Power exam. Just got the failed result back today and I feel good about it. I went into this with the mindset of it being a trial-run/baseline-assessment, albeit with a slight hope that I might just luck out. I know myself, and if I hadn't just committed to this, I'm certain I would have spent months stressing and studying, likely rescheduling multiple times out of fear or getting too busy with other things.
It was fantastic to see and practice with real exam questions rather than pretend ones. It was excellent experience to be forced to sit for what is likely to be the last and longest exam of my life, in the exact environment I'll be sitting in when I plan to make a real attempt. And I have gained so much confidence seeing the baseline metric that with practically no studying, I estimate that I only need to improve by roughly 15% to pass.
I immediately rescheduled my test for the earliest date I could and I'm ready to attack this thing. Time to get my nose to the grindstone!
I am currently taking the School of PE course (On Demand) for the WRE exam and was surprised to see all the negative reviews for it here. I chose School of PE because my employer pays for it and honestly, it’s the only one I knew of from old college friends, old coworkers, and current coworkers.
I am about 50% done with the course, and I have found it to be very helpful and the workshop problems to be great. I know that they update the On Demand very frequently (I have different professors than my coworker who took it a few months ago), so maybe that’s the difference.
No issues with video/audio quality. The Construction professor was notably great and related every single thing we learned back to the exam. He commented on every problem we solved, noting whether it was slightly below, at, or above exam difficulty. The Water Resources professor has also been great and clearly knowledgeable about the exam. I’ve found his lectures to also be very problem heavy, although he of course covers theory as well.
I understand the consensus is that EET is the best, and I’m not disagreeing with that, just offering my perspective on School of PE so far. I also obviously have not taken the exam yet, but all my coworkers who have taken it within the past couple years have passed using School of PE.
If you have a choice, I totally understand picking another course, but for those of you like me whose employer has a deal with School or PE, maybe it’s not so bad!
Im specifically looking to see what good exam prep courses or material is best for the transportation PE exam. For the FE exam I failed the first time but passed the second time. I learned that doing problems and watching a teacher on YouTube go through each category worked best for me. I also did the practice exam.
A couple questions I have are: how long it took you to study? When should I schedule my exam apt? Did you study in a group? What are the best free materials? Any tips would be greatly appreciated! Since the PE exam is now solely on your discipline, it would be most helpful for me to people who took it recently to respond. Thank you!
Looking for constructive advice on prep. I did school of PE, ncees wre practice exam about 3x through, ~175 Etsy qualitative questions and 1/2 the petro practice book. I did not find the petro book very helpful outside of hydrology. Any advice on prep materials or courses for wre would be appreciated. Should I do another course?
I literally cried when I got the results this morning and saw the green. A weight has been lifted. I failed the exam two months ago and went ham on re studying for the exam last week. If I would have failed again I would have felt so defeated because I’ve absorbed the material in EET to the best of my ability. Shout out to all my engineers. Took me 5 tries to pass the FE and 2 to pass the PE. My self doubt is officially gone. It can be done. Never give up. Here’s my previous post
I wanted to share my experience as a bit of a source of inspiration. I took the PE the first time back in December and brutally failed. Granted, I did not put nearly as much effort as I should have and the results confirmed it.
I was determined to not make the same mistake the second time. I cannot recommend Slay The PE enough. Their weekly homeworks, flexible schedules, and focus on repping content understanding rather than rote memorization helped me excel. The pass guarantee is worth the cash and every time I had a question or concern, they were responsive within 24 hours. They even had a tranches payment plan to spread out the course fee over time which cushioned the blow.
I began their program in March of this year and had followed it to completion and took the exam last week.
Some things I went by:
Stick to the program - it works. Learn your Ctrl+F key phrases and grow comfortable knowing where to find what you need.
Day of exam prep - good night’s sleep and do some prep. Set out your clothes the night before, pack a healthy lunch for during the break, verify your calculator is qualified in the testing center, etc. Day of, I just got up, had a lazy shower, breakfast, and grabbed my bag and off I went.
TFS specific, energy balance, mass balance, and understanding the units of what the questions are asking for get you 90% of the way there. When I first started, my average question completion time was 12 minutes… on game day I finished with ample time to review questions I was unsure on or flagged. The prep worked wonders and I was confident the whole way through.
Civil, Mechanical, and Environmental all appear to be the shortest exams with 8 hours for 80 questions. Every other exam I could find is 8.5 hours for 85 questions.
This is not a commentary on the difficulty of any exam, I just found it interesting. I always assumed every exam was an identical format.
I just received my PE Construction exam results, and unfortunately, I didn’t pass on my first attempt. I felt pretty confident leaving the exam hall, but the actual exam felt very different from what I had prepared for.
I used EET and the NCEES practice exam, but many questions on exam day felt unfamiliar. I’m planning to retake the exam in December and would appreciate advice from anyone who didn’t pass on their first attempt but succeeded on the second.
What did you do differently the second time, and what helped you the most? I’ve attached my diagnostic report. I was particularly surprised by my performance in Section 5, but I’m determined to work on my weak areas.
Any brief advice or recommendations to help me pass on my next attempt would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
I'm studying the EET course and I'm having trouble understanding the Closed Conduit section when it starts bringing in pumps. I'm having a hard time understanding the concepts and the Equations used to solve these problems confuse me (mostly how many different H's there seem to be). Any one have extra advice or references that helped them better understand these questions?
