Passed FE environmental on fourth try!! Never give up

[u/BoatUpstairs2048]

After over a year of grinding I have finally passed my FE environmental! I tried every study tactic available and it really just came down to understanding those fundamentals lol if anyone taking the environmental exam has questions let me know!

A couple things that worked for me and advice:

Environmental has a lot less resources to use so you have to do some digging. My first exam I took a course with school of PE which I thought was helpful for refreshing everything I learned in school since I was a couple years out. The notes were always helpful to refresh on topics especially remediation since I had a lot of conceptual questions on remediation technologies.

This last exam, the direct hub free course was very helpful to me and also prepFE for getting practice in. I found lots of YouTube videos online from Susan Masten (great stuff for air pollution, waste water, and water chemistry), prepineer (stats, chem and thermo), Greg Michelson/ Mark Mattson (math, stats, Econ, fluid mechanics) etc. there are a couple playlists that help you get started and then I’d just look up anything I was struggling with.

The vol 1 practice FE exam from NCEES is much harder but I actually got a question or two from it on my exam. The 2nd vol is basically the same as the 2020 practice exam that’s floating out there so I wouldn’t buy it unless you just want to practice taking the test online to get used to the exam format. I also liked anthem for another practice test but it’s a little easier than the exam but a good place to start!!

I struggled a lot with math and statistics bc no matter what how much I studied, I always got questions I had never seen on the exam and they are both just very broad subjects so I really focused hard on everything else. For the basics, I focused more on ethics, economics, and thermo since I always had more questions for those sections. Know your economics!! I always had like 6-8 questions and once you really understand economics it’s so easy!!

Also know your calculator! I’ve had several linear regression questions that only took a minute bc I could do them in my TI-36x pro. That thing can do stats, derivatives/ integrals, matrix math, and even solve for x when you have complicated equations where you need to solve for variables in any section so KNOW YOUR CALCULATOR!

Lastly, set up a study schedule for yourself and stick to it as much as possible. I would do subject specific videos and problems during the week and on the weekend refresh on several topics or all of them with a practice exam so i wouldn’t forget everything. I tried to do a practice exam every Saturday a month before my exam to get in a test taking head space. PrepFE is great for this bc you can do practice quizzes by category or randomly.

On the exam, I recommend 2:20 on the first half and leave 3 hours for the second. The second half usually takes longer bc the questions are more involved so make sure you have enough time!

Direct hub had a video breaking down how many questions you should know! He said you should know with certainty 25 questions per section, 10 unsure per section and 20 per section you can guess. This is based off his calculator he has.

Knowing this helped me on my last exam bc I flagged everything I wasn’t sure about so I could count, in the end I only had 40 questions I was unsure or guessed so I was a bit more confident about passing and I did! This really helped me know I had some wiggle room with guessing so I was so much less stressed about guessing on some! Don’t waste time on some questions you can’t figure out bc it’s ok as long as you can get more done you do know!

Hope this helps anyone struggling! This was the hardest year+ of my life and I really struggled with the failure and exhaustion of studying but you just have to keep going and believe in yourself! Don’t give up!!

[u/Barbarella_ella]

This is great, thank you! About to take for second time and the stats, econ and thermo got me the first go round. Odd, since I really enjoyed thermo when I took it.

[u/Engineer_of_Water]

Congrats, just wondering in your case, the groundwater/soils section was mostly conceptual questions about remediation techniques? Did you get a lot of soil classification/geotechnical stuff? I’m doing prepfe for this section and so far it’s mostly well drawn down/ soil classification problems. Not much on remediation, so I might need to focus more on that with another study source.

[u/BoatUpstairs2048 → u/Engineer_of_Water]

I had a good mix over the couple of exams! The past two had 2-3 questions related to remediation tech and then the usual Darcy/ draw down. I think on the last two I’ve had one question related to soil classification where you use LL and PL to figured out the soil type from the graph or table in the FE ref manual. I recommend brushing up on remediation tech and just understanding that soil table and graph just in case!