldn’t be too dif cult assuming you have been working in the related industry.
4. For the breadth—you only need to know “just enough” for materials not related to the
depth topic. I’ll show you how.
Why does this work?

Let’s make a few assumptions and do some quick math based on the civil-structural spec to
explain why this strategy makes sense.
Say that after looking at the spec for the afternoon portion, you are con dent that with
some serious studying, you’ll probably be able to answer 80% of the structural problems for
the p.m. session correctly.
Now, looking at the morning session, since the breadth structural questions will likely be
much easier than the afternoon questions (based on my experience and practice exams),
there is a good chance that you can score 100% on those with relative ease. This will
account for 20% of the score for the a.m.
Assuming you need around 80% to pass, you will need to score around 60% total (80% –
20% = 60%) for the remaining four topics (construction, geotechnical, transportation, and
water resources/environmental), which account for 80% of the a.m. score.
What that means is that you will only need to know around 75% of the nonstructural
related materials (60% / 80% = 75%).
“75% still seems like quite a bit…” you say.
The thing is, based on my experience, the a.m. session doesn’t really require you to have a
“complete understanding” of the material. A lot of the time, the key is knowing where to nd
the right equations and knowing what the variables in the equations mean.
Also think about this: according to the spec, the “water resources and environmental” section
has 24 subtopics. In that case, 75% means you only need to know about 18 of the topics, which
probably equates to dozens of hours of study time saved.
All right, enough of the numbers talk. Let me walk you through the four basic premises and
show you how you can actually apply them.
1. Familiarize Yourself with the Exam Spec

Why is this important?
The idea is that you should always focus on topics that will actually be on the exam.
For example, unless your state has other special exams (like California), I probably wouldn’t
spend too much time on seismic design for different materials, since the spec doesn’t mention
it (note that the spec does mention “earthquake loads,” which is a lot simpler than “design”).
My recommendation is to print out the exam spec and keep it handy at all times while
studying.
Why? That way you can add the related reference materials and pages next to each topic,
which will help you nd the info you need much more quickly during the exam. I call this a “spec
& ref” technique.
“Spec & Ref” Technique
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Example of “Spec & Ref”
One of the major challenges in studying for an exam this size is that by the time you nish
studying, there is a good chance you’ve already forgotten half the stuff you studied
months/weeks ago.
Since the exam is open book, one of the things I did to combat this memory loss was to make
sure I knew how to nd the information quickly using this technique.
Basically, like I mentioned earlier, as you go about your studying, write down the pages that
are related to each topic. I’ll talk more about this below, but click on the image above to see an
example.
Another major bene t of doing this is that you’ll know whether or not you’ve got every single
topic covered—if not, you better make sure that you do prior to the exam!
2. Locate the Topics/Keywords Quickly

During the exam, you will come across things that you may have never heard of. The trick is to
locate the keywords in a problem and see if you can nd them in the index of your reference
material. (I recommend owning or borrowing a copy of the Civil Engineering Reference Manual
by Lindeburg or a similar book for your discipline.) Lindeburg also has mechanical engineering,
chemical engineering, and environmental engineering reference manuals (af liate links).
How do you do that? Let me show you this little time-saving trick I call the “tabs & highlights”
technique.
“Tabs & Highlights” Technique

As you can tell from the name, this involves two parts: tabs and highlights. This is what my
Reference Manual looks like:
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h
5
“Tabs & Highlights” – Tabs
And this is what it looks like inside:
“Tabs & Highlights” – Highlight

Here is the “Tabs & Highlights” process in a nutshell:
Tab the index with alphabets.

Highlight all of the italicized words in the book. They represent the keywords identi ed by
the author, so it’s important that they stand out from the page. I nd that italics does not
create enough emphasis, which is why I decided to highlight them all. (Later in the post, I’ll
show you how to implement this, when I give you step-by-step instructions on how to
study for the morning session.)
The “Tabs & Highlights” process serves a few purposes:
Saving Time and Energy at the Index

While working on a problem, once you have identi ed the keywords, the index is the rst place
to go if you don’t know where else to look. Since the index is tabbed with the alphabet, you
don’t need to spend time ipping through it back and forth trying to nd the word you are
looking for.
You also save mental energy by not having to recite the alphabet in your head all the time. For
example, say you are looking for “hydraulic loading.” If you didn’t have the tabs, your thinking
process would go something like this:
j
“Need to look for ‘H’…”
“C-D-E-F-G-H-I…”
773 “Let me open up the index…okay, I am at ‘C.’ Maybe if I ip a few more pages toward the
s
back…”
“All right, now I am at ‘J.’ What is it again? E-F-G-H-I-J-K… Oh, I should ip toward the
Tweet front. If I see ‘G,’ then I’ve gone too far.”
f
“‘H’! Found it!”
The process is much easier if you have them all tabbed:

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“Need to look for ‘h’…”
“‘H’! Found it!”
This may not seem like much, but believe me, consistently saving little bits of time and energy
will go a long way in an eight-hour exam.
Saving Time and Energy on the Page

