Customer Reviews

Six-Minute Solutions for Civil Pe Exam: Transportation Problems

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I took a review class and did lots of practice problems on the Transportation area of emphasis. This book was bought to see if I was ready for the test. I could hardly answer any of the questions! They were all very tricky. It made me wonder if I'd have a snowball's chance on the test.

Well the test was much easier than 90% of the questions in this book (as another reviewer sort of noted). I certainly wouldn't try to use this as a study guide as it only "teaches" its own twisted questions. I would give this book away now the test is behind me, but no one would benefit from it, it would probably only frighten you! In general its meant to sell to panic-y test takers like me who want to cover all the bases.

The problems in this book are all qualitative. The solutions in this book show possible errors that can occur when solving the problems in addition to the correct solution. Below the problem is a "hint" to help you get started in the right direction. I didn't use the "hints" and didn't find them to be effective for my learning style. The problems are more in-depth than those found on the test but the idea behind this material is to introduce the student to the concepts found on the exam and improve your solving capabilities in a limited amount of time. The book doesn't teach you how to solve a problem in 6-minutes, which is what the title leads to believe.

The Six-Minute Solutions guides are great, especially when preparing for the afternoon portion of the Civil PE exam. Yes, the questions are generally tougher than what you will see on the exam; that's why they are good practice. These questions are in-line with what you can expect on the exam, however the questions are a little more challenging and usually require a few more steps to get to the answer. You wouldn't want an overly easy practice exam and then get slammed on the real exam.

These guides are split up into morning type questions and afternoon type questions. I found that these guides were great preparation for the PE exam. The solutions are detailed enough to follow along and catch your mistakes. The solutions provided are way better approaches to answering the questions than any of the Lindeburg references, and they have fewer mistakes than Lindeburg. Some of the solutions to the Lindeburg guides are just outright wrong. The best guide for practice questions is the NCEES practice exam, but these are a wonderful supplement.

I highly recommend getting the Six-Minute Solutions guide for whichever afternoon session you plan to take. I did take the Transpo afternoon option, and between this guide and the NCEES practice exam, I felt that I was well prepared for what was on the exam. As you are studying, make sure you have and use your references that you plan to take to the exam. You may find that the base equation you look up to solve the problem is in a different format that what this guide provides.

Your most basic study library should include the Lindeburg Civil Engineering Reference Manual, the NCEES Practice Exam, and the Six Minute Solutions guide for your afternoon session. Don't forget to round up your afternoon required references (check the NCEES website as these do change over time), too. The most helpful (in order of helpfulness) were the AASHTO Green Book, Highway Capacity Manual, AASHTO Roadside Design Guide, MUTCD, and a traffic text book. Yes, you can take these guides into the exam room, but you probably won't find them much use that late in the game.

I thought this book was great. The problems were realistic to the length of test problems and the solutions were straight forward and easy to follow.

Helped me pass... on my 2nd try... but still a very VERY useful way to study!

This was a great book, I really liked that it included in the solutions where to find the charts and equations that you need in other reference books like the AASHTO Green Book and The HCM. It really helped me prepare for the PE Exam. Some of the questions might be a little more difficult then the test itself, but at least I was prepared for everything.

This has been a good study guide for the PE. I haven't taken the exam yet, so I don't know if the study guide actually helps. It's easy to carry around though compared to other study guides, so I tote it from home and work each day.