The NY state exam is not easy.
It was the toughest of the FS PS and SS. (The PS was a piece of cake)
If you don't take the NY state exam review course, your toast. You get a binder there to bring with you (it's open book) and you can highlight and make tabs throughout that binder to help flip fast to sections and grab answers. I would say 10 questions on the exam will be verbatim from the book.
The rest are sneaky, not well formed questions that really are more tricks than anything else to make it tough.
A few are just random little knick knack trivial questions taken from a certain Web site that the guide included to make it fair game (the guide lists like 100 websites)
After you take it, please let us know how it ranked vs the PA state exam
PS - Are you actually from Erie or the "suburbs"? My wife grew up in Fairview.
I actually live in the city and work there also. Although the firm I work for is actually Fairview's Engineers. Do you ever make it up this way?
reido99, post: 410552, member: 1068 wrote: PS - Are you actually from Erie or the "suburbs"? My wife grew up in Fairview.
I actually live in the city and work there also. Although the firm I work for is actually Fairview's Engineers. Do you ever make it up this way?
Not much since my mother-in-law passed away in 2007, but she still has some family that lives out around Albion. She talks about going up in the summer every year though, when she gets homesick for fried perch and Pulakos sponge candy 🙂
Erie is a very popular name. Much more so than most would ever imagine.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Erie is a city in Pennsylvania, United States.
Erie may also refer to:
- Erie (tribe), a tribe of Native Americans
Contents
[1Places
Places[edit]
- Lake Erie, one of the five Great Lakes of North America
- Erie Canal, a canal running from the Hudson River to Lake Erie
Canada[edit]
- Erie (electoral district), a former federal electoral district in Ontario
- Fort Erie, a former British fort
- Fort Erie, Ontario, a town on the Niagara River in the Niagara Region
- Fort Erie Airport
United States[edit]
- Erie, Colorado, a town in both Boulder County and Weld County
- Erie High School (Colorado), part of the Saint Vrain Valley School District
Organizations[edit]
- Erie Railroad, a railroad connecting New York City with Lake Erie and extending west to Chicago
- Erie Insurance Group, a multi-line insurance company, offering auto, home, commercial and life insurance
Vehicles[edit]
- Erie L-1, 0-8-8-0 steam locomotives of the Erie Railroad built in 1907 by ALCO
- FM Erie-built, the first streamlined, cab-equipped dual service diesel locomotive built by Fairbanks-Morse
- USS Erie (1813), a sloop-of-war in the United States Navy in the early 19th century
- USS Erie (PG-50), the lead ship in a class of two Patrol Gunboats, launched in 1936
Sport[edit]
- Erie Blades, two former professional ice hockey teams in Erie, Pennsylvania
- Erie Freeze, a charter member of the American Indoor Football Association, team located in Erie, Pennsylvania
- Erie Illusion, a women's football team playing in the National Women's Football Association, based in Erie, Pennsylvania
- Erie Invaders, a 2000 expansion team of the defunct Indoor Football League from Erie, Pennsylvania
- Erie Otters, a junior ice hockey team in the Ontario Hockey League, playing in Erie, Pennsylvania, USA from 1996 to present
- Erie Panthers, a former professional hockey team in the East Coast Hockey League from 1988ÛÒ1996
- Erie Sailors, several minor league baseball teams that played in Erie, Pennsylvania between 1906 and 1994
- Erie SeaWolves, a minor league baseball team based in Erie, Pennsylvania, playing in the Eastern League
People with the name[edit]
- Edward Erie Poor (1837ÛÒ1900), Vice-President and then President of the National Park Bank from 1895ÛÒ1900
Now THAT is eerie... or is it "erie"...
Mark Mayer, post: 410216, member: 424 wrote: Of the 3 states I've taken Oregon was toughest, Washington a close 2nd, Oklahoma 3rd. But that is also the order I took them in, so it might just be that they get easier with practice.
California traditionally has a very low pass rate. I've seen an example of their test and it is very challenging. But there are probably other reasons for the pass rate being so low.
