What do FE Civil practice problems actually look like?

Multiple choice, four options, usually phrased 'most nearly' — the options sit close enough that you cannot eliminate them by inspection. Many carry a figure: a shear and moment diagram, a soil profile, a channel section, a traverse. NCEES gives 110 questions in a 6-hour appointment, of which 5 hours 20 minutes is actual exam time, so the working time per question is under three minutes once you account for reading, a handbook lookup and a check.

How many questions are on each FE Civil topic?

The specification allocates 10-15 questions each to Water Resources and Environmental, Structural, and Geotechnical; 9-14 to Transportation; 8-12 each to Mathematics and Statistics, Statics, and Construction; 7-11 to Mechanics of Materials; 6-9 each to Fluid Mechanics and Surveying; 5-8 each to Engineering Economics and Materials; and 4-6 each to Ethics and Professional Practice and to Dynamics. The ranges are wide on purpose — they sum to between 100 and 152 across the 14 areas, against an exam of 110 questions, so no single sitting hits every maximum.

What reference material do you get on the FE Civil exam?

The exam is closed book with an electronic reference: the NCEES FE Reference Handbook is supplied on-screen as a searchable PDF. You cannot bring your own copy or any outside material. Practising with the searchable PDF rather than a printed copy matters more than most candidates expect, because finding an equation is a timed skill and the on-screen search behaves nothing like flipping pages.

How long is the FE Civil exam?

The appointment is 6 hours: a 2-minute nondisclosure agreement, an 8-minute tutorial, 5 hours 20 minutes of exam time, and a 25-minute scheduled break. Only the 5 hours 20 minutes is spent answering. Across 110 questions that is a little under three minutes each, which is our own arithmetic rather than a figure NCEES publishes.

FE Civil practice problems: what the exam actually asks

A horizontal curve has an arc length, a chord length and a tangent length. A traverse has an enclosed area and a bounding area. A network has a duration and a float. On FE Civil the wrong answers are usually not mistakes at all — they are other real properties of the same figure, correctly computed, answering a question that was not asked. Here are three real problems, worked in full.

Updated August 31, 2026 · by the FE to PE Prep team

110

Questions

5h 20m

Exam time

Knowledge areas

~2.9 min

Per question

Every wrong answer is a real number

Work the three problems below and check what each wrong option actually is. Not one of the nine is a random number, and only one is an arithmetic slip. The rest are quantities that genuinely belong to the figure in front of you.

It says “most nearly,” and it means it. The long chord and the arc on the curve below differ by 4 m in 209 — under 2%. You cannot eliminate by inspection, and you cannot eliminate by plausibility either.
The distractors are other properties of the same object. A curve’s long chord, a traverse’s bounding box, the critical path’s float. Each is correctly calculated and each is wrong here, which is why re-checking your arithmetic never finds them.
The handbook is searchable, not familiar. It is supplied on-screen as a PDF, so finding an equation is a timed skill in its own right. Candidates who practise from a printed copy discover this on exam day.
The clock is tighter than the appointment suggests. The appointment is 6 hours, but only 5 hours 20 minutes is exam time — the rest is a nondisclosure agreement, a tutorial and a scheduled break. Across 110 questions that leaves under three minutes each, and that has to cover reading, the lookup, and a check.

Three real problems

One each from Transportation, Surveying and Construction Engineering — deliberately not the three worked in the companion pass-rate guide, so the two pages together cover six different areas rather than the same three twice. All drawn from our free FE Civil set, with the figures we draw for every question. Read the distractor notes, not just the answer.

1. Length of a simple horizontal curve

Transportation runs to 9–14 questions. This one asks for a single length on a curve you are shown — and the difficulty is that the curve has several lengths, all of them real.

1
medium
A. Horizontal & vertical geometric design
A simple horizontal circular curve has radius $R=300\,\text{m}$ and deflection angle $\Delta=40^\circ$ (see figure). The length of curve $L$ (PC to PT along the arc) is most nearly:
1. 209 m
2. 252 m
3. 105 m
4. 205 m
Show the answer & worked solution
Answer: A.209 m
$L=R\,\Delta\,\dfrac{\pi}{180}=300\cdot40\cdot\dfrac{\pi}{180}=209.44$ m. Distractors: returned the long chord $C=2R\sin(\Delta/2)$ (the straight PC–PT distance, slightly shorter than the arc); used $R\tan\Delta$ (a tangent, not an arc); and used $\Delta/2$ instead of the full central angle (half the true length). A frequent slip is $L=R\Delta$ with $\Delta$ in degrees, which forgets the $\pi/180$ and runs about $57\times$ too large.

