Free · no account · nothing stored
Turn your NCEES diagnostic report into a retake plan
Your diagnostic report draws a bar for each knowledge area: your performance as a solid line, the average of the examinees who passed as a dashed line. Copy where your line sits for each area, and this works out which areas to rebuild first, weighted by how many questions each one carries, and how much practice a week that takes.
Built for the FE Civil exam's fourteen knowledge areas. What you enter stays in this page's address after the # — browsers never send that part to a server, so we never see your report. Bookmark the page to keep your plan.
Reading your bar
- Well below: your solid line is clearly short of the dashed line. NCEES says areas like this contributed to the fail.
- Near: your line is close to the dashed line, a little short of it or just past it.
- Above: your line is clearly past the dashed line.
The bar is not drawn to scale, so judge it by eye; the boundary between well below and near is yours to call.
Used only to work out when NCEES next lets you sit.
Your knowledge areas
Your rebuild order
Pick a band for at least one area and your order appears here.
Some licensing boards are stricter than NCEES. Check yours before you book.
How the order is worked out
Each area's priority is the number of questions it usually carries — the midpoint of its NCEES range — multiplied by a factor for your band: 1 for well below, 0.5 for near, 0.15 for above. That puts a near-miss on a heavy area ahead of a clear fail on a light one, which is the same call NCEES makes in the worked sample in its Examinee Guide, where a group of areas worth 27 questions gets more focus than a weaker group worth 12.
The three factors are our judgement, not an NCEES number. The practice volume uses the same two numbers: the full first-attempt plan of 1500 questions, shared out by each area's weight and scaled by its band.
NCEES Examinee Guide (May 2026), including the sample diagnostic report
- Failed the FE exam? What to do next
- The FE diagnostic report, explained
- Retaking the FE: the rules, the fee and the timing
- An FE retake study plan built from your diagnostic report
- How many times can you take the FE?
Work the plan
A free account gives you timed practice on every one of these areas and a review queue for what you miss, up to 30 questions a day. Sprint and Complete lift that ceiling, and Complete adds Retake Rescue: it keeps this plan beside your report, and if you sit after buying and do not pass, importing that report while your access runs adds another 12 months free.