He says surveys of engineers working across the industry in the private and public sectors, and academia, indicated that practitioners have become more specialists than generalists—making the common section with questions from all five disciplines no longer necessary. 

The exams will remain closed-book and computer-based, still with 80 total questions and lasting a total of nine hours including the optional break, says NCEES. The updated specifications adjust the potential number of questions for many knowledge areas. 

“It’s about what the practitioners in the field are saying should be tested on for people to practice competently,” Gamble says. As developer of the PE Civil exams, NCEES generally updates specifications every five to seven years, he adds. 

The latest updating process, which began in 2019. involved two steps. First, NCEES formed a panel of experts from each engineering discipline to work with a psychometrician, or testing expert, to create a survey sent to industry practitioners to gauge the importance of different topics to practice competently. A second NCEES committee then reviewed the collected data and created a content outline, which an in-house team used to write questions.

NCEES has exam specifications and prep materials for both the current and upcoming PE Civil exams on its website.