What the distractors teach: 205 m is the long chord: the straight-line distance from PC to PT, a genuine property of this curve and only 4 m from the arc length. Nothing about it looks wrong. 252 m is R·tanΔ, a tangent distance rather than an arc. 105 m uses half the central angle. Every option is a correctly computed length belonging to this curve; only one of them is the arc the question asked for.

2. Traverse area by coordinates

Surveying is 6–9 questions and the shoelace method is its workhorse. Four corners, one sum, one division. Watch what the division does.

2
medium
A. Angles, distances, traverse & areas
A four-sided closed traverse has corner coordinates (easting, northing in m): A (0, 0), B (120, 10), C (140, 90), D (20, 110). By the coordinate (shoelace) method, the enclosed area is most nearly:
1. 15400 m²
2. 23000 m²
3. 11500 m²
4. 5750 m²
Show the answer & worked solution
Answer: C.11500 m²
Shoelace: $A=\tfrac12\left|\sum (x_i y_{i+1}-x_{i+1}y_i)\right|=\tfrac12|23000|=11500$ m². Distractors: the ÷2 forgotten (doubled cross-product); the cross-product divided by the vertex count $n=4$ instead of 2 (an "averaging" slip); and a bounding-box estimate (max E × max N), which over-counts a non-rectangular figure.

What the distractors teach: 23,000 m² is the cross-product sum with the ÷2 forgotten — the number you must compute on the way to the answer. 5,750 m² divides by the four vertices instead of by 2, which feels like averaging and is not. 15,400 m² is the bounding box, max easting × max northing: a real area that genuinely contains this traverse, and larger than it for the same reason every non-rectangular shape is. Three real areas, one enclosed area.

3. Total float in an activity-on-node network

Construction Engineering is 8–12 questions, and project controls is the part civil candidates most often meet first on the job rather than in a lecture. The network here has two branches and one of them is critical.

3
medium
A. Earned value & CPM scheduling
In the activity-on-node network shown, activity A (6 d) runs alone from Start to End, while activities B (5 d) and C (4 d) run in series on the parallel branch. Both branches begin at the Start milestone (day 0). The total float of activity A is most nearly:
1. 3 d
2. 4 d
3. 0 d
4. -3 d
Show the answer & worked solution
Answer: A.3 d
Project duration $= \max(d_A,\, d_B + d_C) = \max(6,\, 9) = 9$ d (the longest path is critical). For A: $ES_A = 0$ , $EF_A = 6$ ; $LF_A = 9$ , $LS_A = 3$ . $TF_A = LF_A - EF_A = 9 - 6 = 3$ d. Distractors: $0$ (treating A as critical when it is not the longest path); only C's 4 d taken as the slack (ignoring B); and $d_A-(d_B+d_C) = -3$ d (LS−LF order reversed — an ES/LS sign slip).

What the distractors teach: 0 days is the float of the critical path — correct for activities B and C, wrong for A. 4 days takes only C's duration as the slack and forgets B is in series ahead of it. −3 days is the right subtraction performed in the wrong order. The number the question wants is 3, and getting there means noticing that the six-day activity is not the long pole: the five-plus-four branch is.

Where the 110 questions come from

NCEES publishes exactly how many questions come from each knowledge area. It is the most useful study document most candidates never open, because it tells you where your hours belong. The ranges are wide and sum to between 100 and 152 across the 14 areas, against an exam of 110 — so no single sitting hits every maximum, and the largest areas are the ones worth protecting.

FE Civil knowledge areas and question counts, per the NCEES specification effective July 2020
Knowledge area	Questions
Water Resources and EnvironmentalThe largest single block, tied with two others. Eleven subtopics — hydrology, Manning and Bernoulli, pumps, distribution, flood control, stormwater, collection, groundwater, water quality, testing, treatment.	10–15
Structural EngineeringDeterminate analysis and deflection, buckling, determinacy, load paths, plus design of steel and reinforced concrete components.	10–15
Geotechnical EngineeringIndex properties, phase relations, effective stress, lateral earth pressure, shear strength, bearing capacity, settlement, slope stability.	10–15
Transportation EngineeringGeometric design, pavement systems, capacity and flow theory, control devices, planning.	9–14
Mathematics and StatisticsAs large as Construction and nearly as large as Transportation. Analytic geometry, single-variable calculus, vectors, and statistics through regression.	8–12
StaticsAlso as large as Construction. Resultants, equilibrium, frames and trusses, centroids, moments of inertia, friction.	8–12
Construction EngineeringProject administration and delivery methods, operations, project controls and earned value, estimating, reading drawings.	8–12
Mechanics of MaterialsShear and moment diagrams, stress and strain, deformation, combined and principal stresses, Mohr's circle.	7–11
Fluid MechanicsFlow measurement, fluid properties, statics, and the energy–impulse–momentum group.	6–9
SurveyingAngles and distances, areas, earthwork volumes, coordinate systems, levelling.	6–9
Engineering EconomicsTime value of money, cost structures, break-even and life-cycle analysis, expected value.	5–8
MaterialsConcrete and asphalt mix design, test methods, and the properties of metals, concrete, aggregates, asphalt and wood.	5–8
Ethics and Professional PracticeCodes of ethics, professional liability, licensure, contracts and contract law.	4–6
DynamicsKinematics, mass moments of inertia, force–acceleration, and work–energy–power.	4–6