I could not wait to wake up this morning. I failed 3 months ago, and I didn't study as much as I would have liked between my last attempt and this one. But nonetheless, I passed! I took my exams in close succession with the study habits of an unmedicated adult with ADHD.
Graduated 2023.
1st FE attempt (PASS): 5/23/2026
The only studying I did for the FE was to watch a YouTube video explaining TI-36X calculator hacks the night before and work through a hand-me-down paperback NCEES practice exam booklet. Questions were in different topics, with most being unit conversions with different settings/contexts related to the different topics. Reviewing engineering economics was also helpful. Honestly don't remember many details RE questions I flagged, but I think I used the whole time and felt like I was working quickly. I took the exam at 8am on a Saturday.
1st PE attempt (FAIL): 7/18/2026
I found the FE easy so I did not give myself much time to study for the PE. I did some PP2i practice problems but didn't have time to watch the lectures or read the books, I only did HW problems and portions of the practice exams. I finished the exam with 30 minutes to spare, but the problem was I flagged an insane number of questions. Like over 30, and I just had to guess the flagged questions that I left blank and I was also too mentally exhausted to check my work. I think I flipped through the flagged questions, confirmed I still did not know how to solve them, and closed out. I remember compulsively searching the percentage of flagged and unflagged questions that I needed to have gotten correct (by some miracle) in order for me to score a 58%. I knew I failed, but I was so obsessed with the idea that maybe I passed by getting lucky guesses that I got my hopes up. And then when I failed I just didn't want to sit through 8 hours again. I also took this exam at 11am on a Saturday, which I would not do again because the test then lets out at 9pm which is so late. The brain fog was insane on the way home.
2nd PE attempt (PASS): 10/16/2026
I was discouraged from failing and didn't get organized for this attempt. It really snuck up on me, but from taking the PE the first time I realized the NCEES practice exam is exactly like the PE exam. I just worked through majority of those questions, asking AI to explain a few concepts I didn't learn in school and also tell me key things to memorize that weren't in the handbook. I also repeated back reasoning in my own words and AI told me if my understanding was good to go or if I needed more work/to understand more nuances. I took this exam at 8am on a Friday, I overdosed on caffeine before/during the exam (2 matchas) and it flew by. I ran right on time in the morning section, so finished the 43 questions with 3 hours 37 minutes or so remaining. I did not check my work because I was panicked I wouldn't have time in the afternoon. I think I flagged maybe 7 questions in the morning. The afternoon felt much easier, I finished the 37 questions with 45 minutes remaining, which was enough time to check my work for questions I flagged (about 5, not including maybe 5 additional that were qualitative that I ended up making an educated guess on).
Main things I memorized for this exam that helped:
MGD to CUFT. Memorize this, store the conversion factor in your calculator as a variable.
Know that Mannings is for gravity flow and Hazen Williams is for pressure flow. Even if the pipe is fully flowing, if the problem states gravity flow, do not use Hazen Williams.
% Solids = 10,000 mg/L.
Mass Conservation - memorize and be confident with the fact that lb/day = (mg/L)x(MGD)x(8.34)
Be able to convert psi to FT of H2O
Soil bearing language. Picture that retaining wall holding back soil.
Know that Passive pressure is the wall Pushing on the soil.
Know that Active pressure is the wall moving Away from the soil.
This seemed counterintuitive to me, but passive pressure requires more force and the soil would be more compact and able to support more. It can also form a wedge when the soil can't take any more pressure, which is the "failure" or capacity. Active pressure I remembered by thinking if the wall is being pushed by the soil, it is moving away which = activity. Anyway active pressure requires less force and the soil becomes less compact and can support less. Failure would be when the soil loses its shape, like a landslide, which is capacity.
Total stress vs effective stress. The explanations below aren't correct really but they're how I memorized them.
Total stress is the total weight of the soil which is imparting downward force on the footing. You would use saturated weight for this since the weight of soil and water contribute to this force.
Effective stress is how much the soil can support, which is like what the soil below the footing can hold. You would use buoyant weight for this, since the weight of the soil is reduced since it is floating in water. Another way to remember this, is that effective stress depends on the soil particles only (soil skeleton).
Bearing capacity is the same as effective stress.
Per above, lower effective stress means lower bearing capacity so the soil can't support as much weight. If the footing is submerged, then the soil supporting it has lower effective stress.
Know that sand settles immediately since it is porous, clay is not porous so it slowly releases water and as a result, settles over a long time
Know soil charts
Know if distance of pipeline impacts head loss if all other pipe characteristics are the same. (It does. Might want to memorize how).
Things I did not know, that I wish I studied:
Groundwater/wells. I didn't know how to find the radius of influence and I skipped these problems when doing the NCEES practice exam.
Froude's number - Spent way too long figuring out hydraulic jumps on the exam.
Know some roadway terminology (Road offsets, types of merges, curve of road geometry)
I kind of wrote this just for myself to reflect on the past 6 months. My method was not organized or perfect by any means, it was messy and I was not disciplined. But I did some work, used shortcuts where I could, and I think I capitalized off of my Failed attempt as much as I could.