This is where the highlights come in handy.
You have determined that “hydraulic loading” is on one of these three pages: 28-3, 29-10, or
34-18. When you ip to these pages, you can very quickly spot the keyword. The highlights
emphasize the italicized words, making them stand out from the hundreds of words on the
page.
Again, consistently saving little bits of time and mental energy will help you get through the
rest of the exam day.
3. Studying for Depth—Know “Nearly Everything”

Studying for the depth portion is pretty straightforward—you have to study the materials
pretty thoroughly and make sure you understand them completely. Not only is this
absolutely essential for passing the afternoon session, but it should also help you with your
actual job (assuming your work is directly related to your chosen depth topic).
A few study tips for you structural engineers out there (please note, these tips will apply to
most other disciplines as well—using your discipline-speci c materials, of course):
If you have a copy of the Civil Engineering Reference Manual by Lindeburg (most PE takers
do), go through every single structural-related page. Make sure you know how to solve all
of the example problems.
Study the Six-Minute Solutions (Structural Problems) and repeat the problems multiple
times. Your rst time working the problems, you should actually write down all of the
steps and calculate out everything, because it helps you work out the kinks that you
weren’t aware of (you also get to practice using your calculator). Subsequent times, you
only need to be able to recall the steps in solving a problem and don’t necessarily need to
write or calculate out the number. *Af liate Link – for other Six-Minute Solutions, visit
ppi2pass.com.
Finally, you should go through the exam specs to make sure you study every topic listed.
4. Studying for Breadth—Know “Just Enough”

Studying for the morning topics is a little different. As I mentioned before, you only need to
know “just enough.” Here is a step-by-step walkthrough of how I achieved that:
Tabbed Index
First, make sure you have the index tabbed, as discussed earlier.
jExam Spec
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Look at the exam spec so you have an idea of what you are looking for. Like I mentioned above
sin the “spec & ref” technique, the goal is to be able to identify all the related pages and put
them next to the listed topics.
Tweet
fSkim Read
Now, time to skim read:
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1. Decide what section you are going to study (e.g., water resources).
2. Start from the rst page and skim in the direction of how you normally read (i.e., top
down, left right). You want to nd the italicized words and highlight them. You are also
looking at the titles to see if they match any of the topics listed in the spec.
3. If you see something that sounded like it’s also in the spec, highlight the keywords in a
different color; go to the index and highlight the keywords there also. Then, write down
the page number next to your spec sheet. For example, I see “Energy and Friction
Relationships” on page 19-7; it sounds like it could be related to “Friction and/or Minor
Losses,” so I highlight the title and the keyword in the index. Then I write down 19-7 on
the spec sheet.
4. Continue doing this until you have nearly every topic on the exam spec covered.
Study/Review & Practice Problems

Once you are done with highlighting and referencing, based on the exam spec topics, go back
to each section in the book and study them (i.e., understand how the equations for that
particular section works and what each variable means, etc.).
As far as the extent of the studying is concerned, you don’t need to be an expert. You just need
be about 75% con dent.
When you are done with studying for a particular section, try to do the practice problems (if
there are any) without looking at the solutions. If you can answer them, you are probably in
good shape for that topic. If not, after looking at the solutions, you should note the section
down so that you can come back to it later to review and refresh your memory.
Six-Minute Solutions
You want to practice with as many sample problems as you can, because doing the problems
will help you understand each concept; it will also help you increase your speed in answering
questions.
If you don’t have copies of the six-minute solutions for each main topic (construction,
geotechnical engineering, structural engineering, transportation, water resources and
environmental), I highly recommend that you either buy them or nd people to borrow from.
Doing them multiple times, as I suggested earlier for the p.m. session, will prove greatly
helpful.
Recap & Other Tips

To recap:
Know the specs so you know what to study.

Study as much as you can for the p.m. session.
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You don’t need to study “everything” for the a.m. session.
Utilize the “spec & ref” technique along with the “tabs & highlights” technique to gain an
773 edge.
sA few more study tips:

Tweet
Have a study schedule and develop a habit of studying to make sure you get enough
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practice prior to the exam (I actually wrote a post about this; although it was written for
the SE exam, the same idea applies).
Practice using your calculator (again, any bit of time saving counts!).
hThank You!
5
There you have it. Thank you for reading, and I hope you nd this useful one way or another. If
so, please let me know by writing in the comments below.
This is a guest post from Andy Lin, the founder of Structural Engineer HQ—a blog to help structural
engineers study and pass the 16-hour NCEES SE exam.
I hope you enjoyed Andy’s guest post.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider downloading our free 3-part video series that
provides tons of engineering career skills including how to use LinkedIn, how to communicate
and how to develop your leadership abilities. Click the button below to download.
Get Our FREE Career Videos
Here at The Engineering Career Coach, we highly recommend our friend and sponsor, PPI, for
your PE exam review. As an exclusive bene t to our supporters, PPI has extended a 20%
discount on their exam review materials. All you need to do is enter promo code COACH at
checkout at ppi2pass.com.
To your success,
Anthony Fasano, PE, LEED AP