It's probably the same in other States but one reason may be if you don't pass you can retake the test annually until you pass. I know of a half dozen CA LSs who took the test 4 or more times before passing, and one soul who took the test 8 times before passing. He finally passed by being within 5 points(?) of the cut score and challenging 2 of his answers through some sort of process. His two answers were rescored and he passed. Apparently now (after 2005?) it's multiple choice so that option may no longer be available.
I've only taken the OR and CA exams. I thought that the OR was just what a professional exam should be. The year I took it, they gave us 7 story problems containing enough facts to take a course of action and come to conclusions. We had to answer 4, and in essay format, explain our reasoning, the basis for it, our conclusions and how we got there. It tested one's ability to identify the primary questions needing to be answered, sort pertinent facts from superfluous, show knowledge of state law and surveying principles, to use and communicate sound reasoning, and the ability to arrive at sound conclusions.
In contrast, the CA exam was much broader, but included calculation problems more appropriate (IMO) to be included at the LSIT exam level. They made up for the fact that they were testing us on purely technical matter in those problems by adding complexity. Not complexity of different types of info, or that required reasoning to get to a conclusion, but complexity in measurement components, missing components, and the amount of calculation which had to be done to get to an answer which was either correct or not.
There were short answer and fill in the blanks which mostly tested to see if you were familiar with state law or principles stated in the Robillard books. But there wasn't a whole lot that tested complex (professional level) reasoning. And nothing testing one's ability to communicate an idea requiring more than one or two sentences.
Along the lines of what Mike Marks pointed out, most licensees I know of passed on their 2nd or 3rd attempt. I know of a few that passed on their 5th, 6th, or later attempt. One had taken it 6 times, had attended review classes for at least the 5th and 6th attempts, but refused to learn anything new because he knew it all. On his 7th attempt, he didn't study at all, still hadn't learned anything new, but passed still not really knowing anything more of use than he did on his 1st attempt.
A few years back, a Board member was telling the exam development team of an encounter at one of the testing sites the previous april where he spoke to an examinee on his way out. This guy had just completed his 23rd attempt! When asked why he comes back year after year, he replied with something like "Because I can, and the law of averages says that one of these years I will get lucky and pass." His parting comment to the Board member was "See you next year!"
The year I took the CA exam, I showed up pretty early and mostly kept to myself, mentally reviewing a few things, but also observing other examinees to some extent. There were two individuals I recall fairly well, one was a few years younger than I and had a student-sized backpack, much like the one I was carrying, for his reference materials. He was talking to an "exam veteran" who was a few years older than I. I could tell the older guy was a real exam "pro" by his handcart with an oversized milk crate fully loaded with books, in addition to his backpack. He also had brought a seat cushion and an oversized thermos of coffee to help ease the ordeal. Oh the things one learns through experience!
I saw that the "veteran" was confidently passing on some knowledge to the exam "rookie" and decided to listen in just in case there was something useful there. "... nothing to worry about. Nobody passes the fist time and almost nobody passes the 2nd or 3rd time either. I oughtta know, this is number 9 for me..." The "rookie" was turning different shades of pale. I felt bad for the kid, but just decided to drift out of earshot of the guy making a career of failing.
CA has or had a reputation of being one of the more difficult exams, probably because of its low pass rate and because if you finished the whole thing, there wasn't really any time to go back and check any of your answers.
But, the cut score, for as long as I am aware of it, has typically been right around 50%, with no "must pass" portions designated on the exam. I went in thinking I had to score at least 70% on the full exam. If I knew that I could have just focused on the portions I was really comfortable with, or ignored the portions I was not comfortable with, I could have finished early and had a lot less stress while taking it and afterward.
The main reason for the historically low pass rate, IMO, is that CA has the lowest set of requirements to qualify sitting for the exam of any state requirements I am aware of. The fact that the perennially unqualified and unprepared are allowed to comeback to add to the fail rate is nearly as big a factor.
