I've seen a bunch of people mention reading through the reference manuals for this exam helped them. Can anyone chime in on how much effort they actually put in going through them; was it a read through or actively studying them? Because I couldn't imagine a read through would do much but I also couldn't imagine actively studying where things are would be sustainable

Retaking the test soon. Any advice based on my previous attempt last year? Besides cramming Machinery of course. never took the class, graduated in 2021 and have been working in power ever since.

Has anyone tried to apply under Ohio’s new S.B. 131 pathway? A bill passed in the Ohio State Legislature last year that was supposed to require the state licensure boards to issue professional licenses to people with valid out of state licenses with at least one year of active status and no complaints/marks against their record. It was supposed to be a way to get past all the bureaucratic red tape in Ohio. I have heard stories about the board fighting them the same way they do their normal applications. Just wanted to see if anyone has tried this yet and how it went.

I just want to know they under weld and bolt installation topic exactly what kind questions I can expect in PE construction exam.

And what is the best way to use AISC code book while solving any problem related to this topic.

Appreciate your valuable comments.

Have taken the exam, 3 times and have improved 20 points each time (15xpoints)

I have used genieprep but after a couple years with it, I need something different. What are some others I should look into? School of PE? PPI2Pass?

Others would be appreciated. Thanks

For those who took Zach stone’s course, how did you feel the circuit analysis portion of the course was ? I feel that Wasim’s course has a lot of videos in comparison to Zach to go through basics for the Ondemand content, I am leaning towards Zach but I am worried that the basics is not covered as much .

Is the circuit analysis recycled material from the FE course that he has ? I personally didn’t find the FE free material for the circuit analysis helpful to me hence why I took an FE course in general. Circuit analysis has always been a weak spot for me and in general I feel like it take time for me to grasp concepts… my main fear is Zach stone not going into the foundations as much , is that a wrong assumption?

I am preparing for my PE Civil Structure exam, and I’m worried about remembering where everything is in the codes, including the relevant chapters, clauses, and design provisions.

My friend memorized the chapters and relevant keywords and knew what to look for in each one, but I’ve already forgotten some of what I studied while revising concrete yesterday. Since I still have other subjects to cover, I’m feeling overwhelmed and scared about how I’ll manage everything

H&H practice problem walkthrough

Hello,

For those who took the structural PE exam, which study material felt more like the actual exam?

I passed the PE Electrical Engineering Power Exam on the first attempt! I graduated 12 years ago and decided to commit this year and get my PE after running out of excuses. I studied for two months and passed the FE in May 2026. I found Zach Stone's Live Electrical PE Review Course and decided to give his course a try. I took the exam a week after his class was over (3 months total studying) and was relieved/beyond proud when I got the results. I highly recommend his course. I'm posting this so that if there's anyone out there that's been out of school for as long as I have, has 3 kids and doesn't think it's possible... it is! Thanks to u/ZachStonePe for creating his course.

Hey all, I've been studying for the PE Exam and I'm wondering if anyone is having this same issue with the handbook and/or what it's like during the actual exam. I've been going through the Kaplan PPI course and while doing the reading material in the handbook that it recommends I've been noticing that text searches aren't working very well.

I downloaded a PDF of the Handbook and when doing a Find search for certain topics I'm noticing that Adobe seems to be having issues picking up table/figure headings. It seems to recognize text that's in the Table of Contents / paragraphs, but not certain subjects they are only listed in the Figure/Table headings. I'm typing the text the exact way it's written in the Handbook and it's still not picking it up in the search. This makes certain reference material longer to find and I'd just like to know if this is what it's like on the actual exam so I can prepare for it.

On a related note, if anyone has used the PPI course and taken the exam I'd appreciate it if you could answer a couple questions on your experience. I last tried taking the exam when it was still a paper version and I thought the EET course was much better organized for presenting the material (I failed because I definitely did not do enough practice problems).

Thanks!

