Has anyone taken the FS exam, yet?
In all honesty I felt somewhat cheated or getting ripped off by it. The number of questions for the CBT exam is much less than the exam from previous years but they sure grouped all the tough questions in this exam with 5.5 hrs to complete, which is not a lot. Most exercises felt like the ones from PSM Problem Corner section; they aren't impossible but they take A LOT of time to do and figure out when this is a timed exam. A horizontal curve exercise can easily take you 5 mins just to figure it out and then some more for calculations.
It felt like 20-25% of the questions weren't designed to really measure the knowledge of a recent graduate. Some of the questions are too general/specific like: what type of rock is a pyroxenite, or what is the name of X software that does X type of calculations, when there are literally thousands of different softwares used by thousands of different companies that does the exact thing?
Totally discontented with this exam, it makes you feel like you didn't prepare enough.
Anyone care to comment on this?
I have written the FS exam and here is a little insight. (although I had written it prior to Computer based testing).
Firstly, don't despair, occasionally NCEES makes mistakes in the difficulty of the test, and it is not uncommon to lower the passing grade to correct particularly difficult exams. This also happens question per question, as sometimes questions can be ambiguous or confusing (particularly in an exam setting).
Secondly, it is a hard exam. It is meant to be a hard exam. This makes your career, and separates you from those that don't know their stuff.
Lastly, the math questions should be considered free points. Math is easy and predictable, and incredibly easy to study for. Every student should be acing the math questions, the key is to do the math as efficiently as possible. Learn to analyze sample questions for tricks and cheats. This is speed math with multiple choice answers. If you are calculating a coordinate, and all the answers have vastly different Northings, why bother with calculating the Eastings? You are just wasting time. Learn to do enough math to calculate which of the answers is correct, rather than solve a question in full and match exactly one of the 4 answers.
Also if hours programming your calculator can save you minutes on the exam, that is time well spent in my opinion.
I particularly thought it was hard but not impossible. The math section was fair overall, but it's funny that you study for common type of exercises thinking that's how it'll come, but the wording and the sketch in the exam don't help and confuse you a lot, this is the part that takes time to figure out.
NCEES website has a checklist of every topic that covers the exam, this is nice. On the other hand, to study for a topic as for example 'Geology' or 'Dendrology', those a very broad topics to study for when you don't know what type of question is going to come in the exam in relation to surveying.
Thanks for the insights.