First of all, thank you for all the insights in preparing for the exam. Want to also give back to the community with my 2 cents on the exam.
Material: PPI study hub, SoPE Question bank, CEA 100 questions, Strataway, Jacob Petro, Rashad Islam PE Geotechnical Depth Practice exam, NCEES practice exam, Chat GPT.
In my 1st try, I heavy relied on PPI study hub but did not practice enough until the eleventh hour but read more on the topics. The fail in the first attempt and diagnostic (shown) helped me to come up with a better plan. I decided to use practice problems as the anchor to studying. I started addressing the weak areas by doing 10-20 mixed problems early morning before work using SoPE and then go over the solutions at night. Over time, you start noticing patterns and how to navigate the design codes effectively. Started scoring roughly 40% to roughly 70%+ over the practice tests. About a month to the exam, I took 40 or 80 question exams to gauge my understanding and more importantly address the little mistakes that can cause you to lose points. Chat GPT became instrumental in explaining some concepts or finding quicker alternatives to solving some problems.
Exam: Very heavy on conceptual/scenario based type questions. Expect roughly 70-80%. I barely filled two pages of the booklet provided. Answers can be confusing, but when in doubt use the process of elimination narrowing the answers down to two. Some curve balls are thrown; sometimes the units can help to get the answer; and also pay attention to conversions such as tons to kips, yd to ft3, ft to inches etc.
Overall Take: Practice more questions and let the practice problems be central to your learning. Use a 2 to 1 ratio of 2 parts of practice to 1 part reading. The exam is less about solving long calculations and more about recognizing the governing concept quickly.
Wishing you all the best in your preparations and let me know if you have questions.