Maryland Land Surveyor's exam

Contact the Maryland Society of Surveyors and see if they have copies of the following available:

Statutory Laws of Maryland Relating to Land Surveyors (Red Book)
The Law of Land Boundaries for the Maryland Surveyor (Cases and Commentary)

Know these cases:
Ski Roundtop v. Wagerman
Delphey v. Savage
Wood v. Hilderbrand
Bell v. Jones

CAVEAT: I haven't seen the storm drain test since I took it 10 years ago, but it used to consist of four questions over four hours covering the following items in some manner

1. Computing a vertical curve to pass through a known point
2. Computing an SHA culvert flow worksheet (know inlet v. outlet control)
3. Computing channel flow in an irregular shaped channel
4. Design a small storm drain system (I think mine was six curb inlets, two yard inlets and an outfall).

Download the SHA highway drainage manual

I seem to remember the drainage portion having about a 30% pass rate. It took a lot of bourbon to get all that hydrology out of my head once I passed the exam 😉

Other posters here have taken it more recently

Thanks James!

This'll get me started. I just passed Georgia's version of the same thing. The cruel irony about land surveying in multiple states is that I've accumulated many more storm drainage manuals than surveying manuals. It Comes from having engineers running combined land surveying/engineering boards. The engineers don't understand surveying so they lump drainage into the requirements. Funny thing though is that most of THEM don't know how to do drainage either.

Swampwalker

I'm presenting the storm drain portion of the Exam Prep Course at the MSS fall conference next Thursday. I'm fairly certain we have a few spots open.

We provide a 400 page manual with 99% of the reference material you'll likely need to use, with better copies of the charts then you'd get from SHA. It's a combination of the highway drainage manual, ESD chapter 5, NRCS manual, the material used in the classes at CCBC, and MSS seminar material. A PE and myself will provide all the incite that we can. We don't teach how to do the math, but we do outline every step of every chart.

http://www.marylandsurveyor.org/events/event_details.asp?id=482054

Sorry to Hijack the thread, but I will be taking the MD state exams this fall. Does anyone have any additional pointers for study material?

thanks

151 Surveyor, post: 331832, member: 10354 wrote: Sorry to Hijack the thread, but I will be taking the MD state exams this fall. Does anyone have any additional pointers for study material?

thanks

What are you doing Saturday, October 10th?
http://www.mdpels.com/exam-prep.html

I actually signed up for that review course yesterday. thanks for the heads up though.
I just like to study as much info as I can ahead of time. I try to take review courses any time they are offered, but 2 weeks before the test is a short time frame for me to acquire and study additional material.

I would highly recommend taking a review course on the storm drainage part of the MD exam prior to taking it. The first time I took the exam I contacted the board and they were able to offer very little information on the storm drainage part of the test. I passed the national and MD law portions of the exam on my first attempt but was completely un-prepared for the storm drainage part. The second time I took it I had all of the correct resources but simply ran out of time and failed again. For my third attempt I wrote myself sample problems that were similar to the questions on the test and I worked them forward and backward multiple times prior to the exam. My third attempt I passed with a 98 and finished 40 minutes early. The key was I knew exactly were to look for the necessary information and had resources tabbed, etc. If you are fumbling through resources looking for correct nomographs, etc. you will most likely run out of time.

MD Surveyor, post: 331852, member: 10081 wrote: I would highly recommend taking a review course on the storm drainage part of the MD exam prior to taking it. The first time I took the exam I contacted the board and they were able to offer very little information on the storm drainage part of the test. I passed the national and MD law portions of the exam on my first attempt but was completely un-prepared for the storm drainage part. The second time I took it I had all of the correct resources but simply ran out of time and failed again. For my third attempt I wrote myself sample problems that were similar to the questions on the test and I worked them forward and backward multiple times prior to the exam. My third attempt I passed with a 98 and finished 40 minutes early. The key was I knew exactly were to look for the necessary information and had resources tabbed, etc. If you are fumbling through resources looking for correct nomographs, etc. you will most likely run out of time.

Thank you for the response. But may I ask, what were the " Correct resources" that you had?

Swamp,
I am surprised that you, surveying in several states, are not aware of the reason that surveyors have to learn a little about stormwater to be registered. It has nothing to do with engineers being on the licensing boards. I will agree with you that there are some engineers who don't know all about engineering just as there are some surveyors that don't know all about surveying. Back to the point, there are many small counties up and down the East Coast that don't have even one PE in the county. In an effort to handle the needed stormwater design in that county the PLS has to be able to step in an provide that service to the county residents. Most of this work will be pretty uncomplicated like sizing the pipe to be installed under a road or driveway or maybe a small 6 lot subdivision or maybe a stormwater management pond. By allowing the surveyors to do this work, it gives us more income and keeps the work local in the community. I submit that this makes sense for those working in the small counties, but is hard to understand for those of us working for large firms in large cities.

Thank you for the response. But may I ask, what were the " Correct resources" that you had?

For the drainage and hydraulics questions, the SHA drainage manual is the big one. I believe I also had print outs of the Baltimore County Design manual (I believe it had some example problems and the charts and tables were a little clearer than my copy of the SHA manual). I printed off various copies of example problems and design information from online sources found with google and I had a book "Introduction to Hydraulics and Hydrology" by John E. Gribbin that I believe helped also.

For the vertical curve questions I used information, print outs and example problems that I found on-line.

The biggest help though was that before the exam I worked through each type of problem from beginning to end and at each step I made notes about how I did that step or where I could find the information needed, then I put all of my work in a three ring binder along with the print outs/references I had and took them in with me. When I took the exam I believe you could take in your notes as long as they were in a three ring binder and in pen, I assume that is still the same.

Thanks MD Surveyor. I will see what I can find for example problems. PA and VA both had a lot of stormwater questions on their exams so I have learned quite a bit in the past. Hopefully this is more of a refresher than learning exercise.

A little off topic, but +1 to what Mr Luke said. The purpose of the storm drain design portion of the exam in Maryland is to allow the homeowner on a small rural project to bypass hiring both an engineer and surveyor in the first place. In fact, reviewing county engineering departments often need an occasional reminder from the surveyors licensing board (via the attorney generals office) that we are licensed to perform these tasks, not just engineers.