Seismic Principles Practice Exams for the California Special Civil Engineer Examination, 2nd ed. [Paperback]

Majid Baradar (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 14, 1999 | ISBN-10: 1888577347 | ISBN-13: 978-1888577341 | Edition: Second Edition, New Edition

There's nothing like a practice exam to help you get ready for the real thing, and this book gives you two. Each 2-hour exam is designed to prepare you for the seismic questions on the California Special Civil Engineer exam. Step-by-step solutions are provided for all 94 multiple-choice problems.

Please note that the problems reference the 2001 CBC.

Product Details

• Paperback: 69 pages
• Publisher: Professional Publications, Inc.; Second Edition, New Edition edition (June 14, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1888577347
• ISBN-13: 978-1888577341
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.6 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,240,377 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must Have Book, March 11, 2002

By 

Steve Browski (Santa Monica, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seismic Principles Practice Exams for the California Special Civil Engineer Examination, 2nd ed. (Paperback)

I admit that learning seismic principles and UBC codes were the most difficult task in my civil engineering field. However, by studying this book in conjuction with Lindeburg and Baradar's Seismic Design of Building Structures, and using the other Baradar's book "345 Solved Seismic Design Problems", I prepared myself for the CA Special Seismic Exam very well. Although I had no seismic background, these books assisted me to become a professional civil engineer by passing the seismic portion of the P.E. exam on the first try. I highly recommend this book as a must have book as a study aid.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Problems are filled with errors., October 23, 2009

By 

Engineer523 (California) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Seismic Principles Practice Exams for the California Special Civil Engineer Examination (Paperback)

I was using this book to prep for the October 2009 Seismic Exam in California, and the example problems are filled with errors. It is maddening trying to evaluate yourself when you're finding mistakes in half the problems. For how much they charge for these guides, I'd have expected them to at least work through the problems and perhaps proof read the answers.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Inadequate, May 11, 2007

By 

Disappointed Engineer (Arcata, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seismic Principles Practice Exams for the California Special Civil Engineer Examination, 2nd ed. (Paperback)

This book, and the accompanying "345 Solved Seismic Design Problems" and "Seismic Principles Practice Exams" were very insufficient to prepare me for the April 2007 CA seismic Exam. I took the PE exam several years ago, and did quite well, therefore I feel that these books were very inadequate.

They are very poorly written, I spent most of my time trying to figure out what the author was talking about because few complex concepts were defined. Additionally in the example computations, he often did not reference which equations and code sections he was using, and did not explain his assumptions. Therefore, it was very difficult to understand the solutions, and almost impossible to apply the concepts to another questions. Allowable stress increases and strength reduction factors were glossed over in the text, but used in some example problems, but not others, with no explanation of why they were used sometimes and not in other cases. The book had few informative figures, and no figures that showed basic principals.

These three books were fairly expensive, but were riddled with errors, and did not explain the material in enough detail to answer the application-based exam questions. For instance, why would you choose one type of allowable building structure over another?

The actual exam focused mostly on computational questions that were much more difficult than the practice problems or practice exams. I felt like I was prepared going into the exam having done all the practice problems, and scoring well on the practice exams. When I saw the exam questions, I could not believe how much more complex they were than practice problems.

Don't buy these books, buy the Hiner Book at [...]even if you can't take the class. It is much cheaper, and from what I have heard, very complete and clear.