Here is a continuation of some practice problems I am developing. Here are the next 2. I will leave them up for a few days for you to answer before I provide the answers and concepts.
I am creating a bank of practice problems to help my staff who might be preparing to take the PE Civil Transportation exam. I passed in April, and I feel like having more practice problems with comprehensive solutions and concept descriptions will help.
Here are 2 example questions. I’ll leave them here for you to try and answer. The problems will become progressively more difficult and I’ll provide the answers and concepts after a few days.
I recently passed the PE Civil Transportation Exam. I studied for about 5 months, focusing on the references that would be used during the exam. About 3 months in, something changed how I approached the exam. Instead of thinking “what part of what reference is related to this problem?” I started thinking “what concept are they trying to test here?”
It’s a subtle but important difference when answering the types of questions they’ll ask. On the surface, it might seem like gotcha questions or traps, but I don’t think that’s the intention. Seemingly small differences can matter a lot and understanding some of the nuances can affect how you handle real world problems. For example: Calculating a shifting taper for a given speed and offset is pretty straightforward. However, if it’s a shifting taper with flaggers, that suddenly negates the standard computation and instead offers maximum taper length guidance. Instead of focusing on how to know where to look for that information, it’s better to ask “why would that matter?” The reason that matters is because shorter tapers are used to slow vehicles down as they approach a flagger. In that case, a shifting taper is not meant to make a smooth transition out of the normal travel path. It acts like a wall to force vehicles to stop.
This is just 1 of many types of concepts you might be tested on. It’s not practical to know them all, but if you focus on some of the more common variations of concepts throughout the topics (horizontal curves, vertical curves, capacity, striping, signage, signals, design vehicles, etc.) you will be better prepared for what may be asked.
“What concept are they testing me on?” And more importantly, how will you apply that concept to real world problems?
Something to consider.