AceFEExam

How a question is built

Parameters, not paragraphs

Each item is a template with a parameter set, so the numbers change between sittings and the worked solution changes with them. Where the real exam would show a figure, the item carries one — drawn from the same parameters as the stem, as SVG, so a drawing can never drift out of step with the numbers beside it. Every figure carries a text description.

Distractors are built from the mistakes people actually make — a dropped unit conversion, a radius used where a diameter belongs. The build rejects any choice more than 80× from the answer; inside that cap some are still easier to rule out than we would like, and those are being replaced with nearer misses.

Where the material comes from

Three sources, and one we refuse

• Public domain

  US federal works. The bank currently cites FHWA (the HEC and HDS hydraulics series, geotechnical circulars, geometric design, pavement and the MUTCD), NAVFAC DM-7, USACE engineer manuals, USGS, NRCS, EPA and OSHA, the USDA Wood Handbook, IRS Publication 946, and the Federal Acquisition Regulation; state DOT design manuals are in the same class. Their worked examples set the realistic parameter ranges.

• Openly licensed

  Permitted: CC BY 4.0 and CC BY-SA 4.0 material, checked title by title; non-commercial and no-derivatives licences are not. No item in the bank draws on this class yet — every current source is a US federal work or an unprotectable fact.

• Unprotectable fact

  The NCEES topic outline, and the governing equations themselves. An equation is not copyrightable; the specific worded problem built around it is.

• Never

  Commercial exam-prep titles and published practice exams — not copied, and not reworded with the numbers changed, which produces a derivative work either way. We read them to judge depth and coverage. Nothing is transcribed from them.

Every item records its own source. “Derived from first principles” is not accepted as one.

What we will not do

The list is short and it is binding

• No invented testimonials, and no five-star reviews we host ourselves.
• No countdown timers, no permanent “discount”, no manufactured scarcity. If the price rises we will say so as a fact.
• No pass-rate claim of our own. We have no history yet, so we publish NCEES’s figures and say whose they are.
• Nothing described as shipped before it ships. Where a competitor beats us, our comparison table says so.