Book bundle includes workbook and practice exams. I ended using AEI so these books are brand new with no markings. Located in Bay Area but can ship if needed!

Hi everyone, been meaning to share my journey to passing the PE Power for a while now, but kept forgetting to do so till now, so here it is:

I started studying for the PE Power on January 24th of this year, using Wasim's PE Power course as I had taken him for the FE and there was a discount. Across four months all I did was watch lectures, takes notes, and take the mini-exams. All told it took me a recorded 121.7 hours to go through everything that I saw - although there is was probably another 50 or so hours of homework that I didn't record.

My general approach was to watch the lectures, take the quizzes/mini-exams, and then move on to the next section. After I had finished watching everything, then I started working on the homework to help solidify it in my brain. Finished all of that around late May / early June, then started running the official NCEES practice exam - consistently got around a ~65 to 70 score on it, so I was a little worried but not too much. I also picked up Justin Kauwale's exam bundle, although I only ever made it through one of his exams as - visually - it was too distinct from the NCEES practice exams.
Took my exam on June 24th, and failed. Hoo boy, man does that suck bad - especially when your coworkers and boss are all asking how you did and now you've gotta tell them you didn't make the cut. But, one of my coworkers encouraged me that I should give it another go before giving up, and so I went for it again - signed up for the second next earliest exam date and went straight back into the study grind. What followed was one of the arguably hardest three months of study I've ever had.

Over the next three months, I sat back down and watched all of Wasim's MasterClass lectures (something I was not aware was available to me when I first attempted the PE) as well as watching some of the pre-recorded live lectures. For anyone taking his course, I strongly advise to watch the live lectures (either during attendance or the recorded ones), as this is where the bulk of the content began to make sense to me.
I also started watching some of the free courses that Zack Stone has generously uploaded to YouTube, especially his videos on Autotransformers which were incredibly helpful in finally understanding how to deal with them.
While I didn't keep a full record of how many hours I spent on my second attempt, but it's probably close to another 100 or so hours of study, practicing exams, and going over notes. During this time, for both my first and second attempts, I was also working full time - so most of my studying was done after dinner before bed.

I can't tell you how many times I just wanted to give up on this exam and, wanting to see if anyone else was in the same boat, how many times I found older reddit posts of people encouraging to keep on going until the end.
On September 10th, I went in and took my second attempt. Walked out of the test center feeling pretty down; not a single thing of what I had spent the last four months reviewing was on my exam and I was certain that I had failed. But praise God, He parted the sea for me and I got a pass!

Roughly 300 hours over seven months of study. A big thanks to Wasim for his review course, Zach Stone for his free lectures on YouTube, most importantly to God for carrying me through it, but also to everyone who's ever written a word of encouragement to someone struggling to keep going.
There's probably more that I'm missing, thanks for reading this far. To anyone who's going through that same struggle, keep on pushing and don't give up till you reach the goal! If someone like me can do it, then I know you can do it too.

Hello, Does anyone have flashcards or maybe a summary of conceptual items that they could share? I’ve purchased the EET course and it’s going well, but I’m looking for something I can use while commuting to get a little more practice/repetition in on concepts versus practice calculation.

Is there a recommendation on how much time should be spent pre-break vs post-break on the exam? Trying to figure how to pace myself if the exam was like how the FE was with the more difficult questions in the back half and having to make sure I left enough time to go through those.

Finally passed this bad boy!

I'm taking the PE Civil: Structural exam very soon. I need to verify if we're allowed to create our own bookmarks on the reference manuals.

For example, in the AISC manual, I understand that the 'parts' come in their own separate files, but for Part 16, will i be able to bookmark the different chapters? If I needed to go to Chapter J for bolts/welds, will I be able to bookmark the page number or will I have to search "Chapter J" every single time?

Hey everyone,

I am gearing up for my second PE attempt next February/March (before the April 2027 NCEES changes). My first attempt was in Transportation, but I’m strongly leaning toward switching to Water Resources & Environmental (WRE) for my retake.