The Engineering Career Coach
Author of Engineer Your Own Success
Filed Under: Credentials, Job Search/Salary/Relocation Tagged With: passing pe exam
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Tapan • a year ago
I have just started to read several articles on how to prepare for the PE exam and can
s
sense these tricks will be quite useful. Also, thank you for the links to various reference
material!
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Jake • 3 years ago
Great article with some very helpful tips!
I started studying for the PE by trying to read ALL of the sections in the CERM. If I would
h5
have kept up that methodology, I might still be studying for the April 2014 test. I eventually
saw the error in my approach and adapted to a process similar to what Andy discussed
(minus the highlighting italicized words and the extensive references).
An additional tip that I have for future test takers is to avoid sample problem books that give
ridiculously long problems to solve. I "wasted" a lot of time trying to solve some of these
problems and felt like the time would have been more useful if I had solved 6 minute
problems.
1 △ ▽ • Reply • Share ›
Shawn • 5 months ago
Great guide, I'm happy to see no mention of the SDRM. As a fellow Triton in SE as well, I'm
definitely following your guide for April 2017's exam. Although, I am a bit nervous as to what
to expect on the Structural PM portion; since graduating I haven't been working in structures
but haven't gained a whole lot of knowledge in any other depth module. I am taking the
structural depth anyway given I at least have some grasp of codes from undergrad; I'm
curious how well you think UCSD's curriculum prepares you for the structural PM?
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›
Andy > Shawn • 5 months ago
UCSD's curriculum is definitely helpful but I've also learned a lot "on the job". I think
going through practice problems / practice exams will help you figure out how much
you actually remember (since you haven't been practicing). Good luck!
Ehab T. Ibrahem • 7 months ago
well, good to know, I am applying for PE civil next Oct 2017, I just finished the project MGM
casino project in MD, thanks a lot for the information. Question, I am applying for school of
PE, did they supple refrence book like manuals ?
PE, did they supple refrence book like manuals ?
Anthony Fasano Mod > Ehab T. Ibrahem • 7 months ago
Not sure Ehab check with them directly...
Nathan Johnson • a year ago
Couple of great ideas...namely labeling the letters in the index and highlighting keywords.
Even for those of us who are confident test takers and know our own strengths it's always
great to see some suggestions from those who have taken it before.
Andy > Nathan Johnson • a year ago
Thanks Nathan. Good luck!
Anthony Fasano Mod • a year ago
Thanks all for the great feedback!
Book Mandir • a year ago
Useful and informative post on PE exam. Thanks a lot for sharing.
Buy Civil Engineering Books
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Talmage Hansen • 2 years ago
I consider myself a good testtaker and I really liked this summary. You definitely get it Andy.
I will absolutely be using these guidelines to prepare for the October 2015 exam.
s
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Anthony Fasano Mod > Talmage Hansen • 2 years ago
Glad you found it helpful Talmage....
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Anthony Fasano Mod • 3 years ago
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Jake thanks for the thoughtful comment and taking the time to share your experience. Much
appreciated!
Rei • 3 years ago
Great article and perfect timing for me! Thanks for sharing.
Andy > Rei • 3 years ago
Glad you enjoyed it and thanks for reading!
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7/31/2017 PE Exam Prep Guide: How You Can Pass the PE Exam without Having to Study “Everything”

Core Skills Training and Lifestyle Design for Engineers

HOME ABOUT START TV BLOG PODCASTS ASK US BOOKS FORUM SUPPORT

the PE Exam without Having to Study CONNECT WITH US

It’s that “exciting” moment in your engineering career again.

Why does this work?

“75% still seems like quite a bit…” you say.

1. Familiarize Yourself with the Exam Spec

“Spec & Ref” Technique

Example of “Spec & Ref”

2. Locate the Topics/Keywords Quickly

“Tabs & Highlights” Technique

“Tabs & Highlights” – Highlight

Tab the index with alphabets.

The “Tabs & Highlights” process serves a few purposes:

Saving Time and Energy at the Index

The process is much easier if you have them all tabbed:

Saving Time and Energy on the Page

3. Studying for Depth—Know “Nearly Everything”

4. Studying for Breadth—Know “Just Enough”

Study/Review & Practice Problems

Recap & Other Tips

Know the specs so you know what to study.

sA few more study tips:

I hope you enjoyed Andy’s guest post.

Get Our FREE Career Videos

Anthony Fasano, PE, LEED AP

Filed Under: Credentials, Job Search/Salary/Relocation Tagged With: passing pe exam

Anthony Fasano Mod > Ehab T. Ibrahem • 7 months ago

Anthony Fasano Mod • a year ago

Anthony Fasano Mod > Talmage Hansen • 2 years ago

Anthony Fasano Mod • 3 years ago

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