Read that table by family rather than by row. Six areas are civil practice — water resources, structural, geotechnical, transportation, construction, surveying and materials. The other eight are general engineering fundamentals, and by the specification's own ranges they account for roughly 47 to 72 of the questions. Mathematics and Statistics is as large a block as Construction. Statics is too.

That is the allocation mistake worth avoiding. A civil engineer preparing for a civil exam naturally revises civil topics, and close to half the paper is the fundamentals sequence from second year — statics, dynamics, mechanics of materials, fluids, maths, economics and ethics. Those are also the cheapest marks on the exam, because the questions are shorter and the lookups are faster.

For the pass-rate picture alongside this, the companion guide covers it: how hard is the FE Civil exam?

Common questions

What do FE Civil practice problems actually look like?: Multiple choice, four options, usually phrased 'most nearly' — the options sit close enough that you cannot eliminate them by inspection. Many carry a figure: a shear and moment diagram, a soil profile, a channel section, a traverse. NCEES gives 110 questions in a 6-hour appointment, of which 5 hours 20 minutes is actual exam time, so the working time per question is under three minutes once you account for reading, a handbook lookup and a check.
How many questions are on each FE Civil topic?: The specification allocates 10-15 questions each to Water Resources and Environmental, Structural, and Geotechnical; 9-14 to Transportation; 8-12 each to Mathematics and Statistics, Statics, and Construction; 7-11 to Mechanics of Materials; 6-9 each to Fluid Mechanics and Surveying; 5-8 each to Engineering Economics and Materials; and 4-6 each to Ethics and Professional Practice and to Dynamics. The ranges are wide on purpose — they sum to between 100 and 152 across the 14 areas, against an exam of 110 questions, so no single sitting hits every maximum.
Is FE Civil mostly civil engineering?: Less than people expect. Six areas are civil practice — water resources, structural, geotechnical, transportation, construction, surveying and materials — and eight are general engineering fundamentals: mathematics and statistics, statics, dynamics, mechanics of materials, fluid mechanics, engineering economics and ethics. By the specification's own ranges those fundamentals account for roughly 47 to 72 questions. Study time allocated purely to the civil depth areas leaves close to half the exam uncovered.
What reference material do you get on the FE Civil exam?: The exam is closed book with an electronic reference: the NCEES FE Reference Handbook is supplied on-screen as a searchable PDF. You cannot bring your own copy or any outside material. Practising with the searchable PDF rather than a printed copy matters more than most candidates expect, because finding an equation is a timed skill and the on-screen search behaves nothing like flipping pages.
How long is the FE Civil exam?: The appointment is 6 hours: a 2-minute nondisclosure agreement, an 8-minute tutorial, 5 hours 20 minutes of exam time, and a 25-minute scheduled break. Only the 5 hours 20 minutes is spent answering. Across 110 questions that is a little under three minutes each, which is our own arithmetic rather than a figure NCEES publishes.

Build your study plan

Tell us how long you have. We'll budget your hours across every knowledge area using the official NCEES question weights — the heaviest areas get the most time, which is the opposite of how most people study.

Work through seven more

Ten free FE Civil problems in total — total float, continuity, bending stress, beam reactions, traverse area, horizontal curves, capital recovery — every one with the figure and the full worked solution. No signup.

Try the free FE Civil set Explore FE Civil

Format, knowledge areas and appointment length are from the NCEES FE Civil specification effective with the July 2020 examinations. The per-question time is our own arithmetic, not an NCEES figure. Specifications and fees change over time — confirm current specifics at ncees.org. Independent study resource; not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by NCEES.