I am a ways off from sitting for the exam, but with a small kids and a full time job I am trying to get a head start on studying.
I have Ken Gold: Decisions, Spry, Shine some stuff I printed off from GeoScholar, I just dont know where to start.
Any ideas, or tips on what to concentrate on.
Thanks for any advice
E
From one E to another...
I hear TSPS has lots of material.
Go to tsps.org
There are plenty of TX fellers here and they can guide you further.
E
also of course go to http://www.txls.state.tx.us/ - the board site.
its been too long since I got my license to give good study help:-O
Study Guide for Texas Surveyors (B.W. Evans)
TSPS Manual of Practice
There's a lot of useful material here also:
http://www.geoscholar.com/texas-land-survey-info/
Ken Gold's book is pretty much out of date.
Watch out for materials citing court cases.
Darrell Shine wrote articles on several unique Texas problems. It is a must have for water boundaries.
Spry is out of date for most of the laws. Better to get the materials directly from the Texas Natural Resource Acts.
It has good information on how Texas was patented, aka scripts, patents, Mexican grants, Spanish grants, etc.
The analytic part of the exam is most subjective. The questions are kept in storage to change from year to year.
They were compiled by so-called experts around the State of Texas.
when i took the exam in '06 it was, for all intents and purposes, a test on ken gold's book. well, that and like two analytical questions (one on sections, of all things).
not sure how it's changed, but after i took it i wished i'd spent 98% of my time re-reading gold's book- probably half the questions were verbatim from the text.
Ken Gold was on the exam-writing committee so that could be the reason why.
> I am a ways off from sitting for the exam, but with a small kids and a full time job I am trying to get a head start on studying.
>
> I have Ken Gold: Decisions, Spry, Shine some stuff I printed off from GeoScholar, I just dont know where to start.
>
> Any ideas, or tips on what to concentrate on.
>
> Thanks for any advice
>
> E
For the SIT part of the exam get the NCEES study guide and a calculator on the approved list, program the calculator with the survey programs for curves, etc....
Read the TBPLS rules, and some legal books on surveying.
For the RPLS part, get the NCEES study guide, the board has a sample exam question on their website download it and go over it and over and over doing that will help in the exam when you get a question close to that one. Know the TBPLS rules, court cases, you have to read Ken Golds book, Shine has many survey report you can read. I think B.W. Evans has a book I read. Take a RBPLS exam prep class or two. Join TSPS get in the local chapter study group.
right, i wondered how it's changed since. i'm not terribly proud to admit this, but i had no expectation of passing that test. was in the middle of a divorce, selling a house, moving- found myself with less than ideal time and mindset to study for the exam. went in fully expecting it to be a practice run. i was the first one out in the morning session, by a long shot, and the first one out in the afternoon (by not so much).
i was completely floored when i got that first email from one of my former supervisors (who was reliably militant about checking for test results). the bonus in the whole thing: the hefty raise i got a week after having negotiated "child support" (which, in reality, has always just been alimony).
so yeah, i can't speak to the current test. but if it hasn't changed much, my plan of attack would be to read gold's book 3 times back-to-back. and that'd be about it. if you can't hang with the analysis part, you simply don't have enough time in yet, IMO.
Have not heard it mentioned lately.
Shine put this out and it has a lot of valuable information from numerous sources.
Guide To Mostly Texas Surveying
Attend some of the seminars on Retracement and Legal Issues when possible, especially those that deal with information and surveys that you are not actively involved with at work.
0.02