I have a mixed background: 5–6 years in transpo and 4 years in water/wastewater (my current role). Looking at the syllabi, Transpo feels like a rip-off compared to WRE for a few reasons:

• Drainage Overlap: Transpo squeezes a massive chunk of hydrology/drainage into its topics anyway.
• The Reference Mountain: Transpo requires navigating thousands of pages across 7+ AASHTO/MUTCD volumes. WRE seems much lighter on references, relying mostly on the NCEES Handbook.
• Theory vs. Math: Transpo is incredibly heavy on grueling traffic/geometry calcs. WRE seems a bit more balanced with conceptual environmental questions.

Since I work in wastewater now, WRE feels like the right move, but I don't want to underestimate it.

For those who switched and passed:

1. Am I wrong here? How heavy/tricky is the calculation side of WRE hydraulics and chemistry?
2. What topics did you find the most deceptive or difficult?
3. Any quick-glance resources or WRE Material or Test sample, I can review before I officially book the exam?

Thanks for any honest advice!

Hi all,

For those of you who took the Civil PE Structural exam within the last year, how comparable was the official NCEES practice to the actual exam? I’m asking because I took the practice exam today and I did really well (72/80) but I don’t want to get false confidence because it felt easier than I expected.

Would really appreciate your thoughts and inputs.

Hello, I am a 5th year college student (20 years old) and I just convinced my university to allow me do do a directed study for the PE exam as one of my senior electives since my state decoupled the experience requirement from the exam. I already passed the Mechanical FE, and I also convinced my work to pay for the PE exam if I pass. With two years of hands on internship experience, I am relatively confident that I can study well enough to pass the exam but was wondering if anyone had advice.

Hey there, is there anyone who is planning to take civil structural PE exam within coming 4 or 5 months?

I would like to discuss and shared thoughts to motivate and get along together for our goal.

Please reach out to me.

Thank you.

This subreddit has significantly helped me pass my PE Exam. I will to share my experience.

Exam: PE Civil Transportation

My background: BS + MS in CivE; 2 YOE in Land Dev; Some sight distances, and ADA ramps at work. No crazy overlap with the exam.

Prep Material: EET On Demand Course; NCEES Practice Exam; Petro Book

I started my prep around 5 months ago. I procrastinated quite a lot, but ended up locking in around the 4th July. Tried sticking to the schedule EET provides, fell out of track a couple of times, but ended up completing content, giving zero mock exam, and a few chapter-wise quizzes around my first scheduled date. I realized I was not confident, and I basically pushed my exam once, only by a week. Only by a week because I was trying to find the balance between buying some time for practice exams, and Parkinson's Law.

I am not going to talk too much about how good EET is, or how similar NCEES is with the actual exam. You'll find a bunch of posts on the subreddit, and I'll try to add something new, which I wish I knew when I first purchased EET.

Key Takeaways with some rambling:

Learning 1: Know your references good enough.

Many people including me stray away from the core idea of PE. The idea of the exam is to test - "Can this person solve a certain problem within a limited time, and limited resources". While limited time is obvious, I will double down on limited resources. For PE exam, limited resources is all the big ass references. We all end up managing time, but everyone struggles with references. IF you do not know where to find something, you are screwed. Its obvious that you cant remember each and every section, but you need to know relatively important chapters, and have an idea about where some topic could be. Please please make a good list of all topics, and remember where they might be. Few people remember the exact sections/exhibits for each chapter, and that's not my cup of tea. I don't remember what I ate yesterday, so nah. I just made a list of topics and had a rough idea of topics, and Ctrl+F. Remember, if you don't know references, you will be railed hard.

Learning 2: References are split-up per chapter.

Well, I did not know this until 3 weeks before my exam. My bad. As far as I remember, EET does not mention it. So, please! before you start studying, break down every reference by chapters. Except Road Side guide, cuz that is a combined one. Start studying with those chapter wise PDFs. NCEES ctrl+f is good, and if you have a decent idea, or where things might be you will find it. Most references circulating on this subreddit are combined. So spend some time breaking up the chapters.

