Civil Engineering Reference Manual for the PE Exam, 15th Ed Fifteenth Edition, New Edition

If you're reading these reviews undoubtedly you know what this is and why you need this for the Civil PE exam.

That said, as far as I can tell this is pretty much the only comprehensive reference available for the exam so rather than talk more about the CERM itself I wanted to break down some things that helped me use the manual to study and pass the PE exam the first time:

1) Download and print out a copy of the index for the CERM from the PPI website, bind it separately, and use that to look stuff up while studying and taking the exam to avoid constantly flipping around in the manual between the index and the chapters. Saves lots of time and aggravation working from multiple places in the CERM. I learned this from people in my review class and never would've thought of this on my own which is why I wanted to share it here.

2) For the most used equations, write the constants and such in the margins next to the equations. Highlight the equations to make them pop from the columns of text in the book. This did a few things for me: familiarize me again with the equations and constants, help me remember how to use the equations, and also save me time looking for constants in the back or whatever. I did this the month before my review class started, helped me find what's in the manual too before I got into the heavy duty working of problems during my review class for hours on end.

3) Tab everything possible. The exam is all about speed (~5 min/question...) so make sure you can find what you need real fast. I used a combination of heavy duty tabs with paper inserts and the sticky flags. I color coded the tabs by topic and tabbed my manual as follows: tabs across the top for tables of data (e.g. water demands per capita per day, wastewater production per capita per day, etc), tabs down the sides for specific topics/equations (e.g. shallow foundations, water hammer, that CM workflow diagram whose name escapes me right now, etc), tabs across the bottom for the reference tables in the back (e.g. head losses for specific fittings, moments of inertia for generic shapes, the Ten State's regs, etc).

Seemed to work real well, I probably had a few too many flags/tabs but I only needed to use the index to find something a few times during the exam so I guess I did okay there. I left all my tabs and flags in the CERM after finding out I passed since it makes the book look real salty and reminds me of the pain I went through studying and taking the exam.

Bottom line here: Know what's in the book and where to find it. The morning exam was pretty much straight out of the CERM and my review class, quite literally 95% of the questions were pure muscle memory from using the CERM to study. The PM exam was the similar but about 25% of the questions couldn't be answered out of the CERM and needed an outside reference (master's level stuff in my opinion and I don't have an MSCE so I just did what I could and guessed the rest).

4) Use the CERM as much as possible while studying. I know this sounds obvious but I first attempted studying with stacks of textbooks from engineering school in addition to my CERM and quickly realized it would never work. You need to become as familiar as possible with the CERM if you want a ghost of a chance of passing, and you'll be amazed what's in there if you look. Also, you will not have time to flip around between 20 books during the exam so just get used to using the CERM as much as possible while studying. Heck, sleep with your CERM if you have to and take it with you to lunch. Remember, there are many CERMs but this one is mine, without my CERM I am nothing, without me my CERM is a monitor stand.

For the exam, I only brought in my trusty marked up and tabbed CERM, my open channel hydraulics book, and my (undergrad) geotech book along with my notes and sample problems from my review class. I spent probably 80% of my time in the exam using the CERM, my other references were nearly useless save for some rando oddball questions I was able to find during my spare time to get some extra points. The CERM and a few other things were enough to get me through the WR exam and I am neither a water resources engineer by practice nor the kid from Good Will Hunting.

5) Take a review class if at all possible. I was fortunate to find one an hour away on Saturdays. It helped me get into the mode of studying a lot (I kept records and including 56 hours of class I spent about 250 hours preparing for the exam over about 3.5 months, did nothing the two weeks before the test due to burnout and a work trip during which I was not going to study in the hotel at night), helped me realize I wasn't the only one fighting my way through the pain and misery, and helped me learn enough to get by in areas that I had little to no college coursework on (e.g. transpo, econ, etc). The review was kinda costly but I figure I got off cheap passing the PE the first time.

Stop wasting time and get this book before you study. It is what you will use on the PE test. You need to be familiar with it and tab the important sections. It is very well organized and the index is priceless. I'd recommend getting the index in a separate 3-ring binder.

As a water-resources depth taker, I probably did NOT need the latest version. The math is the same and there are no real "codes" to update for that section. I used this book exclusively, with additional review course notes, and one wastewater book from college.

This manual served as my primary resource for the April 2016 PE Exam, which I passed on the first try. I highly recommend using this manual as your main source, along with highlighter markers, post-it notes/tabs, and a binder in which to place photocopies of key tables. The test will indeed require additional sources (hydraulic design, hydrology, water and wastewater, soils, and concrete design for me), but the manual is still pretty comprehensive. As I worked through the manual, I tabbed important pages and highlighted key equations. The test through its fair share of curve balls, but I was prepared. I was even able to answer several questions by using the index. My advice is to buy this book (I am keeping mine as a reference forever), work out a loose study schedule based on the number of weeks you have, work as many problems as you can, write out outlines of concepts that you have studied, and take practice exams if you have access. I also recommend YouTube. Civil Engineering Academy was a great supplement to my studying. Good luck to everyone!

Let me preface this by saying that I didn't really study from this book too much, as I took a prep course. I really had Lindeburg book for the theory questions and for topics that weren't covered in my course. If you were to strictly study from this book, you may understand the formatting better and find it more useful.

I find Lindeburg's book to be a bit too "theory" heavy and that can get very difficult to follow. His books have a GREAT index, but I consistently found that I wasn't able to really process the information during the exam because I'd need to read a full page (or more) just to get any idea of what the question was asking about - if you're considering taking the PE exam, I probably don't need to mention that you won't have all that much time to read an entire page. I really prefer Goswami's book just because it is more direct and gets to the point faster.

It's great that it has a million formulas but they could have organized it better.
Also, the MAIN reason I'm knocking two stars off is that they only identify a symbol once per chapter. For example, if you're on 10th page of that chapter, and they already defined a symbol on 3rd page of that chapter, they don't tell you what it is again. You have to go back trough the chapter to figure out where they identified it in millions of sentences of text!!! That is what I hate about this book with a passion!!! I'm not asking them to redefine it, but at least state what it is. Something as simple as this:

v*, settling velocity,

But they don't even tell you what it is. Anyone would say, you're supposed to know or you should have read those pages first to get where you're at, but NO that's wrong!!! I've been out of school for many years and just now decided to take my PE and I don't remember all this stuff! But what am I to do?! A lot of places reference this sorry manual. It's just turned into a business and not actually wanting to help people. Oh well. At least I got it off my chest.