A few years back, I did a comparison of most of the western states exam results and minimum qualifications to take the exam. Most of the states were, on average, year to year, very comparable in their results when looking at the LSIT, the NCEES LS, and the state-specific exams. As expected, and per the conventional wisdom, CA's state-specific pass rate was typically 10% to 15% behind the average of the other states, and occasionally worse. But, much of that is explained when you look to the results of the LSIT and NCEES portions (CA began using NCEES components for the LS exam in the late 90s, IIRC). CA examinees also lagged 10% to 15% on those exams.
IMO, that's not evidence of a more difficult exam, but on whole, of less qualified or less prepared examinees. Of the states I compared, CA had the lowest bar - 6 years of "broad-based" experience. A degree from an accredited college or university could be substituted year for year as experience. Most other states required at least 8 years and/or some educational component. Those that did not require education at least encouraged it by having a staged experience requirement such that the shortest time frame would have been to get a 4-yr degree and experience.
CA's experience requirement also required 1 yr "responsible training" in the field and another yr of "responsible training" in the office, without really defining what either of those meant. There is no requirement spelled out that a certain percentage must be boundary, or any other area of practice. As I recall, most other states required a certain minimum amount of boundary experience, and some designated specific maximums that such things as construction staking could count for. Also as I recall, most states called for something like "progressive" experience or responsibility.
The Oregon exam doesn't sound like it's changed much. I don't see any way you could luck out and pass. Too many essay questions requiring reasoning abilities. I left knowing I had the ability to pass but had no clue what my score would be. I'm curious how it would have gone if I'd done that one first...
Mike Marks, post: 410650, member: 1108 wrote: It's probably the same in other States but one reason may be if you don't pass you can retake the test annually until you pass. I know of a half dozen CA LSs who took the test 4 or more times before passing, and one soul who took the test 8 times before passing. He finally passed by being within 5 points(?) of the cut score and challenging 2 of his answers through some sort of process. His two answers were rescored and he passed. Apparently now (after 2005?) it's multiple choice so that option may no longer be available.
California went to computer based multiple choice for the State specific exam in 2012. The appeal option was available through 2011. The appeal process was interesting in that if a candidate was successful on appeal using an accepted "alternate solution" all exam booklets for candidates within the number of points of the cut score it would take to pass if they also had the same alternate solution were pulled and reviewed. So, it was possible to receive a letter letting know you failed (but only by a few points) then another stating you had passed, even though you did not appeal. It was rare, but did happen.
I agree with Evan's assessment of the quality, or lack thereof, of a significant portion of the folks sitting for the California exam. It was obviously from their attempts to respond that they were not qualified to even be in the room.
SPMPLS, post: 410768, member: 11785 wrote: It was obviously from their attempts to respond that they were not qualified to even be in the room.
Delaware is two hour/two parts...first hour closed book, second hour open book. The second hour is almost entirely drainage. When I took it there was a guy in there with none of the recommended materials, he got up and walked out 5 minutes into the second hour
Just got word I passed my Kansas!
munt21, post: 410824, member: 8359 wrote: Just got word I passed my Kansas!
Congratulations. First one?
thebionicman, post: 410830, member: 8136 wrote: Congratulations. First one?
Thanks bionicman It's #3 for me (MO, NE & now KS) Kansas was the one that gave me fits though. I had tried in 2009 and just let it go for awhile, took me 2 tries but it's done now!
munt21, post: 410924, member: 8359 wrote: Thanks bionicman It's #3 for me (MO, NE & now KS) Kansas was the one that gave me fits though. I had tried in 2009 and just let it go for awhile, took me 2 tries but it's done now!
I surveyed in Missouri for about 15 years. It was unusual back then for folks to get more than 2 licenses. Is the dynamic changing?
thebionicman, post: 410925, member: 8136 wrote: I surveyed in Missouri for about 15 years. It was unusual back then for folks to get more than 2 licenses. Is the dynamic changing?
I know what you mean, there are a lot of guys here in MO that just have the one. I personally wanted those 3 and will go after AR soon. Then I'm done 🙂
