I??m sitting for the PS in April. So far I have Browns Boundary Control and Legal Principles, Evidence and Procedures for Boundary Location, GPS for Land Surveyors by Jan Van Sickle, PPI Surveyor Reference Manual 7th Edition and the NCEES practice exam. Is there any other textbook I should be reading. Also what are some good ways to study the subjects? I was never the most academic in school and could use some help in whatever tips you guys have on how you studied for the exam.?ÿ
Dan?ÿ
Dan,?ÿ
?ÿ I see you are living not all that far from where I grew up. It sounds like you are on the right track for books and I??m sure others might be able to give you more suggestions. One routine that I found very helpful to retain what I had studied was to read it aloud, I think it helped me tremendously. I would sit in the car/truck and read aloud for a couple hours, no s_ _ t, I??m sure it helped me make the grade. I also said a prayer that my mother sent me , no kidding, I was desperate ????. I may still have it some where, if you are of any kind of faith that encourages that sort of exercise. ?ÿEven if you??re not, it can??t hurt ???. Good Luck ????ÿ
You need more sample exam problems than just the NCEES thing.?ÿ Surveying Solved Problems for the FS and PS Exams. The successor to?ÿ 1001 Solved Surveying Fundamentals Problems.?ÿ
One universal rule for studying is to clump information into groups of five.?ÿ Write out definitions (longhand) on notecards and cycle through five at a time until you??ve memorized them, and then move on to the next five.?ÿ
Pair concepts with some sort of personal story or silly phrase like, ??The raccoon relished reliction because it slowly gave him more dry land to walk on?.
Use a highlighter and page tabs to mark important concepts so that you can go back and summarize them on a notecard later (again, write them by hand).
Retention of information is what you??re after not maximum hours of studying.?ÿ Study hard for an hour or so, take a short break and do something physical, then get back to it.?ÿ The physical component somehow aids in retention.
Go to the exam site the day before your exam.?ÿ If allowed, walk around the building, find the restroom etc.?ÿ Eliminating small stressors such as finding the correct location of the exam or finding parking helps a lot.
Before the exam and during lunch, go for a long fast walk.?ÿ Physical activity aids in the creation and recall of memories. ?ÿ
Good luck ?ÿ
I say plan to study more frequently, for shorter periods of time. I spent an hour every day, at least 5 days of the week studying, rather than trying to cram it in 6 hour bursts on Saturdays. Gives you more time to fix the concepts in your memory cells between topics.
I suggest not spending too much time with the GPS book. The exam might have a few questions in that area, but the majority will be legal principles and the practice of boundary retracement.
I will second this. Surveying Solved Problems was the most helpful for me by far. Studied for 1-2 hours per day, for a couple months and breezed through the PS with hours to spare.
I actually found the problems in this book to be more difficult than the exam questions.
I have Browns Boundary Control and Legal Principles, Evidence and Procedures for Boundary Location...
A word about these ....The latest editions have evolved (mutated?) into almost completely different books from the early editions.?ÿ And there is nothing wrong in the early editions. It can certainly be said that the latest editions have drifted away from a discussion of basic principles and into an exploration of the exceptions to them.?ÿ I really think that it is worth reading both. Early editions can be had for under $5, plus shipping. Alibris.com
I suggest not spending too much time with the GPS book. The exam might have a few questions in that area, but the majority will be legal principles and the practice of boundary retracement.
That's good advise. Licensing exists primarily for boundary work. The other stuff is peripheral to that, in the world of licensing.?ÿ GPS for Land Surveyors is an excellent book, and you should digest all of it, eventually.?ÿ But maybe not as a focus for test prep. The GPS stuff in your general text is probably enough.?ÿ ?ÿ
Thanks for the advice. Where about did you grow up?
Thanks everyone for all the great tips & advice.
Take one of your vices, whether it be a tv show or whatever and forget about that again and spend that time each day to study and do computations that will be on the test.
In the future, your time will be precious because you will be busy applying your license to complete projects and won't have time for that vice anyway.
0.02
I downloaded the audio of Browns boundary control and legal principles to my phone and played it over the radio on the way to out of town jobs and in the pickup in general, in addition to reading them. I have a hard time retaining things just reading them once. Good advice on here. I would add the BLM manual. Keep up the good work.
just curious where you found that one potentially? I've googled it as well as looked on audible & I haven't found anything
@ncsudirtman Sorry I misspoke!! Been a while... It was an ebook that I downloaded to my phone, then I downloaded an app that converts text to speech, I used moon reader pro (I believe the app was free but I think I paid for the ebook). Then the app turns the text into audio. It sounds like a robot talking, sort of puts you to sleep, you can speed up or slow down the speech as well.
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Some good advice here. Logical Distractions are on the test. Go through the test and answer all the ones you know first.?ÿ?ÿ
