[FE Mechanical Review Manual] [Author: Lindeburg Pe, Michael R] [May, 2014]

Background:I graduated and received both my B.S. and M.S. degrees in Structural Engineering from the University of California, San Diego and unlike most of my classmates decided to defer taking this exam as long as I could. Why you may ask? Mainly because I never foresaw myself of taking up any interest in getting licensed since my interests coincided more with software development in my field more than actual design and consulting. Though this last point is still true, my current job encourages all it's employees to eventually get their PE license somewhere down the line so there I was having to pick myself up from the bootstrap a couple years after finishing up my coursework having to go back and re-learning basic and key concepts for the FE Exam.Everyone that took this exam have consistently told me that this exam isn't hard and as long as you're familiar with the reference handbook and key concepts, you'll be solid. Considering that you need only at least around a 50% to pass this exam and after finally taking it myself, I couldn't agree more with them. The new and updated Computer Based Testing (CBT) format of the FE Exam makes it more convenient, in my opinion, since you really only need to focus on the specific topic you studied in college instead of trying to cram all those other subjects like Chemistry or E&M, etc. for an exam that you'll soon forget after. In addition, having an electronic and completely searchable reference handbook during the exam is a major benefit for you in terms of saving time during actual D-day.Review:With all the preliminaries out of the way, this review manual does a good enough job in helping someone like me or even a fresh graduate brush up the key concepts on what to really focus on to be ready for the exam. Each chapter has a diagnostic exam which helps you assess on what areas you're strong in and what you really should pin-point on honing in more. This will help you save a good amount of time in studying and possibly a good amount of hours just from avoiding to read things you already have on the back of your hand.The review manual itself is a very thick book which consists of a ton of information, reading, and equations. I think they did an awesome job in finally updating the review manuals in color coding the equations with blue boxes which help you in studying, especially if all you care about are equations. In terms of trying to read every single word of the book... DON'T!!! Not even if you haven't touched most of these subjects in years! Here are a few reasons why: 1) You will most likely end up falling asleep during mid-read due to the plethora of information and background being thrown at you 2) This manual is strictly meant to be a manual and not as a textbook! You will not be able to learn EVERYTHING about a subject like you would in one of your college textbooks 3) Reading all the theory and examples are one thing, but in order to really get familiar and be ready for the exam, you need to be doing practice problems... and A LOT of them.Unfortunately, this book is very limited to the amount of problems you can use to practice for the exam and the 20 or so questions given for each chapter hardly is enough to cover every subject in each section. Because of this, you'll have to cough up more money and purchase the supplementary Practice Problems book which has nothing but problems galore for you to tackle as well as solutions. Fair warning, a few of the problems Lindeburg writes up doesn't use equations supplied in the reference manual and rely on things you would have only learned in school. During my experience with the exam, all the equations I needed for the exam we're in the handbook and didn't have to remember much from my college days. Lindeburg also seems to throw problems at you that are a tad bit more difficult than that you'll actually come across during your judgement day. This is not a bad thing at all, the more of them that you'll do, the easier you'll find the actual FE Exam.It took me about 4-6 months of somewhat serious study time before my exam. After I actually took the exam, I realized I could have passed the exam and felt just as confident about most of the questions with just a couple months of studying prior to test day. Of course, everyone is different in their study habits and test prep methods. But overall, my suggestion is, don't stress too much about this exam, especially if you already have at least a B.S. degree in the field.

I bought this book as well as the practice problems book by the same author and I passed the FE, but I don't think it was because of this review manual.I will give the book credit to the point that it helped me realize what kind of material would be on the test.... But at the same time... It went over many topics that were not on the test at all and I wasted my time studying. Take a look at this website [...] for topics that will be covered on the FE: Civil test. For the most part the book did a good job covering what would be on the test, however sometimes it went beyond that scope. For instance the book covers differential equations, but there is nothing on the FE from this section. Also many times the book would cover certain equations that were not even part of the reference manual that is provided during the FE. Do you think the FE would give you a problem that they don't provide an equation for? Unless its very basic I doubt this.So to sum things up.. This book was great to get me thinking about many of the different topics of the test, however I found the best thing that helped me for the test was using the practice problems manual while using the FE reference manual to try and solve them. This alone was not perfect in helping me prepare, but nothing will be. However studying problems and getting used to the FE reference manual helped me so much during the test, because I knew where things were at and I knew which equation to for each specific question (for the most part... sometimes you just gotta guess).If I were to do it again I would just buy the practice problems and use the FE reference manual while practicing to solve them. This book has some practice problems, but it mostly has descriptions of equations and concepts, which frankly I didn't care for. Each person studies differently though so this may be the book for you. For me... I wish I hadn't bought it, but it helped me enough...

Rounds-up pretty much everything you've learned in college/university. It cuts some corners in some areas, but who cares? I think the book will be way thicker than it needs to be if that was the case. If you want to go in-depth in some subject areas, find a book that specifically offers that or just google it up. The book basically outlines most of the possibilities within the exam as well as the details of what to do before, on, and after the exam. I'm very satisfied that somebody prepared a book that encompasses a degree in one book.

To begin with I'm not a civil engineer! I have a geosciences engineering background. I bought this book to help me get the basic information to pass the FE test. I learned a lot from both the review and the practice books, however, the exam was too divergent from the type of questions in both of the books. If you just want to pass, you don't need this book. But if you want to learn the basics for civil eng it will help.

I bought this book new and tried to register it with the publisher, PPI, to access the online services and they say I cannot register because it is used or counterfeit. It doesn't look used, but some issues with the print quality make me think they are right and it is counterfeit.The original book, published by PPI, is great. But this is a copy.

In fact it is the perfect book I have been looking for with the perfect price. In the market it costs 7000 rupees while in amazon I just bought it at 4000 rupees. Very amazing book with extra features.

Very useful.Sets you on the path to success.Although it doesn’t cover everything detail,it is enough if your basic concepts are good.