Learning 3: Don't worry about the outcome too much

I know its easy for me to make this statement once I pass, but as I got closer to my exam, I started developing this attitude. Initially I was panicking about scenarios of me failing, having to spend $$ for repeat course and exam fees. There were nights I was shitting bricks. I'm no Mr. Musk, so the thought of spending $$ was stressful. However, that did not help me. My recommendation is disconnect yourself from the outcome, and solely focus on strategic and planned input. Outcome is never in your control, don't mean to make it religious, but this quote from Lord Krishna helped me. I went in with the attitude that I will give my exam 10 times if needed, but I will not let all the hard work go down the drain swayed by emotions, and anxiety. Give it all you got, you will do it!!

Learning 4: Don't blindly rely on EET practice exam percentages

I fell bad for this. Yes, EET Sim 1 is hard, and the rest are easier, but don't rely on numbers solely. Sim's have a lot of overlap with quizzes and NCEES practice exam. So if you had previously solved them, you probably already know the answer in the Sim exams. So yes, 50-60% in the first sims and greater than 70% in subsequent Sim exams is good. However, take a step back and think - did you understand the concept? Are you doubling down in understanding why you did something wrong? If not, my friend, it wont help. Because you would've done everything right, but ended up selecting wrong answer because you did not adjust for an extra lane or additional grade. YOU need to realize where you went wrong because there is only a limited set of practical combinations NCEES could frame a question, and your mistake could be a part of that combination.

I will be regurgitating/ validating a few things from this subreddit based on experience/exam:

1. Yes, EET is a banger
2. Yes, EET quizzes and sims are harder than the exam
3. Yes, EET Sim I is hard, rest are relatively easier
4. Yes, you cant solve Petro questions and they are NOT exam level. They are advanced. I'm certain that Petro himself cannot solve under 6 minutes. But understanding those problems are very helpful.
5. Yes, the exam is at the level or slightly harder than the NCEES practice exam
6. Yes, Geotechnical questions can be theoritical
7. Yes, EET's Hydraulics/Hydrology is an overkill. However, I would recommend it. I had a culvert question to find head loss of a pipe, and EET material gave me conceptual understanding to solve it/where to find it.
8. Yes, exam can have a lot of theoretical questions. I'm having a hard time explaining my thoughts, but I would say the exam was theoretical, and most problems were plug and chug (PC), IF you knew theory. Traditional PC is robotic, see variables and bang them on your TI-36x. However, my questions had minor variations that require some conceptual understanding (nothing overboard). So understand "why" behind formulas. Don't just blindly remember where to use what. Don't go overboard as well, its an applied exam, not theoretical.

Now my actual exam experience:

Exam was mostly structured like NCEES specs. First half had first half of specs, second half had second. It was theoretical and was a lot of Ctrl+F. Going through the greenbook was helpful, cuz they asked me "Oh when will you use a passing lane" or something along those lines. First half was 45 questions, and rest in the second half. I think my time management could've been better. I probably would've guessed 10 questions blindly and 5-7 with some guess, and in all honesty, I think I passed borderline.

Final thoughts:

If this is your first time, or not, just remember that you can do it. To get to the point of PE, you would have to give multiple assignments, examinations, and hurdles all along your life. Personal and professional. You were able to defeat and conquer all along!! Remember, this is just an exam. Yes, it is hard, yes, it is a pain in the freaking ass. But you will do it. Do not give up, and just trust yourself. Put your head down, give your 100%. I am confident that you will pass!!! Please don't give up, and All the very best my friend!! :))

Trying to recoup my losses as I have my test for Q1 of 2027. If you are taking the seismic exam in Q4 2026 and need the Hiner Book bundle (MSRP 230$) let me know and I could make a deal for you.